Day 18 - Vientiane to Ban Namsanam (Sainamhai Resort)

Day 18 - We headed for Thakek and the Ho Chi Minh trails. Along the way Chris had his first road incident. A few seconds after doing an emergency stop to avoid hitting a 70 odd yr old lady who tried to cross the highway without looking, a Toyota Hilux was unable to stop, following too closely he ran into the back of Chris's bike stopped on the road. Thankfully it was only a nudge as the Hilux came to a stop but it pushed Big Chris into Little Chris and then Big Chris in slow motion put the bike down as it tipped to the right stepping off the bike to the side of the road. No injury to Chris and as it turned out a slightly bent KLX frame, we said our peace to the driver and headed off to a fuel station just down the road where we stopped to collect our thoughts and come to terms with what could have been quite a painful and expensive prang. We were then full steam ahead towards the trails and after riding and close to 400kms for the day, we ended up finding  a random resort in the middle of nowhere which was absolutely amazing. Dinner at the hotel was simply amazing and the Owner, Mr Vongsamay Malibayphit came and shared a Beer Lao with us whilst he explained some of his past and what he has done in his town. He is an elderly gentleman who was part of the Vietnam war and remembers vividly having to flee from town to town when the USA were on their relentless war machine campaign trying to defend the world as they so love to do. (US Government of course not the US People). The owner is an amazing fellow and has setup a shop and purchases fabric for the local disabled children/people and poorer local families to create some very special crafts helping them to learn skills to support themselves and flourish as a community. Our friend Chris from the UK is also heavily into doing good for the Laos people and we have now made it our mission to contribute to this cause by raising money to provide education tools and clothing for those families less fortunate that ourselves. This was the absolute highlight of the trip and i feel very excited about having a contact here now that we can arrange to help people through. Unfortunately the kind of help that is provided by the International governments etc is not going to assist these people in any way at all any time soon and if anything will likely serve to only destroy the beautiful culture that exists everywhere in Laos. I cannot tell you how moved we were and excited to be able to share with others to help as this is such a worthwhile cause. If you would like to make a donation towards helping our good friend Chris from the UK in his honest and noble mission to help these wonderful people, you can donate visiting http://www.motorcycle-tours-laos.org/ . After a lovely evening chatting with Mr Vongsamay Malibayphit we retired for the night pending out trip towards Thakhek with some sightseeing on the way the next day.