Page 163 - Exile-ebook

162 AN EXILE OF THE MIND THE HIPPIE TRAIL 163

Nepalese women around the communal well in Bhaktapur. Nicole helping in the soup kitchen. On board a freighter to Malaysia.

world’s highest mountain and had tecture were opened to tourists only mothers reached out for alms. While misery at the hands of the repressive
to travel 30 kilometres by bus to the 10 years before we arrived. When Mother Teresa worked towards military dictatorship. The not so
east for a glimpse. Mount Everest the hippie numbers began to swell sainthood in the city’s slums, the pious saffroned monks, who had
was not all that spectacular unless alarmingly, they were later rounded Salvation Army fed lines of people earlier rallied against the arrogant
you were perched at its base, or per- up in their hangouts on Freak Street sitting by their tin bowls waiting British for not removing their shoes
haps its peak. A walking tour along and deported to India. Nepal lost for a handful of rice. Nicole and in their temples, despised the regime
its fringes was an excuse to wear our its monarchy 30 years later when a I volunteered our services and even more.
beautifully embroidered sheepskin prince wiped it out because he was avoided the heat of the midday The Hippie Trail finally petered
Afghan coats with their memorable forbidden to choose his bride. sun in the air-conditioned comfort out in Bangkok. The Trail spanned
bouquet of patchouli, which smelt Nothing had prepared us for of the First Class restroom at the more than halfway around the world.
like a mixture of body odour and the Calcutta. India’s largest population train station until the railway police Beneath the bright blue sky of
goat urine used to cure the skins. We with much of it spilling into streets became suspicious and threw us out. Siam, our hammocks swung to the
drifted along the Himalayan foothills and gutters. Pot-bellied children With no overland route to Burma rhythm of the waves on the open
in a heady haze of hippie effluvium. with ring-wormed legs and phlegm through present-day Bangladesh, deck of a freighter. We travelled
To enter Nepal was to step back streaming from their noses, slept we flew to the temple city of as deck cargo for three sultry days
in time for a century or two. Its on pieces of cardboard on the hot Rangoon. Students took us aside to across the Gulf of Thailand to
fascinating culture, art and archi- pavements. The thin arms of their covertly whisper in our ears their Malaysia.