My Very Own Nest

Today I head to what is to be my home for the next nine months. The rent is a bit steep, but frills seems worth the price. Also, I think the landlady ought to be credited with a savvier sense of running a apartment rental business: she quotes a price that rolls in the cost of all the frills so that she can happily and emphatically claim that they are "all for free!" Frills, you ask? This is no shoe string budget affair, I promise you. The apartment (and landlady, to be sure) boast of its fridge, TV ("with all channels!"), washing machine (not very common to the Kampong Cham lifestyle), air conditioning, fans, two bedrooms, doors and windows doubled up with meshed ones, a kitchen stocked with utensils, and finally, a fully furnished house. All for the blessed price of $250 per month. Steep, my friends, very steep. But I took it. Reasons:  the sweet old landlady lives downstairs, I can actually bike to work in under 5 minutes, and the place is close to the market as well as the Mekong River. (For travelers interested, the latter is where all foreign visitors congregate. MUWCI folks, you will recognize it to be Kampong Cham's "German Bakery")

So I opted for safety over thriftiness. While a lion's share of my stipend will go toward the rent, I think I'll be good since I will only have utilities and food of which to take care - I guess, I'm hoping they don't amount to too much. Ultimately, safety over the Tummy, eh? Maybe, I've gone a bit overboard...