Nagas are semi-divine, semi-human spirits in Indian and Southeast Asian mythology. Notes from a traveler: "He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference was partly one of time, he would explain. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. " — Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky)