K. Lang-Slattery's Blog, page 3

A Room with a View in Mumbai (Part 4 of Return to India)

From Mumbai on, Una and I would be women traveling on our own in India.  We were both nervous and excited.

I had been in charge of planning and organizing this part of our adventure.  Because I retained pleasant memories of the waterfront area of Mumbai from my previous trip twenty-eight years before, I felt that would be the perfect area for us to stay. I had made reservations at a mid-class hotel, a few blocks beyond and several steps of luxury down, from the famous Taj Hotel.

When we arrived at the airport slightly before midnight, a representative from the hotel stood among the waiting crowds with a placard scrawled with “SLATTERY” in large, black letters.  This was a good sign.

We bid a hasty farewell to our Elderhostel group and followed our new Indian guide.  Our taxi wound through streets alive with crowds celebrating a holiday dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of new beginnings—a most auspicious omen for us.  After some time, I recognized the arch of the Gateway of India ahead, a black silhouette against the moon-sparkled water of the harbor.  We drove past the iconic Taj Hotel, its façade aglow with lights, and continued down the dark road lined with spreading mango and banyan trees.

The taxi stopped in front of an unimpressive, three-story building with a single light and a neon sign to welcome travelers.  The check-in desk was efficient and we were soon in a tiny elevator that clanked loudly as we rose upward.  I was surprised when the door of the elevator opened and we found ourselves on a flat roof.  Half the area was filled with tables and chairs and a small bar counter, all deserted at this late hour. Only a few feet across from the elevator door, a rough structure dominated the remainder of the roof.  Our porter fumbled with an old lock in the wooden door of this stucco box and waved for us to enter.  He handed me the key, returned to the elevator, and disappeared from sight.

The room, most likely originally meant as servants quarters, was not more than ten feet by eight feet.  It allowed barely enough space to walk around the one double bed. A single, hard-backed chair stood in the corner and a narrow ledge that would never support our heavy luggage was nailed below the window.   In the minuscule bathroom, the water pipe jutted out of the wall without a shower head or an enclosure.  The room’s one window opened onto the café/bar, quiet now but surely a gathering place most evenings.

Una and I looked at each other in horror.  We hadn’t expected the comforts of the last few weeks with our tour group, but this wasn’t the new beginning we had hoped for.  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “I’ll go downstairs and beg for a better room. Wait for me.”

As I descended to the ground floor, I could only hope that there was another room available so late at night.  If not, we would have to sleep in this cubicle and find something better in the morning.

I faced the sleepy desk clerk with determination. “The room is too small for two women with big luggage,” I said firmly.

The clerk looked glum. “Nothing else available,” he said with a wag of his head.

I insisted on the impossibility of our staying in the room we had been given. “If you have nothing, you must help me call someplace else and find a better room. We can not stay in the room on the roof!”

With another shake of his head, the clerk lifted the phone and made a call. I couldn’t understand his Hindi, but he seemed agitated. After several minutes, he hung up and said, “I have found something here for you.  It’s a much better room, but it’s not ready for guests. You must wait a few minutes.”

I explained that I would return to the roof to get my sister and our luggage. “Yes, yes, Memsahib,” he said.  “Meet me on the third floor in ten minutes.” When we arrived there, it was obvious the room had been in use as a lounge for the hotel employees.  Two men besides the clerk were scurrying about, straightening the bed-covers, dumping the waste containers, emptying ashtrays, gathering up dirty tea cups and water glasses, and removing used towels. But the room was big, there were two full sized beds, a decent bathroom, and a door that opened to a small balcony overlooking the street and the harbor. It was after one o’clock in the morning and we didn’t care that the wrinkled bedspreads were probably soiled and that dust balls lingered in the corners.

We were exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the lumpy pillows.

Earlier than I would have wished, I awakened to loud cawing. Una was already up and I joined her on our little balcony. Ten or twelve large crows circled over a nearby mango tree making a racket. Below in the street, a scrawny monkey scurried along the nearby docks. We watched as the poor creature scampered down the road, the flock of crows in pursuit.

We came to love our room with a view. It was an easy walk to the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel with its upscale shops and twenty-four-hour café. Across the street, a concrete wharf hosted parties most evenings under a pavilion a-twinkle with strings of lights.  Beyond that, the silvery-blue waters of the bay stretched to a hazy horizon.  And, if we awoke early enough, we could greet the sun from our east facing balcony. Pre-dawn, the bay lay blanketed in haze, the gray shapes of ships ghostly. Suddenly, where the silver of the sea bled into the gray of the sky, the orange morning sun would emerge.  As the fiery orb rose, it created a molten path of reflected light that led directly toward our window.

Much can be said about hotel rooms, but, for me, a pleasant location and a balcony with a water view always top my list.

The post A Room with a View in Mumbai (Part 4 of Return to India) appeared first on Klang Slattery.

A Room with a View in Mumbai

From Mumbai on, Una and I would be women traveling on our own in India.  We were both nervous and excited.

I had been in charge of planning and organizing this part of our adventure.  Because I retained pleasant memories of the waterfront area of Mumbai from my previous trip twenty-eight years before, I felt that would be the perfect area for us to stay. I had made reservations at a mid-class hotel, a few blocks beyond and several steps of luxury down, from the famous Taj Hotel.

When we arrived at the airport slightly before midnight, a representative from the hotel stood among the waiting crowds with a placard scrawled with “SLATTERY” in large, black letters.  This was a good sign.

We bid a hasty farewell to our Elderhostel group and followed our new Indian guide.  Our taxi wound through streets alive with crowds celebrating a holiday dedicated to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of new beginnings—a most auspicious omen for us.  After some time, I recognized the arch of the Gateway of India ahead, a black silhouette against the moon-sparkled water of the harbor.  We drove past the iconic Taj Hotel, its façade aglow with lights, and continued down the dark road lined with spreading mango and banyan trees.

