"Travel is the realm of the impossible adventures, the quick fix, the ship passing in the night.  It entitles you to meet interesting people, whom you would never meet, even if you laid traps or advertised for them.  Not only do you met them, but you also unmeet them, all in the space of, it often seems, a mere compacted evening.  As there is so little time, bodies in motion drop their guard and immediately get on with their stories.  Then the proverbial ships part, each to its destination, never again to brush each other's wake."