Ooooh agh my head. Actually I didn't feel that bad this morning due to the alcohol last night. I was feeling a little worse for wear because of my head cold which had now broken. I had spent most of the night blowing my nose or dealing with congestion. What a great way to start 2012. Despite feeling worse for wear, my wife and I managed to make it down to breakfast on time. The morning was slow as we lounged around taking it easy either watching TV or updating the blog.

We did venture out after hours of procrastinating. We headed for China town taking two cyclos. The driver seemed very enthusiastic and engaged with us explaining in broken English about different points of interest along the journey. However the mood was to change when we reached our destination. Despite being crystal clear about where we wanted to go the cyclo riders had obviously come to a different conclusion in their heads. My driver in particular was quite rude as Ju tried to explain that we didn't want a ride home. Luckily he didn't ignite my touchpaper - it was only upon reflection that his rudeness wound me up. Sneezing and with a runny nose Ju and I decided to walk part way back from where we had come from through the city taking in the sights of China town along the way. We stopped at many smokey shrines and temples taking snaps as we went.

One street we headed down had a collection of cages with small birds in them. Cruel and harsh I wasn't sure why the birds were in them? There was no water in the cages and at the bottom of the metal prison I could see many dead birds. As I snapped away with my soul catcher (camera) a trader protested and waved his arms for me to go away. Having witnessed such cruelty I told him where to go - I have no time for Richard Heads. Hot and bothered we moved on. I pointed out to Ju that there weren't many stray dogs or cats in this city. Come to think of it we hadn't seen hardly any pet dogs. And we hadn't seen any cats at all in the city. Maybe my beef noodle soup wasn't beef noodle soup after all - if I was eating cat or dog then it tasted bloody good. Oh no, what if I develop a taste for cat and dog. I will never look at pets in the same way when I return home!

Sweaty hot and dehydrated we crashed on our respective beds in the hotel room. Air conditioning on we flicked through the TV channels. It was good t relax and not have to worry about what to cook for tea. We watched some crap documentaries that were actually quite interesting - we learned a lot about coal mining and deep see sword fishing this afternoon. Educated and slightly wiser we ventured out to get some food. We found a little restaurant in a small back street which sold amazing traditional Vietnamese food. I had a few beers and enjoyed some banter with an Ozzy couple. They were friendly and really engaged with us. One thing they said which alarmed me was how the media had reported the state of the recession in the UK - essentially we have really suffered and times are desperate (thanks CNBC). I didn't think our sitution was any worse than most other countries in the World, if anything we are better placed to weather the storm than most of Europe as we can manage our own currency. It wasn't just comments about the recession. Apparently the Ozzy media had portrayed the McCann's as guilty in the Madeleinne McCann case. I guess the Australian media is pretty much the same as the American media - a load of sensationalist b******s. That's the thing with travelling, you get a different perspective on the World... another countries perspective.