The taxi stopped in front of an unimpressive, three-story building with a single light and a neon sign to welcome travelers.  The check-in desk was efficient and we were soon in a tiny elevator that clanked loudly as we rose upward.  I was surprised when the door of the elevator opened and we found ourselves on a flat roof.  Half the area was filled with tables and chairs and a small bar counter, all deserted at this late hour. Only a few feet across from the elevator door, a rough structure dominated the remainder of the roof.  Our porter fumbled with an old lock in the wooden door of this stucco box and waved for us to enter.  He handed me the key, returned to the elevator, and disappeared from sight.

The room, most likely originally meant as servants quarters, was not more than ten feet by eight feet.  It allowed barely enough space to walk around the one double bed. A single, hard-backed chair stood in the corner and a narrow ledge that would never support our heavy luggage was nailed below the window.   In the minuscule bathroom, the water pipe jutted out of the wall without a shower head or an enclosure.  The room’s one window opened onto the café/bar, quiet now but surely a gathering place most evenings.

Una and I looked at each other in horror.  We hadn’t expected the comforts of the last few weeks with our tour group, but this wasn’t the new beginning we had hoped for.  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “I’ll go downstairs and beg for a better room. Wait for me.”

As I descended to the ground floor, I could only hope that there was another room available so late at night.  If not, we would have to sleep in this cubicle and find something better in the morning.

I faced the sleepy desk clerk with determination. “The room is too small for two women with big luggage,” I said firmly.

The clerk looked glum. “Nothing else available,” he said with a wag of his head.

I insisted on the impossibility of our staying in the room we had been given. “If you have nothing, you must help me call someplace else and find a better room. We can not stay in the room on the roof!”

With another shake of his head, the clerk lifted the phone and made a call. I couldn’t understand his Hindi, but he seemed agitated. After several minutes, he hung up and said, “I have found something here for you.  It’s a much better room, but it’s not ready for guests. You must wait a few minutes.”

I explained that I would return to the roof to get my sister and our luggage. “Yes, yes, Memsahib,” he said.  “Meet me on the third floor in ten minutes.” When we arrived there, it was obvious the room had been in use as a lounge for the hotel employees.  Two men besides the clerk were scurrying about, straightening the bed-covers, dumping the waste containers, emptying ashtrays, gathering up dirty tea cups and water glasses, and removing used towels. But the room was big, there were two full sized beds, a decent bathroom, and a door that opened to a small balcony overlooking the street and the harbor. It was after one o’clock in the morning and we didn’t care that the wrinkled bedspreads were probably soiled and that dust balls lingered in the corners.

We were exhausted and fell asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the lumpy pillows.

Earlier than I would have wished, I awakened to loud cawing. Una was already up and I joined her on our little balcony. Ten or twelve large crows circled over a nearby mango tree making a racket. Below in the street, a scrawny monkey scurried along the nearby docks. We watched as the poor creature scampered down the road, the flock of crows in pursuit.

We came to love our room with a view. It was an easy walk to the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel with its upscale shops and twenty-four-hour café. Across the street, a concrete wharf hosted parties most evenings under a pavilion a-twinkle with strings of lights.  Beyond that, the silvery-blue waters of the bay stretched to a hazy horizon.  And, if we awoke early enough, we could greet the sun from our east facing balcony. Pre-dawn, the bay lay blanketed in haze, the gray shapes of ships ghostly. Suddenly, where the silver of the sea bled into the gray of the sky, the orange morning sun would emerge.  As the fiery orb rose, it created a molten path of reflected light that led directly toward our window.

Much can be said about hotel rooms, but, for me, a pleasant location and a balcony with a water view always top my list.

The post A Room with a View in Mumbai appeared first on Klang Slattery.

Finally Rajasthan (Part 3 of Return to India)

After five days in Northern India seeing the iconic sites of the classic Mogul emperors, we headed west.  Finally, I would see Rajasthan. The largest state in India, it hugs the Pakistani border and much of it consists of the inhospitable Thar Desert.  Once the home of the Rajput maharajas, Rajasthan literally means “the land of Kings.”

In the early morning of our sixth day in India, we boarded a bus and set off for Jaipur, the state capital.  Tom and I had journeyed along this same road on our way to Delhi in 1972.  At that time, the two-lane highway had been undergoing improvements and I remembered the women who labored there.  Dressed in long, full skirts, the bright colors dulled by dust, the women carried baskets of stones on their heads or squatted in the dirt as they broke rocks into small pieces with a hammer.  Now the highway was broader and the pavement smooth.  Still the shoulder consisted mainly of dry dirt, concrete rubble, or ditches filled with weeds.

Our bus was comfortably roomy for our group, but its best feature, in my view, was a kind of “side-kick” folding bench on the left of the ample cab.  In the morning, several members of the group spent a few minutes there in order to snap photos of the passing traffic.   In the afternoon, satiated by a good lunch and groggy with the heat, my fellow travelers were content to stay in their seats where they napped, read guide books, and watched India through the smudged windows.  For the entire afternoon, I reigned as queen of the jump-seat, sitting up front with the driver and the “door-man.”

From my perch, I had a clear view of the road ahead and on both sides. I wondered what I would see that was different from those earlier days . . . or if I would find it much the same. The cab was hot and the bench was hard and offered no back-rest, yet I loved every minute.  Outside the window, India was on display, the sights both exotic and familiar to me.   I found myself transported back to that first trip and I felt the same excitement and wonder I had experienced when I was twenty-nine.

