On the road again

Intrepids – that’s what I call them: the travellers who opened the road for us. In the 60s and 70s hundreds of thousands of intrepid Western kids, in flares and open-toe sandals, crossed Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach India and the dawn of a new age. 

Few could afford to fly; most went overland, crossing Asia alone or in small groups by whichever mode of transport suited their budget, their whim, their state of mind. Clapped-out VW Campers, retired Royal Mail vans, throaty Enfields, double-decker Routemasters and psychedelic Bedfords: it was the weirdest procession of unroadworthy vehicles ever to roll and rock across the face of the earth.

After the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, the ‘hash-and-hepatitis’ trail reopened for the first time in almost 30 years. I’d been born too late to join the ori ginal Intrepids. I’d spent the Summer of Love in a paddling pool in our backyard, not in a tepee at Glastonbury. But the 60s moulded my life in their irreverent creativity, soaring optimism and unforgettable music. 

Within a few weeks of the last bomb falling on Kabul, I lifted my thumb to hitch east, sniffing the air for the lingering aroma of patchouli. I saw an opportunity not only to capture the spirit and stories of those diverse and idealistic years, but also to discover why that route had caught the imagination of a generation.

At Asia’s edge

My five-month journey by local buses, trains and cars began in the shadow of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque at the Pudding Shop. This small, innocuous patisserie had been the first meeting point on the trail.

Here paradise-bound Intrepids in Apache headbands and paisley waistcoats stopped for sweet, baked rice sütlaç and to trade travel advice. On its legendary noticeboard they found the address of the nearest Turkish bath and checked out the safest route through Afghanistan. 

‘Gentle deviant, 21, seeks guitar-playing chick ready to set out for mystical East,’ read one message. ‘Anyone know where to crash in Tehran?’ asked another. In the years before independent travel guides – Lonely Planet founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler didn’t complete the trail until 1972 – travellers relied on noticeboards and word of mouth.

Those heady days are remembered with wonderment by owners Namik and Adem Çolpan. “In your book you can write that the hippies discovered Turkey,” they told me over frothy black kahve and baklava topped with green pistachios. “And that Turkish tourism started in our pastane.”

800 kilometres further east, Cappadocia was the next essential stopping point. In this moonscape of honeycombed cliffs and extraordinary, mushroom-capped stone towers, unnumbered generations have taken sanctuary from wolves, Romans and the consumer society. In its caves, early Christians carved as many as 400 hideaways, chapels and basilicas. 

During medieval times the valleys became one of the principal monastic centres of the Byzantine Empire. In the 60s Cappadocia provided sanctuary for many Intrepids, also giving them a safe place to explore a utopian way of life. They unrolled their sleeping bags in the sun-baked ravines, and sat up all night playing guitars and watching the sensuous colours of the rock surfaces change hue in the dawn’s shifting light.

“That summer people put up their tents and banners, which in this fantasyland was amazing,” one loquacious veteran traveller told me. She had returned to Turkey to reminisce about her own Summer of Love. “There were Japanese glass chimes, little Tibetan prayer flags, cats doing Zhao Zen meditation, couples promising to love each other under the stars and under heaven.” She took a deep breath. “It was cosmic.”

Today Cappadocia is more down-to-earth, with a Flintstones Bar and Bedrock Travel Agency. But, as the most easterly point of the Turkish backpacking circuit, it remains a magnet for travellers – whether or not they’re searching for enlightenment. 

Born to Iran

Like the Intrepids before me, I followed the old Asia Overland trail: part Silk Road, part web of desert caravan tracks; above all a vital commercial and cultural highway carved out over 1,700 years. Alexander the Great, Marco Polo and a sentimental Englishman named Rudy all travelled along parts of its dusty path. I encountered Rudy in Tehran. 

A former coach driver, he had helped to drive “that long line of loonies” from London to India, roaring across Asia more than 30 times aboard his Last Silver Dart (‘LSD’) bus. In Sa’d Abad, the lush and lofty park that was once the Shah’s summer garden, he remembered also carrying “dentists, shop assistants, council workers, people who’d spent all their lives in an office and had never left the UK. All of them were looking for an Adventure. I couldn’t let the trip be just a bus ride for them. I had to knock them out with foreign vibes.”

Like many drivers, Rudy installed a high-fidelity stereo system in his bus, playing bouzouki music in Greece and arabesk songs in Turkey, cranking up the volume until the windows blew out on the Caspian road.

I also heard echoes of the 60s in Esfahan, the most splendidly proportioned city in the world. With its sublime Khomeini Square, exquisite Persian architecture and spontaneous hospitality, the former capital is reason enough to visit Iran. Here in the Shah Mosque, five bold Iranian Pink Floyd fans unexpectedly sang me a rendition of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’.

Through the Khyber past

Across the border in Afghanistan there remains little evidence of the hippies’ passage. Revolution and wars have consigned memories and monuments to history: the Bamiyan Buddhas; Sigi’s restaurant in Kabul with its schnitzel and hookahs; the legendary Afghan border policeman who lay on a string bed on the customs shed veranda, greeting the first global nomads with the question: “Do you have hashish, my friend? No? Then you buy from me. First quality. Welcome to Afghanistan.” 

