Can I have a motorcycle with my Cofee, Please?

MI Time: 10:00 PM
Local Vietnamese Time: 9:00 AM
Location: Listening to the hum of the motorboat on the Mekong River leaving Chau Doc Vietnam for Phomn Penh, Cambodia. Houses are built on sticks holding them above the water. It may not look like the family has a farm but under and around the house, there is a mesh netting to contain a fish farm. The families sell fish to the local market.

Vietnamese Food-- After seven days of being in Vietnam, we went from being totally illiterate to showing our "insurance card" (an English speaking lady wrote I am vegetarian on a small card) which enable us to actually enjoy the plethora of soy products, rice, stir fried veggies, sweet and sour soup. Since there are a lot of Buddhist people, there are lots of vegetable options. Although I still cannot speak understandable Vietnamese with the nasal tones, I can now read enough on the menu to get by. Our "insurance card" was written out by the Vietnamese lady that helped us off the boat in Can Tho and directed us to a hotel. She spoke great English so we asked her to write "I am vegetarian. I do not eat meat" on a card. That card has served us very well!
An example of how very bad my Vietnamese is-- I love the iced coffee with milk drinks available everywhere for about thirty cents. So an evening in Can Tho, we stopped by a corner cafe on the street and I said, "Cafey?!" and repeated it a few times. They understood me and brought us two coffees on ice. However, I wanted milk with my iced coffee. According to my phrase book, SUA is the word for milk. A three letter word is pretty hard to mess up, as so I thought! "Sua!" I said, pointed to my coffee. The man brought me a glass of water. I tried again, "SUUUUUUUUA!" Next, he showed up with a cup of sugar. I smiled this time, but I guess my face showed that it wasn't what I asked for. Then he brought me tea, and finally a cup of milk. Later on, as we passed by a line of motorbike repair shops, I recognized the word sua. It was spelled the same but with two dots over the u. So I'm pretty sure that I managed to pronounce a three letter word, sua, incorrectly and possibly have been asking for a motorbike with my coffee!
Chay=vegetarian
com=rice
pho=white asian noodles
mi=ramon crunchy type noodles
snacks=huge cashews
big spiky green fruit, the size of a watermelon with bright yellow individual pieces inside
hairy red fruit the size of a super ball, white flesh inside covering a large seed. You suck on the white flesh and spit out the seed.
coconuts are everywhere!
roasted finger sized bananas
soy milk, coffee, and green tea are sold everywhere!


Bon Apetit! (If I knew how to say it in Vietnamese, I would!)