Here are some of the sights I saw:

Lots of camel carts. They roll ponderously along on large rubber truck tires and carry loads of all kinds—everything from logs of Acacia wood to sacks of grain. The cart drivers sit on the front of the cart with one leg tucked under them, their loose sarong-like dhotis pulled up to expose brown legs. Camel carts lumber along, pulled by the long-legged beasts at a plodding pace. Once we stopped in traffic with a cart so close I could nod and wave at the turbaned mahout.Also, lots of tractors pulling loaded carts. The heavy, farm vehicles seem to have replaced many of the bullocks and water-buffalo we saw on the roads in 1972.  I wonder, do tractors now pull plows or is that work still the purview of animals?Skeletons of several large cows. Their carcasses, picked clean by dogs and buzzards, lie in a roadside ditch, the bare ribs sticking up above the weeds.Men and women gathering at water pumps near their village entrance. The women collect water in jugs and recycled cooking-oil tins. They lift the heavy containers gracefully to their heads and carry them home.  At the end of the work day, men in water drenched dhotis lather up under the same taps. They rinse off by dumping buckets of clear water over their heads.  These late-afternoon rituals seem unchanged.

I was still enjoying my special seat when we entered Jaipur.  The bus climbed a narrow road lined with old buildings where court musicians used to play whenever the Maharaja arrived in the city. Our hotel overlooked a lake and the surrounding hills . . . . a clear upgrade from van camping in PWD enclosures.  We only stayed a day in Jaipur but that day was filled with sightseeing, highlighted by an elephant ride up the steep entrance to the Amber Fort.

A brief early morning flight brought us to Jodhpur and more sightseeing and lectures, including one about the desert ecosystem. We learned about trees that can go thirty years without water, the importance of livestock (mainly sheep, goats, and camels), and grains, like millet, that need little water and also produce animal fodder.

The rest of the week was filled with the sights and smells of Rajasthan I had longed to experience.

At the “Clock Tower” market, stacks of vegetables and hills of spices filled the open stalls. I missed my microbus kitchen that would have allowed me to buy supplies and cook a meal. The market was crowded with shoppers and porters. Once we had to step aside to allow a lumbering elephant to pass.

One morning, we drove in jeeps across dry countryside to a weavers’ and potters’ enclave.

As we approached the village, our line of vehicles was joined by a parade of children and adults who waved and shouted greetings. The village elder, his thick glasses held together with tape, greeted us formally.  He took us to a weaver’s home where the artisan demonstrated his pit loom sunk into the ground. At the potters’ workshop, we watched a bone-thin worker form huge jugs by hand. We sat on rugs in the village center and listened to a music performance.

Later we visited the local school, little more than a wide dirt space surrounded by low walls of dried mud. In the middle stood a concrete-topped cistern. A small awning jutted from one wall to create a patch of shade.  The children, all dressed in white shirts and red skirts or shorts, sat in the dirt of the dusty rectangle to recite their lessons. At the end of a lesson, the children clustered around us, laughing and holding out their hands.  I gave out handfuls of pencils I had brought from home for this purpose.

On the bus trip between Jodhpur and Udaipur, we stopped far from any village. We tramped along a narrow pathway, across a dirt field, and past an ancient waterwheel.    A group of colorfully costumed local singers, musicians and dancers waited for us near a spreading Khejri tree.   There, surrounded by farmland, we enjoyed a performance of drums, lutes, and dancing girls.  As the dancers swayed, their vivid saris  swirled in the hot air and the gold threaded borders sparkled in the sun.  The tinkle of tiny cymbals attached to the dancers’ fingers and feet accompanied each graceful movement.

In Udaipur, at a hotel more elegant than our usual, we enjoyed a sumptuous banquet. An after-dinner lecture explained traditional clothing and how dress reveals a person’s background, education, and class status in Indian village culture. Our beloved guide, Prakesh, demonstrated how to wrap a man’s turban and dhoti. A young woman from the hotel showed how to wear a sari, using Una as the mannikin. The next evening, after shopping at a huge store filled with fabrics and art, Una and I dressed up for the group’s farewell dinner. She wore a newly-purchased sari and I sported my new, custom-fitted, blue cotton shalwar kameez (basically a long tunic over ballooning pants).

We parted from the Elderhostel group in Bombay.  Soon Una and I would be traveling on our own in India.  I was confident we were ready.

The post Finally Rajasthan (Part 3 of Return to India) appeared first on Klang Slattery.

Finally Rajasthan (part 3 of Return to India)

After five days in Northern India seeing the iconic sites of the classic Mogul emperors, we headed west.  Finally, I would see Rajasthan. The largest state in India, it hugs the Pakistani border and much of it consists of the inhospitable Thar Desert.  Once the home of the Rajput maharajas, Rajasthan literally means “the land of Kings.”

In the early morning of our sixth day in India, we boarded a bus and set off for Jaipur, the state capital.  Tom and I had journeyed along this same road on our way to Delhi in 1972.  At that time, the two-lane highway had been undergoing improvements and I remembered the women who labored there.  Dressed in long, full skirts, the bright colors dulled by dust, the women carried baskets of stones on their heads or squatted in the dirt as they broke rocks into small pieces with a hammer.  Now the highway was broader and the pavement smooth.  Still the shoulder consisted mainly of dry dirt, concrete rubble, or ditches filled with weeds.

Our bus was comfortably roomy for our group, but its best feature, in my view, was a kind of “side-kick” folding bench on the left of the ample cab.  In the morning, several members of the group spent a few minutes there in order to snap photos of the passing traffic.   In the afternoon, satiated by a good lunch and groggy with the heat, my fellow travelers were content to stay in their seats where they napped, read guide books, and watched India through the smudged windows.  For the entire afternoon, I reigned as queen of the jump-seat, sitting up front with the driver and the “door-man.”

From my perch, I had a clear view of the road ahead and on both sides. I wondered what I would see that was different from those earlier days . . . or if I would find it much the same. The cab was hot and the bench was hard and offered no back-rest, yet I loved every minute.  Outside the window, India was on display, the sights both exotic and familiar to me.   I found myself transported back to that first trip and I felt the same excitement and wonder I had experienced when I was twenty-nine.

