On the Hippie Trail: looking back
What
motivated those hundreds of thousands of young people to travel
overland to India and Nepal?
Low-budget travelling to far away
places such as the Middle East had become popular among an
avant-garde of the European youth since the nineteen
fifties. They had developed a fancy for the
adventurous
life on the road and the exotic lands and peoples to be encountered. It was only
a matter of time before the road to India became a target of their
exploratory drive. In the same period, the first buses appeared on
the overland route to Asia. Details are to be found in the book by Rory
MacLean (see below).
On the other side of the North Atlantic, Jack Kerouac rose
to fame with his autobiographical hitchhiker's Odyssey On the Road (1957) and came up with
the vision of a 'Rucksack Revolution', followed by beat poet Allen Ginsberg,
who made a trip to India in the early sixties. This so-called 'Beat
Generation' inspired young Americans in the sixties. During that decade, popular
culture developed a taste for spiritual
enlightenment, culminating in the psychedelic
movement and a growing interest in the religions of the East.
In addition, the gloomy perspective of being drafted for the Vietnam War,
provided an incentive for young American males to hit the road.
Fueled by the 'Summer
of Love'
(1967) and the trip the Beatles took to India half a year later,
'going to India' became a cult. Hippie Trail travellers constituted a
fairly heterogeneous crowd. For the sake of argument, two stereotypes are distinguished here, while
in reality the variety in backgrounds and motives was, of course, much greater. The
regular travellers, mainly students and people in a career break, were
joined by
hardcore dropouts - the genuine hippies. While the former usually knew
how to deal with the logistics
and hazards of
travelling, the latter often did not. They easlily ran into trouble,
such as cash shortage and problems with the authorities. Quite a few
overstayed their visas or were arrested for travelling by train without
a ticket. Drugs were another source of trouble. Some
of them got busted for possession already in Istanbul,
which would usually - as we all know since Midnight
Express - turn into a nightmare.
However, as the book
by
David Tomory (see below) suggests, most hippies found their
way. They
became long-stay residents in Kathmandu,
Dharamsala, Rishikesh, Goa and so on. Some of them found
a guru or got involved in a religious community, while others
lived in
some hippie commune without much interaction with the local
population. Like the regular
travellers, the vast majority of hippies eventually returned home and
became respectable
citizens.
Some of the returning Hippie Trail travellers brought their diaries and
pictures. Carrying a camera was, however, considered 'uncool' by most of the hippies. They often brought home only their memories.
Anyway, the veterans seem to have kept their stories all for themselves.
Books on the Hippie Trail are rare. The ones I came across are listed
below.
Comments and additions
are
welcome.
Hippie Trail veterans in particular are invited to post their stories here.
Literature
Aartsen, Gerard (2021), 'Van Nederland naar Nepal - en weer terug', Website
Adventures on the Trail in 1977-'78 (in English and Dutch)
Alphen, Frank van (2008), 'Hippie Trail, reizen in de seventies', Walburg Pers
Adventures on the Trail in 1975 and 1979 (in Dutch)
Axel, Birgit (1970), 'H', Flammarion
Personal
account of a French girl on the Hippie Trail (in French)
Davis, Gerald (2014?), 'Far Away Places with Strange Sounding Names', pennoverlandstory@bigpond.com
Ginsberg, Allen (1970), 'Indian Journals', Grove Press, New York
Prelude
from the early sixties by the renowned American Beat poet
Heutink, Ellen (2019), 'Eindpunt: U-Tapao', Sylfaen, Lobith
Personal
account of a Dutch girl on the Hippie Trail (in Dutch)
MacLean, Rory (2006), 'Magic
Bus: On the
Hippie Trail from London to India', Viking
Retracing
on foot and by bus the wide-eyed Hippie Trail adventures along the
route reopened for the first time in a generation. Crossing a region
swept through extraordinary and turbulent changes since the Summer of
Love.
Moore, Peter (2005), 'The
Wrong Way Home: London to Sidney the Hard Way', Bantam Book Ltd.
London
to Sydney in 25 countries - that's the task that Peter Moore, an
Australian working in England, set himself. The catch was that he had
to travel overland, no flights allowed within a budget of five thousand
Australian dollars. Because of "pure, unadulterated hippy envy" he
attempts to discover the music, sex and drugs of the 60s hippy trail. The Wrong Way Home tells the story of his journey through
Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
Purcell, Conor (2019), 'The Rise and Fall of the Hippie Trail', Open Skies, October volume, Motivate Media Group, Dubai
Szuveges, Grant (2014), 'The Overland Hippie Trail to India and Nepal in the 1960s and 1970s',
Thesis submitted as part of the Final Honours Examination History Program, La Trobe University, Melbourne [.pdf]
Theroux, Paul (1975), 'The
Great Railway Bazaar',
Ballantine, New York
Doing
the Hippie Trail was not synonimous with travelling by train. But except for Afghanistan - more precisely: between Mashhad and the
Khyber Pass - and some minor disruptions, the whole trip from Western Europe to India and beyond could be
made by train. There were few Hippie Trail travellers
who did not, at least now and then, take the train. That is the
connection between this book by Paul Theroux, which deals almost
exclusively with the railway experience (in 1973), and the Hippie Trail.
Tomory, David (1998), 'A
Season in Heaven: True tales from the Road to Kathmandu', Lonely Planet Publications,
Melbourne
The
author, himself a veteran of the
road to Kathmandu, interviewed a variety of former travellers who went
looking for enlightenment and descovered a world that changed their
lives.
More titles are to be found in Wikipedia
Video
Some interesting video material on the Hippie Trail is available on YouTube
More Hippie
Trail: Europe | Home
©
Hans Roodenburg (The
Netherlands), 2006
hansroodenburg.nl
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