Week 3-4: The 5000 kip game

My week two schedule was starting to seem a little dull by friday - hang around at home or at MCC office studying Lao, go to class, go home - so I decided to play a new game during week three to give a little adventure/excitement/anticipation to the day...I called it, the 5000kip game, and it totally made my week! (well, more like my life actually - i still "play" quite often...)

It works like this...everyday on the way home from school I would stop at a new food stand and get a snack, something different every time - but it had to be 5000 kip or less.

Now, a quick lesson on Lao finances: $1 US is equal to roughly 8,200 Lao kip. For ease in calculating/because the smallest Lao bill is a 500kip, I round down to the mental math of 8,000kip = $1.00

So, like I said, "the 5000 kip game" could be roughly translated as "the 60 cents game." Unfortunately, I usually forget to take pictures of these foods because it is kind of awkward to always be the dorky tourist who takes pictures of everyday things, like buying food from a street vendor, but I do keep a very detailed accounting book so I can share a few of my 5000 kip or less finds (which is pretty much anything you could want for a snack - and often more!):

2,000 kip - small, personal-sized baguette/ 2,000 kip big dumpling thing / 3,000 kip large sweet roll with some red jam-like thing on the inside/ 5000kip bag of fried banana chips/ 1,000 kip a piece assorted "dougnuts": or you can get 6 for 5,000 kip (one is kind of like an american donought, but other ones aren't quite the same - they're WAY better!! My favorite is this one that has custard stuff inside, but the outside is kind of crispy...actually, funny story, from the outside, it looks just like this other thing they sell there that has a little hotdog-like sausage on the inside! that was a shock. i should try to take a picture next time I get donoughts...)

here's something I DO have a picture of...but I have no idea what it is called. it is quite possibly my favorite thing yet, though. It's hard to describe the taste: sweet, yet savory (note the bits of green onion on top), doughy, warm, thick, yet also light, with a kind of melt in your mouth goodness...sigh. I included the pic that shows the inside so you can hopefully see the consistency a little.) You can get 1,000 kip a piece, but I discovered that "one piece" is actually two of these that you see pictured here putting the flat sides together so it makes a round ball...so really...5,000 kip buys you 10 of these heavenly treats! The one pictured here we got plain, but the following week a different vendor gave us a packet of sugar to put into the bag and shake them in a light coating of sugar. it was just too good.

Also, most of the "drink in a bag" things I think I've mentioned before (again, I need to take a picture of the stands that sell them to give you a better idea of what they're like) are either 3,000, 4,000 or 5,000 kip. On my second day of the 5000kip game I discovered a stand that sells Taro flavored drink, and they put a little coconut milk in with it - heaven. There are also many fruit shake stands that you can mix and match your flavors and add little jellies, etc also for the low low price of...5000 kip!

Finally, one day, Whitney and I discovered....Sidamdoun Ice-Cream Happy Shop. with a name like that... plus, I was craving ice cream! so we broke our usual street vendor style and took the game to an actual permanent establishment with tables and everything (that is actually the hardest part of this game - where to eat the food! there are absolutely no park benches anywhere in Vientiane, not to mention hardly any parks, so I often end up eating the food straddling my bicycle on the side of the road!). We were quite pleased to discover that even here at Happy Shop 5000kip goes a long ways! 1 scoop = 1,000 kip. So Whitney and I each got 5 scoops! Then, to our surprise, they came with toppings too! We didn't get to pick - they just added them. I lucked out and mine (the bottom one), three scoops Taro, two scoops coconut, came with some little red and white jelly things. Whitney's - three scoops chocolate, two scoops banana - came with....corn! We could not stop laughing! It was fun to try corn and chocolate ice cream! We spent the rest of the meal trying to decide what their decision process was about who got corn and who got sweet jellies - was it the chocolate? the banana? just random?... =)

I love Lao street food! =)