Here are some of the sights I saw:

Lots of camel carts. They roll ponderously along on large rubber truck tires and carry loads of all kinds—everything from logs of Acacia wood to sacks of grain. The cart drivers sit on the front of the cart with one leg tucked under them, their loose sarong-like dhotis pulled up to expose brown legs. Camel carts lumber along, pulled by the long-legged beasts at a plodding pace. Once we stopped in traffic with a cart so close I could nod and wave at the turbaned mahout.Also, lots of tractors pulling loaded carts. The heavy, farm vehicles seem to have replaced many of the bullocks and water-buffalo we saw on the roads in 1972.  I wonder, do tractors now pull plows or is that work still the purview of animals?Skeletons of several large cows. Their carcasses, picked clean by dogs and buzzards, lie in a roadside ditch, the bare ribs sticking up above the weeds.Men and women gathering at water pumps near their village entrance. The women collect water in jugs and recycled cooking-oil tins. They lift the heavy containers gracefully to their heads and carry them home.  At the end of the work day, men in water drenched dhotis lather up under the same taps. They rinse off by dumping buckets of clear water over their heads.  These late-afternoon rituals seem unchanged.

I was still enjoying my special seat when we entered Jaipur.  The bus climbed a narrow road lined with old buildings where court musicians used to play whenever the Maharaja arrived in the city. Our hotel overlooked a lake and the surrounding hills . . . . a clear upgrade from van camping in PWD enclosures.  We only stayed a day in Jaipur but that day was filled with sightseeing, highlighted by an elephant ride up the steep entrance to the Amber Fort.

A brief early morning flight brought us to Jodhpur and more sightseeing and lectures, including one about the desert ecosystem. We learned about trees that can go thirty years without water, the importance of livestock (mainly sheep, goats, and camels), and grains, like millet, that need little water and also produce animal fodder.

The rest of the week was filled with the sights and smells of Rajasthan I had longed to experience.

At the “Clock Tower” market, stacks of vegetables and hills of spices filled the open stalls. I missed my microbus kitchen that would have allowed me to buy supplies and cook a meal. The market was crowded with shoppers and porters. Once we had to step aside to allow a lumbering elephant to pass.

One morning, we drove in jeeps across dry countryside to a weavers’ and potters’ enclave.

As we approached the village, our line of vehicles was joined by a parade of children and adults who waved and shouted greetings. The village elder, his thick glasses held together with tape, greeted us formally.  He took us to a weaver’s home where the artisan demonstrated his pit loom sunk into the ground. At the potters’ workshop, we watched a bone-thin worker form huge jugs by hand. We sat on rugs in the village center and listened to a music performance.

Later we visited the local school, little more than a wide dirt space surrounded by low walls of dried mud. In the middle stood a concrete-topped cistern. A small awning jutted from one wall to create a patch of shade.  The children, all dressed in white shirts and red skirts or shorts, sat in the dirt of the dusty rectangle to recite their lessons. At the end of a lesson, the children clustered around us, laughing and holding out their hands.  I gave out handfuls of pencils I had brought from home for this purpose.

On the bus trip between Jodhpur and Udaipur, we stopped far from any village. We tramped along a narrow pathway, across a dirt field, and past an ancient waterwheel.    A group of colorfully costumed local singers, musicians and dancers waited for us near a spreading Khejri tree.   There, surrounded by farmland, we enjoyed a performance of drums, lutes, and dancing girls.  As the dancers swayed, their vivid saris  swirled in the hot air and the gold threaded borders sparkled in the sun.  The tinkle of tiny cymbals attached to the dancers’ fingers and feet accompanied each graceful movement.

In Udaipur, at a hotel more elegant than our usual, we enjoyed a sumptuous banquet. An after-dinner lecture explained traditional clothing and how dress reveals a person’s background, education, and class status in Indian village culture. Our beloved guide, Prakesh, demonstrated how to wrap a man’s turban and dhoti. A young woman from the hotel showed how to wear a sari, using Una as the mannikin. The next evening, after shopping at a huge store filled with fabrics and art, Una and I dressed up for the group’s farewell dinner. She wore a newly-purchased sari and I sported my new, custom-fitted, blue cotton shalwar kameez (basically a long tunic over ballooning pants).

We parted from the Elderhostel group in Bombay.  Soon Una and I would be traveling on our own in India.  I was confident we were ready.

The post Finally Rajasthan (part 3 of Return to India) appeared first on Klang Slattery.

Elderhostel and Agra Revisited (Part 2 of Return to India)

After 28 years, I was again in India.  This time, rather than sharing a romantic adventure with my new husband, I was on an Elderhostel tour with my older sister, Una. I had reached the ripe age of 55, which at that time was the age the travel group considered elder-enough. Of course, younger travel partners were allowed to accompany their significant other, but Una and I both qualified on our own.

I had heard many great things about Elderhostel and I looked forward to the educational aspects of their program. But, it was my first time traveling with any type of tour-group and I felt a bit trepidatious about the group aspect of the trip.  I needn’t have worried.

I discovered on this trip there was much to like about Elderhostel/Road Scholar programs.  On five later trips with the organization, I have found the following to be generally the norm:

Average age of participants is around 65 or 70. The Road Scholar web-site currently says their travelers are “lifelong learners typically over the age of 50.”Some participants are Elderhostel devotees who have attended multiple programs.The ratio of women to men is about 2 to 1. Most of the male attendees are there with their wives. This is not the group to look for a romantic fling!The attendees are friendly, eager to learn, active, and non-complaining. Una and I tried to join a different group at each meal and to sit with different people each day on excursions.The guides are excellent, knowledgeable, and have good people-skills.“Lectures” by local specialists and experts are offered almost every day.Excursions are well-organized, use comfortable or exotic modes of transportation, and are always accompanied by a local guide who shares a depth of information and never seems to simply spout a memorized spiel.In India, besides bus and train, we rode in a tuk-tuk (a kind of motorcycle-powered taxi), in an army style jeep, in an antique auto from a maharaja’s collection, on the back of an elephant, and in a pony-cart.The food is excellent and always includes both western and local options.The accommodations are no longer dorms or youth-hostels. We stayed at three- and four-star hotels. In India, some of the hotels were almost luxurious.Most tours are all-inclusive so there are no surprises financially.

