Tragedy.

So this morning we woke up to phone calls from our worried parents, who had spent the morning listening to the news of the stampede at the water festival. We came home early last night, so we managed to miss it, but we are still a bit shocked about the whole thing. The crowds were absolutely insane, like a giant mosh pit swarming down the riverfront. Apparently there were heaps of people on one of the islands, which is connected to the mainland by just one bridge. At some point something has scared the crowd, and people have started trying to get off the island as quickly as they could. This has created mayhem on the bridge as people were crushed as they fell down, or dived over the bridge into the water and drowned. The whole bridge was decorated with colourful lights, but somehow these wires electrocuted people who fell into them-only horrifying the crowd even more. We are so upset that the joy of the last 3 days has ended like this. Such a sad day for the entire country because millions had come from provinces all over Cambodia. The Prime Minister has declared Wednesday (tomorrow) a day of mourning, so we are just kind of playing it by ear as we don't know what to expect/what is expected of us. You can read more about the incident here.