"These Asian Girls, Man..."

Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

NP: Bad Boys Blue - You're a Woman

Mood: Relaxed

"These Asian girls, man... They're so hot!" said a random tourist we met at a convenience store in Ho Chi Minh City. He was feeling the heat, desperately trying to figure out how to hide the huge amount of money he had just taken from an ATM, and was asking us for advice. We laughed, he swore, and promptly headed back into the busy night of Saigon, bound to lose his money to booze and pickpockets.

But he was right. Thorough empirical research claimed that in the West there were one or two kittens in a dozen. In Thailand there were four, in Malaysia only three, in Vietnam five, and also five in Cambodia.

These are matters of opinion, of course.

But I'd heard it claimed by an Australian already in Bangkok. And repeated in Saigon. Then I'd also seen a Thai man in Hat Yai drool at western bikini models.

Perhaps there was truth to the saying I'd heard once from a Vietnamese lady: "Men fall for beauty, women fall for words."

In the dark nights of Phnom Penh we'd only fallen for a jug of Angkor beer for 6000 Riel ($1,5) and the travelling days still ahead.