Our tour, named “Northern India, Crossroad of the World,” began in earnest on the first day with a lecture on India’s path to independence presented by a Gandhi scholar. Soon enough, we were in a comfortable bus taking in the sights of Delhi. Our first stop was the Red Fort which Tom and I had visited years before. Though the fort remained impressive, I remembered it as more stunningly beautiful. Could it be that on my earlier visit, I looked at all things through the rosy lens of love and the adventure of a lifetime?

After two days in the capital, our group boarded a train and headed for Agra.  I looked forward to seeing the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri again and hoped they would live up to the beauty of my memories.  This turned out to be another unfounded worry. The day in Agra made me fall in love again—this time with Elderhostel.

We were warned that if the weather report was good, we should be prepared for an early morning departure from the hotel. When the pre-dawn call came, we bundled up in sweaters, boarded our bus, and minutes later entered the Taj Mahal garden through the wooden gates.  In the pale light, we stood near the entrance, rubbed our icy hands together to warm them, and waited. We peered into thick, gray mist and glimpsed the shrouded form of one of the most famous tombs in the world. Gradually the mist lifted and the golden glow of sunrise revealed the Taj Mahal in all its glory. The reflecting pool shone silver in the pale light, with gardens on either side.  Between “ooohs” and “aahs,” we clicked our cameras and tried to capture the magical moment on film.

After viewing the gardens, we boarded the bus again and our guide promised that this was only the beginning. . . “The best will come this evening,” he promised with a broad grin.   I was familiar with the places we saw during the day and, though as lovely as I remembered, none were as glorious as the Taj Mahal at sunrise. Then in the late afternoon, we all piled into seven, matching white, Morris Minor taxis.

Our string of small vehicles sped through the narrow alleys of old Agra, bumping and lurching over ruts and around trucks, tuk-tuks, cows, ox carts, and pedestrians.   It felt like white-water rafting through humanity. We crossed the Jumna river on a narrow bridge, then headed across open fields to a village of low, thatched houses.   The taxis slowed to a crawl in the dirt lanes of the village, honking at every turn and intersection.  Finally, we stopped. Ahead stretched an expanse of hillocky, white sand, the river, and, on the other side, the Taj Mahal.

Dusk approached as we walked across the sand. We passed women carrying water jugs on their heads, tall, tied bundles of reeds, and rows of seedling watermelon vines planted in the river sand.  In the distance, on the far shore, smoke and flames rose up from the cremation grounds.  The mingled scents of burning wood and river damp filled the air.

At the water’s edge, we gazed across to the Taj, high on the far embankment. The white domes and minarets, gilded by the light of the setting sun, were reflected in the steel-blue water of the Jumna river.  The color of the tomb shifted from gold to amber, from amber to mauve, and to the deep blue of evening.  We wandered along the river bank as night descended and the heat of the day seeped out of the air.  It was a truly extra-ordinary evening, more beautiful than anything I had ever seen, even during those romantic years when Tom and I traveled in a van.

Now I couldn’t wait to see what else Elderhostel had in store.

The post Elderhostel and Agra Revisited (Part 2 of Return to India) appeared first on Klang Slattery.

Elderhostel and Agra Revisited

After 28 years, I was again in India.  This time, rather than sharing a romantic adventure with my new husband, I was on an Elderhostel tour with my older sister, Una. I had reached the ripe age of 55, which at that time was the age the travel group considered elder-enough. Of course, younger travel partners were allowed to accompany their significant other, but Una and I both qualified on our own.

I had heard many great things about Elderhostel and I looked forward to the educational aspects of their program. But, it was my first time traveling with any type of tour-group and I felt a bit trepidatious about the group aspect of the trip.  I needn’t have worried.

I discovered on this trip there was much to like about Elderhostel/Road Scholar programs.  On five later trips with the organization, I have found the following to be generally the norm:

Average age of participants is around 65 or 70. The Road Scholar web-site currently says their travelers are “lifelong learners typically over the age of 50.”Some participants are Elderhostel devotees who have attended multiple programs.The ratio of women to men is about 2 to 1. Most of the male attendees are there with their wives. This is not the group to look for a romantic fling!The attendees are friendly, eager to learn, active, and non-complaining. Una and I tried to join a different group at each meal and to sit with different people each day on excursions.The guides are excellent, knowledgeable, and have good people-skills.“Lectures” by local specialists and experts are offered almost every day.Excursions are well-organized, use comfortable or exotic modes of transportation, and are always accompanied by a local guide who shares a depth of information and never seems to simply spout a memorized spiel.In India, besides bus and train, we rode in a tuk-tuk (a kind of motorcycle-powered taxi), in an army style jeep, in an antique auto from a maharaja’s collection, on the back of an elephant, and in a pony-cart.The food is excellent and always includes both western and local options.The accommodations are no longer dorms or youth-hostels. We stayed at three- and four-star hotels. In India, some of the hotels were almost luxurious.Most tours are all-inclusive so there are no surprises financially.

Our tour, named “Northern India, Crossroad of the World,” began in earnest on the first day with a lecture on India’s path to independence presented by a Gandhi scholar. Soon enough, we were in a comfortable bus taking in the sights of Delhi. Our first stop was the Red Fort which Tom and I had visited years before. Though the fort remained impressive, I remembered it as more stunningly beautiful. Could it be that on my earlier visit, I looked at all things through the rosy lens of love and the adventure of a lifetime?

After two days in the capital, our group boarded a train and headed for Agra.  I looked forward to seeing the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri again and hoped they would live up to the beauty of my memories.  This turned out to be another unfounded worry. The day in Agra made me fall in love again—this time with Elderhostel.

