Cambodia has made some real improvements in its drive to move from a least-developed country to a medium-developed country. Not all improvements have been substantive and enduring, though. Take electrification. Just five or six years ago only 27% of the country had electricity. Today many more people have power–most of the time.
Sunday night some time after midnight I woke up and realized the power had just gone off. My fan was off and the white noise machine was silent. I figured there was nothing I could do about it and went back to sleep. Then the power coming back on 3 1/2 hours later woke me again because it made my electric alarm clock play a jingle.
Then in the Khmer Times newspaper we got this little article where the electricity company apologized for some error that knocked out the lights for all of Phnom Penh (1+ million people) and the surrounding counties and even Siem Reap 200 miles away.
When I got up I took a shower but then the water went off. It turns out the loss of electricity knocked out the water system, too!