The Editor,

Increasing robberies? OK expats, time to fight back! Here's the plan. If you get

stuck at a bar/restaurant (or other less savory abodes), leave your money and valuables

to collect the next day. Also, leave all you clothes save your underpants, and proceed

home normally.

If you get held up at gunpoint, show restraint and reason but if all else fails,

be prepared to part with your only removable possession. This will have three results:

1) You will demonstrate you really are not hiding anything (in many cases,

absolutely nothing to write home about);

2) If the robber is Khmer, it is culturally unacceptable to gaze upon a

naked body without turning away (again, in most Phnom Penh-lifestyle expatriate male

cases a highly understandable cultural practice). He will turn away enabling you

do a 007 job on him, but much better, you can make off down the road in rapid simian

gait blaming the Vietnamese.

3) It unloads a tatty old pair of underpants and spares you/your maid from

the nasty task of having to wash them.

- Lar Phlon Kha, Phnom Penh.