Britteni's View Day 48 Sunday June 21, 2009

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Britteni's View Day 48 Sunday June 21, 2009

We woke up at 8am, needless to day we missed both the sunrise at 5:30am and mass at 6:30am. Darn. We did have a wonderful breakfast at the LeGrande Cafe.

"Not just anyone can say they wrecked a bicycle 3 times in one day, one of them involving Cambodia police on motorbikes fully equipped with AK47's (really big, scary guns!), and lived to tell the tale=). I'm not bragging, I'm just saying the temple Gods were defientely against me viewing the temples that day." I wasn't hurt, just some bruises to my body and my ego, that's why this story is humourus.

1st-We were crossing through a major intersection, Cam was in front, that had no stop sign/light and Camden suddenly stopped in front of me. I ran into his back tire. (no damage)

2nd- A lady driving a motorbike pulled out in front of me from the right side of the road, so I served to the left to avoid her, and her motorbike caught my back tire. My bicycle is a plain one gear Chinese bicycle I rented from some guy for $1.00 with a broken bell and really bad brakes. (No damage)

3rd- The finale. A motuk driver was coming the opposite way and was turning to his left in front of me, so instead of slamming on my crappy brakes that wouldn't stop me anyway, I served to my left to avoid him. However, I failed to see the family of 3 on the motorbike behind him. I swerved right to miss him and he swerved the same way to miss me, so I overcorrected at the last minute and so did he. It was too late and we collided head on. I was thrown forward, but was caught by my handlebars and in embarrassingly slow motion flipped over sideways. They were all uninjured and still upright on the bike and immediately all jumped off and within seconds had pulled me and the bike up and brushed me off. The only thought I had was "Damn, this is my last pair of clean clothes and we have two more day here=(". I told them I was fine which I was, just a little sore from the handlebars gouging into my rib cage, just bruises, no biggie. I was more embarrassed then anything as the front end of the bike was smashed into the main frame. Miraculously, the tire was in good shape. Another bystander was concerned about me and apparently called the cops as we were trying to bend the bike back into shape. A few minutes later, the cops show up on their motorbikes with their machine guns. I looked at Camden and said "whatever you do, don't give them our passports or our information". Fortunately, the people I'd collided with had already left ( I didn't want them to get in trouble either) so I was hoping we could just wave them on saying everything was okay. (I have never read anything good about tourists in foreign countries with the police involved no matter who is at fault) Instead, they all gathered around the bike and helped Camden pull the bike back into shape. We thanked them profusly and then promptly "got the hell out of dodge" before they thought to ask us for our information or money. I ended up riding throughout the rest of the day leaning slightly to the ride and steering at an odd angle, but hey it got me everywhere I needed to be =)

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