Page 153 - Exile-ebook

152 AN EXILE OF THE MIND THE HIPPIE TRAIL 153

The Hippie Trail

Shot at in Turkey. Luxury on a lake. Down the train loo in India.
Cornflakes in Kathmandu. Passengers in Alfresco Class.
A banana boat to Malaysia.

alf a million hippies jostled in the mud at Max Yasgur’s dairy
Hfarm in the Catskills. And from London to India, a weird
procession of jalopies rattled on pot-holed roads for a taste of
nirvana. Long-haired westerners rode war-surplus trucks, Kombi
vans and ancient buses. Many vehicles clanked to a standstill
never to revive. Our bus was one of them.
I may have missed the magic of Woodstock at Max’s place but
not the legendary Hippie Trail. Fourteen thousand kilometres of
high mountain passes, scorching deserts, and pot-holed roads
set the scene. This adventure was never a matter of money but
of guileless courage and marvellous months of eating badly,
sleeping in flea-ridden pensions and not bathing.
Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, inspired an open-minded
generation to roam the east. Free-spirited gypsies on a journey
of spiritual enlightenment. A kind of earthbound form of astral
travel with its compass swinging to hashish centres along the
way. The psychedelic stopovers for enthusiastic potheads gave
the Trail its name. This alternative tourism also gave birth to the
Lonely Planet, the largest publisher of guide books in the world.
Nicole and I just wanted a cheap trip home.
We crossed a wintering city on a morning bright with frost to
board our bus. The year was 1970. A miraculous time in history
when the Middle East enjoyed a rare peace. Our driver, Kev, an

Free-spirited gypsies on the Trail.