Last chance to see: paddling through time on the Mekong
Humility is a rare commodity in the era of the smartphone, selfies and carefully–coiffed digital personas. Gratitude, too, is unusual in the modern world where a sense of entitlement seems all pervasive. Despite most of us being aware enough to acknowledge that all human beings start out with the same potential, almost every single one of those reading this article comes from the planet’s privileged one percent that had a massive head start in life through being born into the elite rich of the species, and receiving an education sufficient to give them a foothold in the cyclonic digital New World. I recently underwent a life-changing experience where my quotients of humility, gratitude and entitlement were recalibrated by spending time in the Hill Tribe villages of Laos, and I’d like to share it. It started out as a physical adventure. My friend Geoff Collins asked me if I’d like go on a kayak trip down the Mekong river through Laos, as he wanted to create an adventure tour business with some unique attributes at the same time as getting some money into the hill tribe villages, and this trip was to be the pilot. The adventure turned into something entirely unexpected and was profoundly moving.
