Leaving Saigon northbound, you can chose the older, more exciting Hiway One which goes to Bien Hoa by way of the Rubber Plantation near Di An where the 1st Infantry Division made its home or you can travel the newer, smoother, more secure Hiway One-A. Wider, better repair and runs straight to Long Binh. In 1966 Hiway One-A was one of the busiest roads in Vietnam. I usually found myself on it five or six times a week. I say it was more secure because of the heavy military traffic on it. More targets, sure, but also more return fire if the VC started anything...the old "safety in numbers" thing.
One of the main advantages of One-A was its wide, hard shoulders. Scooters, bicycles, hand-drawn and buffalo-drawn carts could travel along the shoulders with very little interaction with the motor traffic. It was not unusual to see half a dozen buffalo carts trudging along in a row...then a mile down the road another six or seven more...buff-cart convoys, 
.
On one occasion, as I was motoring stately up One-A on my way to 69th Signal Headquarters in Long Binh (one of my regular stops), I noticed an unruly bunch up on the southbound side of the road. Some sort of break down had caused the buffalo traffic to swerve into the driving lane and that caused cars, trucks and buses to dodge around them into my lane, causing me to swerve into the buffalo traffic to my right. It was messy for a minute or two.
On the way back to Saigon later, I saw a buffalo cart off in the grass and the buffalo laying on its side on the edge of the grass and shoulder. The old man who owned him was apparently nursing the buff, who was showing some bloody injuries. I judged this to be about where the jam up was earlier. I figured that in the confusion of the traffic jam, the buffalo got too far into the driving lane and got clipped. I knew that it had to have been a two and half ton truck or larger that hit it...otherwise there would be a wrecked car there, too, those buffs were BIG.
Within a couple of days I was on my way to Long Binh again. As I passed the site of the cart crash, I saw that the old man had constructed a kind of shack of bamboo poles and elephant grass to shelter his wounded buffalo. I was impressed and shared the story with the guys that evening. Andy, the company clerk and oldest of the crew (24), said that he thought that the buffalo represented the old man's livelihood, without the buffalo the old man wouldn't be able to transport whatever he was transporting, pull his plow or anything else the buffalo were good for. So it was a serious thing to the old guy...beyond love of the animal.
I saw the shack several times in the next week or so, every time the old man was there caring for the buffalo, sometimes there were others there with him, mostly he stood vigil alone. We talked it over in the evenings, wondering if the buffalo would make it and what would the old guy do if it didn't. We didn't start a pool...but I am sure some of us thought about it.
One morning as I passed the shack, I noticed a group of men working on the buffalo. I couldn't linger to watch (classified material and all that) so I just motored on. I had a lot of running around to do in the Long Bing-Bien Hoa area that day so it was late afternoon before I was headed back to town. As I drove by the shack I saw a number of signs in Vietnamese with prices on them...and I saw lots of cuts of meat hanging in front of the shack. The buff didn't make it. But the old man, practical as any oriental peasant, got what he could out of the deal...and if it was a US truck that did the deed, then the old guy would get a settlement big enough to take his mind off buffalo droving for a good while.