Having slowed to take a corner just before the accident, I was relatively unscathed. I furiously pulled the useless machine from the bushes and padlocked it to the nearest tree I could find, where it leant guiltily in the shade. Slinging my camera over my shoulder, I started back along the sun-scorched track towards the town. After a few yards, I became aware of someone following me. A man wearing black pants, flip-flops and a Lucky Language School t-shirt loped after me, obviously out of breath.

"Hello!" he shouted at me, "are you ok?" I told him I was fine and was walking back towards the village. My newfound companion walked with me. Having heard the tyre's demise, he had stopped tending his vegetables and come to see if he could help.

Along the way, he introduced himself as Sokhim, who was twenty-seven years old and lived in the village, which was called Roumdoljing Phnom. Noticing the sweat pouring from my every pore, Sokhim invited me to his house to meet his family and have a drink, while he got a taxi bike for me. I accepted.

Child laughing at me (a common occurence throughout Asia)

With Sokhim leading the way, we arrived at the village. The locals, as everywhere in the country, stared at me. Some found me baffling, while most found my appearance hysterically amusing. Sokhim's mother was washing clothes outside their house and Sokhim introduced her as Mutnary. She smiled shyly at me, probably wondering what the hell I was doing there. "She is a housewife. She does nothing," laughed Sokhim, as his mother continued scrubbing.

I stepped over two other family members - a grumpy twelve-year-old mutt called Mr Short, and Happy the cat - and entered the house.

Sokhim's home was a simple single-storey wooden construction, indistinguishable from the dozens of others that lined the mud road. Its front living area was open to the elements, while above a corrugated iron roof was tacked on like a delicate afterthought. The house had electricity but no telephone or television.

Having noticed me inspecting his home, Sokhim volunteered some financial details. "It's a rented house, ten dollars a month. I get my salary from the government for teaching, about 100,000 riel [US$26] a month." I wondered how he would feel if he knew I'd pissed away three months rent money in several of Sihanoukville's overpriced bars the night before.

Sokhim fussed around the tiny room tidying things away, presumably for his visitor's benefit. As he did so, he told me about himself.

"I have lived here for six years. Before that I lived in Phnom Penh with my family. I have no father - he died in 1978 in the Khmer Rouge regime: Pol Pot killed him. I don't know how exactly because I was very young. He was a politician and the Pol Pot regime always took the politicians to kill."

Sokhim spoke carefully as he told me of life under the Khmer Rouge, choosing his words slowly as though their impact might be lessened by poor grammar. Even his movements around the room grew economic, more deliberate. He gingerly returned a pair of sandals to their home.

"I remember the Khmer Rouge. They were very cruel, especially when I was a child. I couldn't study; I worked full time during the day. I did what the children could - we carried the rice, looked after the cows...worked hard every day. My mother worked in the fields. She was a college student before the KR. She had a good education."

"It was very, very difficult," he continued. "We didn't have rice to eat. We ate a little but we worked full-time. If we were ill, they said 'you are lazy and we will kill you.' When they were gone, I was very happy because I could meet my brother and my mother. I could study again in school. We never want to meet people like that again."

As he spoke unprompted of his father's murder, I realised that Sokhim seemed to enjoy the release of telling his story to a fresh pair of ears. When he had finished, he seemed brighter and excused himself for a moment.

I looked around the cosy room again, taking in the assorted domestica. Paperback novels dangled from the timber walls, protected from the rain by plastic bags. They were like symbols of their owner's education and drive; Sokhim was proud of his achievements. A Meeting In the Night hung in a Thai Marine Products Company bag.

My host showed me around. Sokhim's bedroom adjoined the main area. Even tinier than the main room, most available space was taken up by his bed and a clothes rack heavy with white shirts, his teaching uniform. A peeling photograph of Angkor Wat was pinned above the bed's headboard, outnumbered by the dozen pictures of Chinese movie stars plastered across the walls, which were insulated by flattened beer cartons.