We were warned that if the weather report was good, we should be prepared for an early morning departure from the hotel. When the pre-dawn call came, we bundled up in sweaters, boarded our bus, and minutes later entered the Taj Mahal garden through the wooden gates.  In the pale light, we stood near the entrance, rubbed our icy hands together to warm them, and waited. We peered into thick, gray mist and glimpsed the shrouded form of one of the most famous tombs in the world. Gradually the mist lifted and the golden glow of sunrise revealed the Taj Mahal in all its glory. The reflecting pool shone silver in the pale light, with gardens on either side.  Between “ooohs” and “aahs,” we clicked our cameras and tried to capture the magical moment on film.

After viewing the gardens, we boarded the bus again and our guide promised that this was only the beginning. . . “The best will come this evening,” he promised with a broad grin.   I was familiar with the places we saw during the day and, though as lovely as I remembered, none were as glorious as the Taj Mahal at sunrise. Then in the late afternoon, we all piled into seven, matching white, Morris Minor taxis.

Our string of small vehicles sped through the narrow alleys of old Agra, bumping and lurching over ruts and around trucks, tuk-tuks, cows, ox carts, and pedestrians.   It felt like white-water rafting through humanity. We crossed the Jumna river on a narrow bridge, then headed across open fields to a village of low, thatched houses.   The taxis slowed to a crawl in the dirt lanes of the village, honking at every turn and intersection.  Finally, we stopped. Ahead stretched an expanse of hillocky, white sand, the river, and, on the other side, the Taj Mahal.

Dusk approached as we walked across the sand. We passed women carrying water jugs on their heads, tall, tied bundles of reeds, and rows of seedling watermelon vines planted in the river sand.  In the distance, on the far shore, smoke and flames rose up from the cremation grounds.  The mingled scents of burning wood and river damp filled the air.

At the water’s edge, we gazed across to the Taj, high on the far embankment. The white domes and minarets, gilded by the light of the setting sun, were reflected in the steel-blue water of the Jumna river.  The color of the tomb shifted from gold to amber, from amber to mauve, and to the deep blue of evening.  We wandered along the river bank as night descended and the heat of the day seeped out of the air.  It was a truly extra-ordinary evening, more beautiful than anything I had ever seen, even during those romantic years when Tom and I traveled in a van.

Now I couldn’t wait to see what else Elderhostel had in store.

The post Elderhostel and Agra Revisited appeared first on Klang Slattery.

A Night in Delhi (Part 1 of Return to India)

“We need to head straight for Delhi,” Tom said.   “I want to get you to a doctor.” I simply groaned.  I didn’t want to miss Rajasthan, our next planned stop, but I was miserable and scared. (page 281, Wherever the Road Leads)

This illness in early March of 1973, set the stage for my return to India in the winter of 2001.  Twenty-eight years after the trip described in Wherever the Road Leads, I would finally see Rajasthan.

Several months before, my older sister mentioned to me that she wanted to visit India, but none of her friends were interested in traveling to such an exotic location.  “Well, I’ll go,” I responded. “As long as we can go to Rajasthan and to Pune to visit the Girl Scout World Center.”

Soon Una and I were making plans.  We would travel with Elderhostel (now called Road Scholar) for two weeks, then plunge into India on our own for an additional week.  Because we would both travel using Frequent Flyer miles, we had to take different flights and would arrive at different times. We would meet in New Delhi at the hotel designated by our tour group.

Thus, on January 14, 2001 after more than 24-hours travel, I landed at the old Indira Gandhi International Airport. What a contrast from the beautiful, new Changi Airport in Singapore where I had enjoyed a four hour lay-over. Changi had soothed me with delightful shops, WiFi, orchid gardens, a meal of satay, and a shower at the immaculate transit hotel.

Now, at ten o’clock at night, I found myself alone in an airport that couldn’t have been more different.  Indira Gandhi International was dirty, noisy, crowded, confusing, and seemed to shout, “I am India. Remember me?”  The tour representative who was supposed to meet me did not appear waving a placard showing my name. I would have to get to the hotel on my own.

I shouldered my heavy backpack and trundled to an office that displayed a sign reading, “Pre-paid taxis.”  A tall, handsome Sikh stood behind the desk.  I was reassured by his distinctive turban and neatly groomed beard, Sikh characteristics I had learned to trust back in 1973.  He nodded and smiled broadly as he read the name of my hotel from the tour information and took my money. Then he waved me toward the exit door and indicated he would meet me outside.

Thankfully, he appeared again on the busy sidewalk crowded with touts waiting to accost tourists and offer them the best deal in town. He waved me toward a small, open, jeep-like vehicle at the front of the line of taxis. A slight, dark Indian with a woolen scarf wound around his neck waited nearby.  This man loaded my bulky pack into the back of the jeep.  Then another man appeared and jumped into the driver’s seat.  As my Sikh helped me into the cramped back seat, he leaned over and spoke softly. “Will you give me something as I’m your porter?”   Pretending not to hear, I clearly repeated the name of the hotel several times.   All three men nodded and smiled, the Sikh gave the driver directions, and we were off!

Once we left the terminal, the two-lane road became totally dark, devoid of street-lights or buildings, though still crowded with small black cars, a few white luxury sedans, jitneys, and huge trucks. We zipped along, often squeezing between lumbering trucks and the center divider of dinged and broken concrete.  The driver gleefully beeped his horn each time we began and succeeded at this maneuver.

In the intermittent glare of passing headlamps, I studied my driver.  Neatly dressed, slender, with greased, combed back hair, and a well-trimmed mustache, he seemed friendly and curious in a way I knew to be typical. He asked if I was traveling alone, if I was single, and if my hotel was expensive. Beyond that, he concentrated on his driving.

