soulchaser

Travel can be many things; escape, business, tourism. It has been all three of these for me, among others, but real travel, that which I dreamt of before my first attempt, and that which excites me more than anything else, is exploration!

The wonder of exploration is that you do not know what to expect. Everything that you see, hear, smell touch and taste, everything that happens to you, the sum of your experiences had in absolute purity. That is what every traveller dreams of.

The humbled ecstasy of a panorama chanced upon whilst hiking through unmapped woods – no path, no safety barrier protecting and separating you from nature, inviting you to look but not feel, like reading a picture book of the Himalayas in a library where exclamations are hushed and wild dreams silenced. No fat, ferried tourists wasting money on film that they could have spent on postcards for all the emotion they attach to their visit. No litter. No telescope or coke stalls. No sense that things have been made ready for your visit but quite the opposite: that the scene would have existed, exactly like this, with the same hawks riding eddies in the sky, the same light and the same air of absolute stillness, despite you, without you. The tree falling in the forest crashes no matter who’s listening. You are honoured, privileged to hear it. Like looking up at night to follow a mosquito and catching a shooting star. Not even a guest you are merely a transient, a ghost visiting from elsewhere. That is discovery! That is travel!