Day 14 - Luang Prabang to Oudomxay

Sabaidee :)

We started the day at Joy's for Breakfast :) Yet another tomato soup, baguette, eggs etc :) Geez this food is amazing :)

 At breakfast we met Michael and Maria, two of the teachers from the LEOT Center and a temple where they teach english to Monks. Michael has a project called the Smile Project and The mission of the SMILE Project is to offer FREE education, nutritional aid, and healthcare assistance to impoverished, abandoned, orphaned, and underprivileged youth, as well as young Buddhist monks and novices, all of whom lack funds and/or resources for quality education and nourishment.  They are desperate to learn English and computer skills in an effort to break the cycle of poverty and create economic mobility for themselves, their families, and indeed whole communities. We got into a conversation and before we knew it, it was midday and our long ride to Luang Namtha had not yet begun. We said our farewells and exchanged details before heading back to check out of the hotel and be on our way to Luang Namtha.

We stopped a number of times on the way and at about 1730 we were 60kms from Oudomxai\y (160kms from Luang Namtha). We decided it best to stop in Oudomxay for the night to avoid riding further in the dark with the risk of Cows, Dogs, Chickens. Pigs & Cat's randomly walking across the road playing chicken with us. We found a nice guesthouse that was $10 per night and retired for the evening.

All in all a late start to the day meant we couldn't make our stated destination however we knew the next day we would be hitting Route 8 to Houay Xai (We like to refer to as the race track of Laos). This road was built by the Chinese and is perfectly cambered to create and amazing road through the luscious green mountains of Northern Laos.