a story about a change

This is a story that happened in a small city called Pai in northwest Thailand, near the border of Burma. The exact place on the map is not really important, but the life changing journey what I went through there is. It can maybe be harmful for you if you are not planning to travel there any day soon. I'm not telling you at full lenght what I did, but I will tell you my spiritual, and mind changing part of this story.

"I woke up this one morning, hair messed up, yawned and saw sunlight coming out from a hole in the wall in my bamboo hut. The light found my knees and warmed them up with a gentle touch. I heard birds singing, someone playing guitar, an old lady with a calm voice. I had no idea what time it was, what day or how much time I had left before I had to pack my cameras, book and leave. I was going to have a new day, new paradise in a place I lived and loved, and with people I felt connected with; my Pai family.
I looked at "the Alchemist" on my bookshell and realised that I'm following my dream too, just at this specific moment. I'm in the present and I'm happy.
Just few seconds later I already sat on my meditation stump. River in front of me was quiet but pleasant, I felt few leaves falling of from a papaya tree next to me. Imagining the sun turning to different colours, blue to red and moving slowly towards me, I opened my eyes. It had been approximately 30 minutes since I sat on the stump. Meditation and yoga were my morning routine. I felt better sitting in lotus position clearing my mind and soul this amount of time than using it to anything else. I felt spiritual and pure.

Little decisions and new ways of thinking had really made me change a bit. I felt pure happines just from doing meditation. I didn't need anything else than this moment, and still don't need.
My days in Pai were individuals all of them, every day is a new start for your life. Having a chance to recognize the beauty of life again and again is amazing. But regretting something happened earlier harms your soul and mind.
I'm trying to remove the burden from my shoulders and find the balance in happiness. I am a worrying kind, and I don't like it. I want to free myself of thinking and just live. Here I've had hundreds of magical moments, conversations what had changed my life, and I start to realise what things make me complete, what to value, for what I live for and what things are not for me. Learning like this about myself is like a huge gift from everyone I have met.

As I later wandered up the hill in a kind of daze, two old ladies in colourful clothes and sharp bamboo hats walked past me, carrying big bags of something. I looked at them and smiled and I was smiled back with missing teeth mouths. I was high in the mountains, where green and blue captivate the scenery. We had drove motorbikes to the waterfalls and spent couple of days just lying and looking at changing clouds. I was amazed by the beauty of cornfields, stone forest, elephants, hot springs, birds, colours, lying in hammock, people, food, everything. I was surrounded by nature and "the green tits" as mountains. I couldn't feel happier or more alive.  This was that kind of place I could stay forever.

I ended up staying in Pai for almost 3 weeks. Time flied and it didn't feel like it because I was enjoying so much with my family and my guesthouse's thai hippies. We played instruments everyday, sang, laughed and talked about things what matter and those what really don't. I've now friends for life which I'm going to see soon on my travels. This place was something else, our home and it was so sad to leave. But now I have a memory, still very bright and lovely. And one part of me will always be a "Pai part". Saying goodbye doesn't mean nothing like I thought before. I'm changed for good and I'm going to hold on it tight. Now goodbye just means a new hello."