Tourists and travellers are essentially the same. Yet, while the former acknowledge their otherness, the latter do not.. They deceive themselves by believing that they can be cultural insiders.
Pumpernickel Bakery in Thamel, downtown Kathmandu, is a favourite spot for foreigners. Even during off-season, the bakery's garden tables fill quickly each morning. The service is good; the bread, fresh; the croissants, delicious and the coffee, passable. The staff members are unobtrusive and polite and with their brown faces a rarity in the restaurant, where the rest of the people are foreign travellers.
They are travellers and not tourists. A young English woman, on her way home from a year abroad in Australia, tried to explain the difference to me. She said that 'travellers' live 'like the people'; they travel the way 'the people travel'; and they are 'in touch' with, and have `a feel' for, 'the people'. The tourists, on the other hand, travel in air-conditioned buses, live in five-starred hotels and eat at overpriced restaurants. And they never drink the water. There are no tourists at Pumpernickel; only travellers.
Touring extensively around the world, the long-term world travellers (WT), the majority of whom are North American, Western European, Japanese and Australian, share a common ideology. They view the Third World as their laboratory and look upon themselves as romantic, even intrepid, adventurers. They sneer at tourists and laugh at those who have remained back home in Peoria. They share a common language, English, and even a common dress code in Nepal: cheap cotton drawstring pants, rubber sandals, and printed t-shirts. The t-shirts are the public resumes: in one glance one can discern who has come up from Kenya, Bali, Bangkok or Goa.