Who turned out the lights?

Our last day in Cambodia was spent in Kratie - a quite river side town with not much to do but explore the local market and walk along the road beside the river. The main tourist attraction here is going to see the rare Irrawaddy dolphins. I chose not to go see them so another girl in my group, Steffi, and I walked around the town and took the afternoon to relax. It was nice to have some time to myself in a quiet town after spending the week constantly on the go. That evening we celebrated Rosie's 19th birthday and Margie's 81st (which was the next day) by going out for dinner and then for a drink afterwards. The people at the restaurant were very sweet - apparently they had searched throughout the whole town to try to find a happy birthday CD. During dinner we listened to the happy birthday song in what seemed like at least 10 different languages.

Photo: Margie (81) and Rosie (19) blowing out their birthday candles

After moving across the street for a drink we experienced our first major blackout! The whole city's power went out and we realized that no one in our group had brought a flashlight along. Luckily the staff were well prepared and brought candles to the tables. We settled in to spend much of the night there, not knowing how long it would be before we got power again (blackouts are very common and can last for hours especially in rural towns). Luckily it only lasted abbut 5-10 minutes. It was very funny because we were all talking about how we had been thinking about bringing flashlights just in case before we left for dinner, but no one did and we ended up being stuck with no lights. It always seems to be that if you have flashlights, there are no problems, but if you don't, there is bound to be a blackout! Thankfully it didn't last long and we were walk safely back to the hotel. Thankfully the lights didn't go out on the walk home!