The Hippie Trail - 1974

‘Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.’ The Hippie Trail - England to India - the perfect overland adventure! Writer Simon Sharpe makes you the armchair traveller as he fills you with true travellers tales and anecdotes from a world now lost in time. You cannot take this route now or even probably for the rest of this century. For Islamic fundamentalism in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan would not allow you to safely pass through. But 50 years ago the journey was a rite of passage in the life of many youth from North America and Western Europe. Did you do this journey? Maybe your parents did? Take the journey now with Simon! Simon travelled solo on a tight budget in the summer of 1974 and then sat down with a tape recorder one year later before memory faded. His recently discovered tape recordings bring us his descriptive memories of the countries, cheap hotels, the food, the cultural divides, the local people and the western adventurers for whom this was a significant part of their youth experience. Simon collected all his bus, coach and train tickets from Istanbul to India. His passport stamps from Afghanistan and other documents are on display in this book. Full of anecdotes and sharp observations of the people he met, Simon also includes stories of adventurers from his own family history in Africa, India and Afghanistan in the 19th and 20th centuries to create a fascinating refection on his own motives for travelling. He also asks the awkward questions; To what extent did western hippie youth, travelling through those westernising Muslim countries inadvertently change the politics of the region? Did Muslin clerics see the decadence of hippie tourists becoming a threat to Islamic ideals, and did that persuade them to take back control and enforce strict Islamic teaching on their peoples?