Lu-Hai Liang

A few years ago, in the month of May, I took myself to Scotland. I went to the Cairngorms, Britain’s largest wilderness area.

I hiked mountains, rambled along wooded paths, and walked the shores of lochs. I was lucky to get fair weather and saw Scots sunning themselves, with some hardy individuals even braving the frosty waters of the loch.

Scotland is perhaps the only place in Britain where one can get lost in true wilderness, where the land rises and falls with a majesty and ruggedness found nowhere else on this compact island.

I remember walking through the woods, the beginning of a mountain path, and seeing a red squirrel, the endangered native squirrel of Britain, casually prance, like a bushy mouse-deer, across the sun dappled trail.

I remember buying a pack of sausages and a can of potatoes and cooking them in the hostel kitchen and swallowing it down with that fervid hungriness that accompanies a day’s hiking, when you eat with an enjoyment knowing that you’ve fully earned it.

I have to confess that for however long now I’ve been addicted to travel. Is it an addiction? That would imply that I can’t wean myself from it. That it’s a compulsion, a craving, even a dependence.