Look on the bright side...

Okay, after last months upsetting news, I decided to make a list of good things about living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia …

1. where you earn a salary of US$1,000 a month, and can afford a cook, housekeeper and a big motorbike easily

2. where the longest possible commute to work is a leisurely 15 minute ride

3. where a beer costs US$1

4. where a main course in your average Khmer restaurant costs US$1 (chicken fried rice, pork and veg stir-fry with rice, tom yam soup and rice, et cetera

5. where the latest movies on DVD cost less than US$2

6. where the beach is a 3 hour drive away

7. where you have 26 bank holidays a year

8. where the weather is; a) bloody hot b) very bloody hot c) very bloody hot and raining

9. where everyday legal problems (traffic) can be solved for US$1 or less

10. where you can have cases of beer delivered to your home by just leaning out the window and shouting your order to the guy sat on his mopo opposite (not just beer, anything and I mean anything; phone cards, bottles of water, ice, cigarettes, potatoes, iced coffee…)

11. where a new, two-bedroom, air-conditioned house with off street parking can be rented for US$200 a month

12. where you have over 100 restaurants from a dozen different countries, from Chinese to Russian to French to British pub grub to vegetarian to deep fried cockroaches…

13. where a bottle of Bombay Sapphire costs less than US$10

14. but most of all, because it is where I live