Laos-Feel Free

While in Northern Laos, Malcolm and I took a slow boat from Luang Prabang 7 hours north to a small village called Muang Ngoi Neau. It is cut off from the outside world by a steep mountain rage that prohibits any access by road. The only way to get there is by boat. Few travellers have ventured up there due to its isolation and because of that, it has retained its charm and soul.
From there, we chartered another boat to take a kayak and ourselves and hour north to an even more remote part of Laos where there several traditional Hmong and Lao villages. This experience was by far the most impacting and fruitful day of our trip so far. Nesteled among huge limestone peaks and dense monsoon forest on a beachy river bank lies the village of Ban Phoichon, a traditional Lao village that has probably only started to see the occasional foreigner in the past 2 years. When we disembarked on the sany beach, we gazed around us like children in awe of a huge playground. We walked in 360's laughing to ourselves as we realized we had just landed in paradise. At that moment I closed my eyes and tried to take that moment in as much as I could...to save it for a day when I am stuck in traffic or at work. Each ray of sun that was beaming though the trees and every purple butterfly that was dancing arouund me was a gift telling me in its own way "you are alive, you are ALIVE".
All I could do was give praise and thanks and shake my head in bewilderment at the sheer beauty that was almost too much to take. I recalled the line in 'American Beauty', where the teenage boy says that sometimes the beauty in this world is to much to take and Kevin Spacey's realization at the end that you have to take it and let it flow in and out of you like air.
I wished at that moment that I could have shared that place with all of you and transported you there to enjoy it with me but realized that then and there was for my eyes only. As we sat on the sand, vibrating with that place, I looked down at the kayak paddle and saw that it had "Feel Free" printed on it and did just that.