Ou River and Me....There's such a lot of world....to seee

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The past couple days have been an agony - I felt lost and desperately wanting to be "found" - by my heart path. By that something that I would want to commit my life to passionately. Where the heck is it? What is it? I know that unless I am in love with that something and feel the pulse of it every day, I will not be able to be in it 100%. And I need to be. 

Boy, sometimes that journey "in the belly of the whale" is so unsettling. Not in anything physical, but in not knowing. Living there. Every day. And knowing that this is just a necessary part of the process and not rushing it. For those of us somewhat stuck in an infant stage around certain emotions, this kind of impulse control is hard to come by. 

Then the darn FOMO ["fear of missing out"] is rearing its ugly head just when I thought I'd be done with it - that desire to see everything and not miss anything. It is a head thing - not a heart thing. It is at the root in odds with being in the flow. It is a synonym of "rush." I wish it would go away. I want to be at peace in the knowledge that I will be at just the right place at the right time. The Shadow of being an enneagram type 7. Aaaah, maybe, it's just the week of rain that was gifted to us here is giving me the blues...It's just noise in the end.

At the same time, observing the Lao life is fascinating. While at first a part of me felt miffed by the fact that busses are the main way of transport around this land of steep thick jungle mounts, imagining the shaken+stirred condition after 6 hours of that fun, during my second bus ride, I began to grasp the live awesomeness of the situation. I got a 4-6 hour glimpse into the non-touristy village life, as many of the Lao villages are nested around the bus routes [of course, it's, probably, the other way around - the laid the routes near the villages]. 

The villages the I see along the roads are at stark contrast to the little village-like towns here. Most of them are made up of wooden huts on stilts with straw/wood roofs, with the few wealthier folks building little concrete homes with modern roofing. Those homes stick out like a sore thumb. All kinds of animals and their tiny offspring run around fearlessly - the bus has to slow down many a time for the tiny piglets or chicks - it makes me smile. If it were not considered impolite, I would shoot 100 times more photos of the villagers' faces - sun-bronzed, sculpted by the weather, humbled by life....with the eyes of kindness. Many are so beautiful...in a human, "life itself" kind of way. 

I'm getting used to falling asleep to the loud lullabies of the crickets and to wake up to the pre-dawn rooster alarm [I think, the guy is nesting right under my cabana - under my bed, specifically]. The towns are nearly as "anim-ated" as the little villages. 

There are a few things I find peculiar around transport in Laos. Like just how many things can fit on a min-bus roof. Or how many people can fit onto a motor-bike. Or the fact that emissions check seems to be a foreign concept here. Or that the bus gets turned on half an hour before departure [not to mention that most things leave on Lao-time - which means, within 1.5 hour from when they are supposed to]. Roosters and chickens are welcome on the bus. My computer is exhibiting some strange symptoms.....it might have bugs - literally, judging by the tiny Lao-ants emanating from my keyboard and behind the battery. 

The rain has eased....and the twighlight is almost now. Time to explore my new village.