Back "on-line"

Ok...I'm back online. I think after sleeping about 12 hours yesterday (5 - 10 PM & then 12:00 - 6:30 AM) I'm in sync with local time and off US time. Yeah!! Felt like I was in a fog there for awhile. Well, we've learned a few more valuable lessons today. Let me share (like we could stop him. cm): We had a few cups of coffee this morning from the lady who lives two floors up and sells coffee as a sideline. I walk up to floor 12 (we're on 10), order my coffee and she delivers it to our apartment 15 minutes later. It's good but looks like chocolate milk. It's made with sweetened condensed milk and coffee that's 250 octane! With the sugar and caffeine, I'm wired and ready to run a marathon, well to walk down the street and pick up a jug of water, anyway.

Lesson One:
A maximum of one cup of this high grade coffee in the morn--two cups? Verboten! On to the second adventure: after the coffee rush and shower, it's about noon and time for lunch.

We walk up the road about a 1/2 mile and there is a restaurant on the ocean that advertises seafood. Got to be good, right? It's on the South China Sea by god! Well maybe not by god. Vietnam is a communist country (he says with a non-religious wink). Well, it was not good, it was fantastic! Shrimp sautéed in garlic with pumpkin flowers, seafood spring rolls that would cause Anthony Bourdain to admit defeat.

Cay Bang Restaurant

But here's the kicker. No wine by the glass, only by the bottle. What a dilemma. After Cindy and I consulted for 7 seconds, we decided on a bottle.
Lesson Two:
After having 250 ocatane sweetened coffee for breakfast DO NOT have a bottle of wine (that you buy based on the cheapest price) with lunch. After lunch we dragged our sorry asses back the 1/2 mile to our apartment and called it a day (at 2:00 PM).

No way is that the finger, not in her sleep...

Will have to content ourselves with wine by the glass only for lunch...oh yeah on a side note, I gave the waitress our credit card for the bill. She nor anyone else in the restaurant spoke English but they did take credit cards. Two minutes later, she came back with my card and gave me her cell phone. I laughed and gave it back to her. She smiled and stuck it in my ear. I thought, "who would call me in Vietnam? I don't know anyone here." I'm quick on the uptake, right? Well, it was the cashier who did speak English. She was very pleasant and just wanted me to know that there was an additional 2 % charge for using a credit card. End result? The $30.00 lunch was going to cost me another $1.60. "Is that okay, sir?"
"Thank you, yes. That's fine. Thank you."

I don't get it. I travel. I'm sophisticated. After all I'm from Indiana.

More adventures to come. Stay with us~