Like a real traveller, he looks for whatever he has in common with the people he encounters, to a point where the sense of otherness very often vanishes completely.

climbing a mountain represents a chance to be briefly free oneself of the small concerns of our common lives, to strip off nonessentials, to come down to the core of life itself. Food, shelter,, and friends - these are the essentials, these plus faith and purpose and a deep and unrelenting determination.

I'm not a big traveller.

Engkau boleh saja membual tentang kaki telanjangmu
Yang telah menempuh jutaan mil.
Gaya kupu-kupu mu yang mengarungi laut penuh hiu,
Atau kebolehanmu memanjat tebing-tebing terjal
Dengan sepotong tali terikat di pinggangmu.

Namun jika kau tak pernah menjelajah ke dalam batinmu sendiri,
Engkau bagaikan tak pernah pergi ke mana pun.

Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door.

There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a strange fear and elation – an ascent above the reach of life's expectations or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgivings.