The coolheaded practical girl with the roast meat stall and the machete-sized knife at the corner of the square in front of the train station in the Vietnamese border town of Lao Cai

Just when I walked out of my hotel a brawl erupted fifty meters on near a meat stall. Blows and shouts and a plastic chair flying and then a guy getting away, limping but powered by adrenaline fast enough to stay ahead of the guys chasing him. For a bit, then they caught him after all, and the whole bunch turned around. At which point the girl calmly said ‘oh’ and hid the knife in the small built-in cupboard of her two-wheeled food stall and locked it.

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