The beach behind Sokhim's house

The guided tour continued through the kitchen area to the rear of the house, which backed directly onto a grubby beach filled with the village's hyperactive children. A rotting pier snaked crookedly from the home to the family toilet, an outhouse perched above the beach. No need to guess the logistics of this waste disposal system. You have to watch where you walk in Cambodia.

Back in the house, we settled into the worn chairs. Mine creaked a greeting like an old friend. I had started to sweat again. The front room doubled as a miniature classroom, with two rows of seats, a whiteboard and some teaching texts scattered around the room.

"Every day I take my students at Sakura School," Sokhim explained. "It's the name of a flower in Japan. It's a primary school. I teach my brothers also: 5.30 to 6.30 in the morning - we always get up at four o'clock. From seven o'clock in the morning until eleven I teach Khmer. Then I study English at the Lucky Language School from 11 to 1."

"After the class, I always grow something, especially vegetables or flowers. I come back here at four o'clock and I teach Khmer from 5.30 to 7.30. I teach the small children in the village...they are very poor. They can't understand well at school so they come here to study."

"After teaching I like listening to the radio, an American information station. They tell us about the news around the world in Khmer and sometimes English. Then I write my poem or a novel in Khmer...it's my activity. At twelve I go to bed, so I only sleep four hours in a day and I don't have a siesta in the afternoon because I don't have the free time. Every day I work hard."

He paused at this understatement. I felt tired just listening to Sokhim's average day and hoped he wouldn't ask how I filled my time in his country. Excessive boozing and slumbering on the beach somehow seemed less noble than the altruistic pursuits of this human dynamo.

"I'm happy living in Cambodia," my host continued. "I want to protect my country and to look after my people. I'm not the Prime Minister but....I'm happy to live in my country and die in my country."

With 50% of Cambodians reckoned to be living in poverty, I asked Sokhim if life was hard for the average Cambodian. "I think it's better now but the living of the people is very poor and the government is very poor. The government can't help us, so now we have a big problem with the law. The members of Parliament are corrupt - the courts too. But the teachers are not corrupt," he added hastily and somewhat unnecessarily, given the weak bribing power of Cambodian primary school students.

My transport arrangements were temporarily forgotten as we lounged in the afternoon heat. Sokhim asked about my family. He himself had two younger brothers and he called one of them into the room. 15-year-old Roatana seemed polite but shy. He spelled his name out on a whiteboard for my benefit. He was a student and I asked him if he likes school. "Yes," he replied. "I want to be a teacher too...like my brother."

Sokhim was telling me about his other brother when he arrived noisily at the house, jumping off the back of a friend's motorbike. Wisna was a bit surprised to see a lanky Westerner in his front room and didn't even acknowledge the dog's warm welcome. He turned out to be just as sociable as the rest of his family.

The long day slowly melted into twilight, with a slightly gentler heat and a softening of the jungle hues. Mutnary and Sokhim started to prepare the family's evening meal, Happy and Mr Short snoozed lazily on the warm wooden floorboards and I wondered why it took a motorbike accident to finally meet Cambodian people in any meaningful way.

Sokhim at his house

Not for the first time, I was of the opinion that unforseen mishaps, like falling off moving vehicles, seem to produce the most rewarding experiences of foreign travel. Healthy chaos, the kind that derails sightseeing plans without killing you, is to be welcomed. Sokhim and his family certainly enjoyed our chance meeting and were positive about the growing wave of Westerners visiting Cambodia.

"All the villagers like foreigners because they are very friendly and they can help the Khmer people too," Sokhim told me. "They spend much money in my country. We want foreign people to visit. We always look after and read about our culture...we have a strong culture."

I didn't like declining the inevitable dinner invitation, but I needed to return to my travelling companions and to tell the rental mob where to find their deathtrap bike. I departed with warm wishes from Sokhim, his family and assorted neighbours that had gathered. Even Mr Short let me pat his head. The next day we left Sihanoukville and its people and headed for Vietnam.

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