After a while the traffic thinned and nothing could be seen along the road. Black night stretched out on both sides. Far in the distance, a few pin-points of light glinted. There was nothing to suggest we were approaching a city. If I had not been familiar with the roads of India, I’m sure I would have been terrified. Even so, I couldn’t help but think that I might soon find myself roughly deposited in the middle of a field, stripped of my luggage and my money, and left alone in the dark countryside.  I clung to my seat, tried not to panic, and peered out the glass-less window.

We passed an army base, a Navy installation (very strange so far from any body of water), a few shops selling tandoori chickens and Bengali sweets, and occasional venders who pushed their carts as they headed home at the end of a long day. Gradually, the shops and the traffic began to increase again. Now, rather than trucks, the road filled with bicycles, bicycle rickshaws, and motor-scooters. The familiar sight of a helmeted, motor-scooter driver with a female passenger riding side-saddle on the rear brought back pleasant memories.  The lady clung to her companion’s waist. As they passed, the folds of her sari flowed with the air currents.

We drove near a rubble strewn construction site where a row of tall piers of re-bar and concrete reached into the black night sky. My driver pointed at the tall structures and said with a touch of pride, “Metro train.”  I reasoned that a new metro train would only be built leading to Delhi so we must be heading toward town.  Perhaps I had escaped being kidnapped and stripped of my possessions.

We had been driving for a long time, yet the road remained dark and lined with non-descript, window-less walls. I wondered when I would begin to see hotels or a business district.  Finally, the driver slowed down, pulled his jeep to the far left and waited for traffic to pass. Across the street, I saw one light, an old wall with a wide gate, and behind it, a white building. My driver found a gap in the traffic and drove through the gate into a paved courtyard.  On one side of the courtyard, a man and a young woman, both elegantly dressed and draped in flower garlands, stood on a platform surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers.  On the other side of the courtyard, a wide stairway led up to open doors that overflowed with light and the sounds of music. It seemed I had arrived.

I tipped my driver, adding more when he asked, and entered a wood-paneled lobby. What a relief to find a desk clerk who spoke fluent English and, best of all, had my name in his ledger!  He showed me to a large room with a huge bed, a desk, a wooden wardrobe, a lumpy couch, and a spacious, tiled bathroom with an ample, old-fashioned tub.

It was after mid-night and I was exhausted.  I settled on the bed and reached for the phone to order tea from room service. My tired hand nudged the bedside lamp, which produced a shower of sparks.  An instant later, all the lights near the bed and in the bathroom went black.  I leaned back against the pillow and sighed.  I was indeed in India for a second adventure!  But it seemed that electrical problems were to be expected whether one traveled in a Volkswagen van or stayed in a hotel.

The post A Night in Delhi (Part 1 of Return to India) appeared first on Klang Slattery.

A Night in Delhi

“We need to head straight for Delhi,” Tom said.   “I want to get you to a doctor.” I simply groaned.  I didn’t want to miss Rajasthan, our next planned stop, but I was miserable and scared. (page 281, Wherever the Road Leads)

This illness in early March of 1973, set the stage for my return to India in the winter of 2001.  Twenty-eight years after the trip described in Wherever the Road Leads, I would finally see Rajasthan.

Several months before, my older sister mentioned to me that she wanted to visit India, but none of her friends were interested in traveling to such an exotic location.  “Well, I’ll go,” I responded. “As long as we can go to Rajasthan and to Pune to visit the Girl Scout World Center.”

Soon Una and I were making plans.  We would travel with Elderhostel (now called Road Scholar) for two weeks, then plunge into India on our own for an additional week.  Because we would both travel using Frequent Flyer miles, we had to take different flights and would arrive at different times. We would meet in New Delhi at the hotel designated by our tour group.

Thus, on January 14, 2001 after more than 24-hours travel, I landed at the old Indira Gandhi International Airport. What a contrast from the beautiful, new Changi Airport in Singapore where I had enjoyed a four hour lay-over. Changi had soothed me with delightful shops, WiFi, orchid gardens, a meal of satay, and a shower at the immaculate transit hotel.

Now, at ten o’clock at night, I found myself alone in an airport that couldn’t have been more different.  Indira Gandhi International was dirty, noisy, crowded, confusing, and seemed to shout, “I am India. Remember me?”  The tour representative who was supposed to meet me did not appear waving a placard showing my name. I would have to get to the hotel on my own.

I shouldered my heavy backpack and trundled to an office that displayed a sign reading, “Pre-paid taxis.”  A tall, handsome Sikh stood behind the desk.  I was reassured by his distinctive turban and neatly groomed beard, Sikh characteristics I had learned to trust back in 1973.  He nodded and smiled broadly as he read the name of my hotel from the tour information and took my money. Then he waved me toward the exit door and indicated he would meet me outside.

Thankfully, he appeared again on the busy sidewalk crowded with touts waiting to accost tourists and offer them the best deal in town. He waved me toward a small, open, jeep-like vehicle at the front of the line of taxis. A slight, dark Indian with a woolen scarf wound around his neck waited nearby.  This man loaded my bulky pack into the back of the jeep.  Then another man appeared and jumped into the driver’s seat.  As my Sikh helped me into the cramped back seat, he leaned over and spoke softly. “Will you give me something as I’m your porter?”   Pretending not to hear, I clearly repeated the name of the hotel several times.   All three men nodded and smiled, the Sikh gave the driver directions, and we were off!

Once we left the terminal, the two-lane road became totally dark, devoid of street-lights or buildings, though still crowded with small black cars, a few white luxury sedans, jitneys, and huge trucks. We zipped along, often squeezing between lumbering trucks and the center divider of dinged and broken concrete.  The driver gleefully beeped his horn each time we began and succeeded at this maneuver.

In the intermittent glare of passing headlamps, I studied my driver.  Neatly dressed, slender, with greased, combed back hair, and a well-trimmed mustache, he seemed friendly and curious in a way I knew to be typical. He asked if I was traveling alone, if I was single, and if my hotel was expensive. Beyond that, he concentrated on his driving.