Once over the Khyber Pass, the subcontinent still echoes the 60s heartbeat. In Pakistan I broke bread with a one-time dope-smoking Trinidadian who converted to Islam and became an imam – because of Bob Dylan. In India the son of an Anglesey lighthouse-keeper tried to teach me to play the sitar. The original Intrepids had arrived here with a feeling of homecoming, as much to themselves as to the country.

After the long and narrow overland trail the road broadened out into a hundred cities and a thousand choices. Some travellers headed to Rajasthan; others went to Kashmir’s lakes, usually asleep on third-class carriage luggage racks. Many stopped for a night at Mrs Bhandari’s Guesthouse, an oasis of serenity and (affordable) ‘bourgeoise’ luxury in Amritsar. 

Today Mrs Bhandari – at the age of 98 one of the world’s most enduring and idiosyncratic innkeepers – welcomes newcomers as warmly as she did freaks, diplomats and the Dalai Lama’s entourage. Her establishment has changed little since the 60s – indeed, since 1930 when she first moved in – with its English garden, dung fires in winter, breakfasts of papaya and toast with homemade jams. Her photo albums – spanning half a century of Grand Trunk Road tourism – are as legendary as was the Pudding Shop’s noticeboard.

Ganges & gurus

Almost every Dharma bum came to India to find a guru. The search might begin in Varanasi, in a houseboat or ashram on the banks of the Mother Ganges. Or in Pune, as a disciple of Bhagwan Rajneesh, in whose hedonistic community thousands bonked their way to fulfilment. 

Other spiritual tourists might have checked out Haridwar, where plump, 13-year-old Guru Maharaj Ji promised to Give Knowledge, or rambled south to Puttaparthi where Sai Baba conjured holy ash – vibutti – out of thin air. 

I chose to visit Rishikesh, the City of Saints. In 1968 the Beatles came here with Donovan, Mike Love of the Beach Boys and a trailer-load of Hollywood movie stars. For five weeks they lived at the Maharishi’s Academy for Transcendental Meditation. As well as filling – as Paul McCartney later said – “a little bit of emptiness in our souls, a lack of spiritual fulfilment”, those few weeks were a period of remarkable creativity. Nearly all the songs that would appear on The White Album and Abbey Road were composed beside the Ganges. The phenomenal success of their music was the single greatest factor in conjuring India and Nepal into the hip destinations for a generation. 

Today, beyond its Hobbit-like gatehouse, the Academy is deserted. Vines smother the main buildings. Saplings displace the cobblestones. The terraced gardens are wild with weeds and howling monkeys. 

But a visitor can pick out the original lecture hall where the Beatles received instructions from the ‘giggling guru’. Next door to it is the ruined bungalow where Prudence, Mia Farrow’s reclusive sister, stayed. At her front door Lennon wrote, then sang with McCartney, ‘Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play...’

While only a few dedicated overlanders still venture to Rishikesh, all of them push on to Nepal. In the 60s the search for an individual paradise must have seemed a real possibility here, away from India’s crowds, in the clear mountain air, among a people of legendary kindness. 

In Kathmandu the Magic Buses used to park along Basantapur Square. Their passengers checked into the Inn Eden, the Hotchpotch or the Matchbox. At the Bakery (with its sacred dhuni fire and I Ching hexagrams as well as the best record player in Nepal) newcomers debated how best to heal the world. Others smoked Mustang and Manali downstairs at the Eden Hash Centre, lighting their pipes with Flying Horse matches that exploded and burned holes in their trousers. 

Understanding overlanding

Four decades on, the Asia Overland route remains one of the most rewarding and diverse journeys in the world, reaching from the edge of Europe to the rooftop of the world, stretching across 10,000km, six countries and three world religions. Many experienced travellers regard Nepal – the end of the road – as their favourite destination, coming back again and again to hike in the Himalayas and chill out in Pokhara, exploring time-worn temples and going for a whitewater-rafting adrenalin rush. 

Though visitors are unlikely to find paradise, the snow-capped mountain kingdom hasn’t lost its spiritual quality. On the terrace of Kathmandu’s great Swayambhunath temple, gazing toward the ring of mountains, a deeply contented, long-time Irish resident told me, “Most of us came to Nepal for the mountains and stayed for the people. When I arrived I fell in love with those peaks. I wanted to know the name of every one, and the names of the gods who live there. Way over there somewhere...” he gestured towards Tibet, “...is Mount Kailash, the spiritual centre of the universe. Man, it’s from there that the gods descend from heaven. A stairway from heaven to my doorstep.”

On the journey along the world’s wildest and oldest trail, the Intrepids lit sticks of incense, strummed their guitars and read another chapter of Siddhartha, then stepped off the busto help push the decrepit vehicle over the Hindu Kush. 

None of them had travel insurance. No one had heard of Aids. Nobody worried if the radiator blew out in Anatolia. No one had a schedule or was in a hurry, not least because most bus drivers passed around a chillum pipe before breakfast. On some days the coaches seemed to levitate across border posts. 

A generation’s wide-eyed adventures transformed both their lives and the countries they traversed, unleashing forces that changed forever the way we travel – and view – the world. We still live with the consequences of those journeys. For better or for worse, we are now the Intrepids.

Rory MacLean’s book Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India is published in paperback by Penguin. Check out www.rorymaclean.com. If you rode the original Magic Bus yourself, meet old friends and relive those memories: link to the Hippie Trail online group through www.magicbus.info