“Never forget… every driver is trying to kill you.”
That was a tip in one of the tourist brochures we picked up in Siem Reap last year, in an article about Cambodian road safety. According to the article, Cambodia has 10 times the traffic deaths per capita than developed countries.
Abet and I were extra careful, of course — we always are when we’re away from home.We realised though that you can only be too careful, and that there are just some situations that are out of your hand.
Like the bus accident we met en route to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam:
Our bus hit the van in front of us, and that van threw the wagon in front of it off the road. I saw one woman fly, and I honestly thought at first that there would be casualties. There weren’t, but the people from the wagon — all of them elderly — had to be carried off in an ambulance.
It was our bus’s fault, and it was such a hassle for everyone involved. I’m willing to bet none of the drivers were members of any roadside assistance club. It took three hours before the bus sent in by the tour company arrived to take us to Vietnam. We were on the road for 15 hours instead of 12.
I was able to take pictures of the Cambodian countryside and some of the locals.
And this is why I’m so paranoid on getting travel insurance whenever we go abroad.
Breakfast was basic, just the ubiquitous baguette, eggs, fresh dalandan juice, green bananas and coffee:
Of course, the coffee was the popular Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk, which was very good. I was very pleased with the bananas, we used to have this everyday when we were still living in Cagayan de Oro, but I don’t think I’ve had this since we came to Manila. Breakfast wasn’t much it was good, and it saved us a few thousand dongs every morning.
