It was 11:58 a.m. The bus side-swipes the motorbike rider. The bus fishtails in the road and turns sideways. Some people scream as it seems the bus, sideways in the road, might turn over. Then, the driver gets the bus straightened up and stopped, still in the lane of the road. What happened next was very bizarre.

We left Saigon the evening before on the way to Siem Reap, Cambodia . We made the crossing out of Vietnam and into Cambodia early the next morning, clearing our visas out of Vietnam and obtaining new ones for Cambodia.

I had a blast in Vietnam. Met a lot of new local people and traveling foreigners, but it was good to be back in familiar Cambodia. There is an immediate difference as soon as you cross the border. The small two lane paved roads, often filled with potholes, or becoming dirt roads for a distance, and filled with small motorbikes, autos, tractors, bicycles, cattle or dogs, let's me know I am back in Cambodia.

The small bamboo houses alongside the road and food and fruit stands are a good sight to me. I like Cambodia and the people here.

The drivers of the busses constantly blow the horn as they drive down the small roads. The horns are the way of letting smaller vehicles, like motobikes, bicycles or pedestrians, know a larger vehicle is passing . Sometimes there is a small shoulder for the smaller vehicles to move onto, and sometimes they just have to hug the side of the road as much as possible while the large trucks or busses go by.

The bus is moving down the small two-lane road, horn blowing while passing smaller vehicles or pedestrians. Then, there is a loud noise. The bus swerves and gets sideways in the small road. 

The bus has hit a motorbike. I am sitting by the window and I see the bus moving sideways, spanning the entire small roadway. I do not know how traffic from the other direction avoided slamming into the side of the bus. 

I guess the motorbikes saw it happening and were able to go around the edge of the road. One thing about the small 125 Hondas they ride here, is that they can stop and turn quickly. 

The bus, now skidding sideways in the road, tips slightly as some of the people let out a scream . Then, the driver gets control and straightens it out. The bus then comes to a stop, still in the lane of the road.

Here's the bizzare thing that happened next. Immediately when the bus came to a stop, the driver jumped out of his seat, grabbed his overnight bag and changed out of his drivers uniform into a t-shirt. The drivers helper did the same.

Then the driver pushed his way to the back of the bus. Some of the local people on the bus are trying to block his path down the aisle and are screaming something at him in either Vietnamese or Cambodian. He pushes them out of the way, makes his way to the back and pushes a foreigner out of his seat and sits down.

He never got off the bus to see about the motorbike rider. One of the backpackers on the bus said the motorbike rider was killed, but no one told us anything.

When the police arrived, the drivers helper talked to them and they measured skid marks and the location where the bus stopped . But, they never came to talk to the driver and he never got off the bus.

Many of us got off the bus because of the heat. The side of the bus had some damage where the bike got hit. Back a little ways down the road we could see where the bike and rider were, but we didn't go to look. Eventually, they took the rider away in an ambulance, so I think he was still alive.

Eventually, the police left and we got back on the bus. Then, the driver hopped off and flagged down a bus going back to Vietnam and got on it. 

Later, police in different uniforms show up and they do their measuring and talking to the helper. The driver is gone by now.

It was now about 1:30 p.m. The accident happened at 11:38 a.m. One of the policemen drove the bus to their police station. I didn't even know it was the police station. It was just a small building on a dirt road in the woods .

Later, a little past 2:30, another bus arrived and we loaded on it and continued our journey. No one ever told us anything about how long we would be delayed or when we would arrive or how the motorbike driver was, or anything. They never tell you anything on the busses, even how long a rest stop will be for. Strange!

I changed busses in Phnom Penh, Cambodia late in the day. While waiting for my transfer, the drivers helper said it had been a hectic day. That's all he said to me. 5 or 6 hours later I arrived in Siem Reap.

Early the next morning, I stood on the balcony of the hostel in Siem Reap, watching the workers across the street put up a large building by hand. The construction workers hoisted buckets of cement up several stories using buckets and ropes. 

I thought about the previous day's journey. I wonder about the bike rider . A couple of backpackers I met in Vietnam were on a bus that hit and killed a rider. I hope this rider fared better.

I wrote about Siem Reap and Angkor Wat when I was here earlier in the year. You can find the entry here :

http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/usatexan/1/1362832101/tpod.html
 

I went to see the floating village today. I have not visited it before. Anthony from Switzerland went along and we saw the village, floating on water, complete with hospital, schools, a church and many stores of all kinds. Just like it's name, it's really a 'floating village' with everything the residents need floating right there!

The buildings, homes or businesses, can be moved if they choose. They are all built, not on rafts, but on wooden boats. The boats are built first, then the walls and roof are added. They are just hooked to another boat with a motor and off they go to their new neighborhood.

In my next entry I tell you how to FRIGHTEN AWAY MONSTERS!