Many of the travelers at the Thai Song Greet are no more than runners, long distance runners who chase madly around the globe, running away from discipline, responsibility, respectability and the square world. But others sitting around the time-worn tables – and it is hard to tell which ones until you hear them speak, until you hear how they lovingly caress the sounds of Jaipur and Jahalabad, Matsuyama and Miyajimaguchi, until you understand they are journeying toward rather than from – these are the true travelers, the ones to whom the world is a way of life rather than an escape from life, the ones to whom travel is a full-time love rather than a part-time affair. They know the world as well as most people know their hometowns, and live it far more. They are the restless, the adventurous, the insatiable curious, so much like Lord Jim . . .

“You can change your life,” goes the last line of a Rilke poem. Once upon a time, that was part of the reason people traveled – to welcome the unknown and wrestle transformation from it. Today this sort of traveler is rare. We travel abroad to enjoy what is quaint and to change – or avoid – what is challenging. Wrapped in a robe of dollars and dogmas, we keep the world from our skin.

Many of the travelers at the Thei Song Greet are no more than runners, long distance runners who chase madly around the globe, running away from discipline, responsibility, respectability and the square world. But others sitting around the time-worn tables — and it’s hard to tell which ones until you hear them speak, until you hear how they lovingly caress the sounds of Jaipur and Jehalabad, Matsuyama and Miyajimaguchi, until you understand they are journeying toward rather than from — these are the true travelers, the ones to whom the world is a way of life rather than an escape from life, the ones to whom travel is a full-time love rather than a part-time affair. They know the world as well as most people know their hometowns, and love it far more. They are the restless, the adventurers, the insatiably curious, so much like Lord Jim.

“You must change your life,” goes the last line of a Rilke poem. Once upon a time, that was part of the reason people traveled — to welcome the unknown and wrestle transformation from it. Today this sort of traveler is rare. We travel abroad to enjoy what is quaint and to change — or avoid — what is challenging. Wrapped in a robe of dollars and dogmas, we keep the world from our skin.