Atlantica - 01.06.2006, Page 57

56 AT L A N T I CA
ENCLAVEa
and the adrenaline flowing;” a feeling that was “very
Heaven to be the first wave of the most extraordi-
nary kids in the history of the world.”
These were ordinary kids who faced almost no
unemployment, who feared no hunger, who had
the chance to imagine a world without boundaries.
In their search for a new way of living, these lucky
Westerners looked east to Asia, to Buddhism and
Hinduism, for a more serene and ancient creed.
On the journey towards India’s ashrams and
Nepal’s snow-capped mountain kingdom, the
Intrepids lit sticks of incense, played their guitars and
read another chapter of Siddhartha, then stepped off
the bus to 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.
Their route 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 1700 years. St Paul, Alexander the
Great and Marco Polo had all trekked along parts of
its dusty path. By the 1970s, it was magic buses, not
saints or nomadic traders’ caravans, that spanned
west and east. With pop music tumbling out of
their open windows and banners fluttering in the
wind, their trend-setting passage planted the seeds
of Turkish tourism, reaffirmed travel as education,
conjured India into the hip destination. Icelandair’s
predecessor, Loftleidir – Icelandic Airlines, played its
part in the revolution too, its turboprop aircraft and
competitive fares (summed up in the slogan “Slower
but Lower”) carrying tens of thousands of young
Americans to Luxembourg. An easy day’s hitchhik-
ing took them from there to Amsterdam and the
Delhi-bound magic buses.
Today the trail’s legacy also endures in the form of
our most essential travel accessory. Before the 1970s
no independent travel guidebook had ventured east
of Istanbul. On the trail, travel advice was spread by
At the weekly Anjuna Market in Goa, travelers
bought and sold souvenirs, clothes, drugs and
passports. “Goa was a paradise in those days,”
recalled one hippie trail veteran. “We found
a little piece of heaven. We didn’t realize then
that our actions would be remembered long
after we were gone.”
PHOTOGRAPHER: JONATHAN BENYON 1975
On the far left in Athens is Graham Bourne,
a driver for the original Magic Bus Company.
On his right is Tom, a Canadian now living in
India. Tom was a driver for Magic Bus’s main
competitor, the equally illegal Sunshine Travel.
Two days before Tom had wrecked his bus – a
Setra 6 – by running into a parked trailer in the
dark. Graham is smuggling him out of Greece.
On entry into Greece each vehicle used to be
stamped in the driver’s passport, stopping him
from selling it and leaving the country.
PHOTOGRAPHER: GRAHAM BOURNE
The Lale ‘Pudding Shop’ in Istanbul was
the first ‘bottleneck’ on the hippie trail.
Everyone stopped here to trade travel
news, to get advice on the trail heading
east and to eat sutlac rice pudding. Inside
the restaurant was a noticeboard which
everyone read. ‘Gentle deviant, 21, seeks
guitar playing chick ready to set out for
mystical East,’ read one message. ‘Anyone
know where to crash in Kabul?’ asked
another. At times, the notices were so
thickly layered that nails rather than tacks
had to be used.
American Joan Rippe, on the right, made
it as far as Tehran where she got a job
with Bell Helicopter. The next year, 1979,
she had to be airlifted out to escape the
Iranian Revolution. She now lives in Santa
Cruz. On the left in the glasses is Carol
Matthews, an Australian. She is now a
solicitor specialising in labour relations in
New South Wales.
PHOTOGRAPHER: CURT GIBBS 1978
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