After a while the traffic thinned and nothing could be seen along the road. Black night stretched out on both sides. Far in the distance, a few pin-points of light glinted. There was nothing to suggest we were approaching a city. If I had not been familiar with the roads of India, I’m sure I would have been terrified. Even so, I couldn’t help but think that I might soon find myself roughly deposited in the middle of a field, stripped of my luggage and my money, and left alone in the dark countryside.  I clung to my seat, tried not to panic, and peered out the glass-less window.

We passed an army base, a Navy installation (very strange so far from any body of water), a few shops selling tandoori chickens and Bengali sweets, and occasional venders who pushed their carts as they headed home at the end of a long day. Gradually, the shops and the traffic began to increase again. Now, rather than trucks, the road filled with bicycles, bicycle rickshaws, and motor-scooters. The familiar sight of a helmeted, motor-scooter driver with a female passenger riding side-saddle on the rear brought back pleasant memories.  The lady clung to her companion’s waist. As they passed, the folds of her sari flowed with the air currents.

We drove near a rubble strewn construction site where a row of tall piers of re-bar and concrete reached into the black night sky. My driver pointed at the tall structures and said with a touch of pride, “Metro train.”  I reasoned that a new metro train would only be built leading to Delhi so we must be heading toward town.  Perhaps I had escaped being kidnapped and stripped of my possessions.

We had been driving for a long time, yet the road remained dark and lined with non-descript, window-less walls. I wondered when I would begin to see hotels or a business district.  Finally, the driver slowed down, pulled his jeep to the far left and waited for traffic to pass. Across the street, I saw one light, an old wall with a wide gate, and behind it, a white building. My driver found a gap in the traffic and drove through the gate into a paved courtyard.  On one side of the courtyard, a man and a young woman, both elegantly dressed and draped in flower garlands, stood on a platform surrounded by a crowd of well-wishers.  On the other side of the courtyard, a wide stairway led up to open doors that overflowed with light and the sounds of music. It seemed I had arrived.

I tipped my driver, adding more when he asked, and entered a wood-paneled lobby. What a relief to find a desk clerk who spoke fluent English and, best of all, had my name in his ledger!  He showed me to a large room with a huge bed, a desk, a wooden wardrobe, a lumpy couch, and a spacious, tiled bathroom with an ample, old-fashioned tub.

It was after mid-night and I was exhausted.  I settled on the bed and reached for the phone to order tea from room service. My tired hand nudged the bedside lamp, which produced a shower of sparks.  An instant later, all the lights near the bed and in the bathroom went black.  I leaned back against the pillow and sighed.  I was indeed in India for a second adventure!  But it seemed that electrical problems were to be expected whether one traveled in a Volkswagen van or stayed in a hotel.

The post A Night in Delhi appeared first on Klang Slattery.

A Young Woman on the Hippie Trail

Diane was barely twenty-one when she began her adventure.  Raised in a middle-class family in Colorado, she felt lucky to be attending Stanford University as a pre-med student. However, by her Junior year she realized she didn’t want to be a surgeon as she had always thought.  Suddenly unsure what she wanted to do with her life, Diane was determined to travel while she figured it out. Stanford offered a study abroad program than included transportation so Diane traveled to Florence, Italy, to complete her final term.

Diane told me of her disillusionment with the state of the world in the mid-70s.  She was deeply affected by the murders of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy Jr. and the Nixon debacle. It seemed that nobody in leadership knew what to do.   Inspired by James Michener’s novel, The Drifters, Diane decided she needed to figure it out for herself by seeing the world.

Starting in Italy right after graduation, she began her travels.  A Stanford/Hewlett Packard connection in Singapore offered a possible job. She also had friends in Greece and India. These connections gave her a rough itinerary.

After visiting her friend in Greece, Diane headed for Istanbul, the starting point of most overland journeys. The Turkish city was a hub for young travelers who shared information and travel tips.  There she learned about the Magic Bus, a transportation company that offered no-frills, cheap, rapid, and direct transportation to India.  The other passengers turned out to be mainly drug-influenced hippies, and Diane soon realized she was uncomfortable traveling with this group.  In Erzurum, a city in the middle of the great expanses of Eastern Turkey, Diane left the bus accompanied by a young man who was also uneasy with the other Magic Bus travelers.   These two continued together for several weeks, but split when they arrived in Tehran.

Diane says she was surprised to find she fared better as a single woman traveling alone.   She told me that the Middle-Eastern male perspective seemed to deduce that any woman who traveled with a male companion not her family or husband was sexually promiscuous. She experienced unwanted touching, rude remarks, and attempts to get her alone.  Later when she traveled through eastern Iran and Afghanistan on her own, she felt she was viewed with awe, respect, even fear.  “They treated me like a goddess,” she said.

Being a lone, woman traveler who hitchhiked, walked, and took local buses certainly exposed her to unbelievable experiences.  It invited interaction with local people on a more intimate level than Tom and I could dream of when traveling in our own vehicle.  As she walked from the Iran/Afghanistan border to Herat, Diane met a teacher who spoke English and took her under his wing. Soon she found herself working as the English tutor for the four daughters of an important local business man.   She spent a month in Herat, teaching, living in the women’s world “behind the walls,” and walking freely about the city. Later, Diane met an American woman living in Kabul who raised Arabian horses.  Her new friend invited her to come along on a horse-back riding trip into the Peshawar Valley.

Diane continued by public bus across the Khyber Pass, through Pakistan, and into India. In Delhi, she met up with the relatives a Sikh engineer she had known in Denver. Her days in Northern India were a delight, mainly due to the exceptional hospitality of this man’s family.   They took her to see all the major sights and introduced her to the Sikh culture.  Later, she traveled on her own to Southern India where she studied yoga under a well-known yoga master.

Having heard of its druggie reputation, Diane avoided Goa.  Still, like Tom and me, the theft of personal documents brought her idyllic stay in Southern India to an end.  “A blond, German woman stole my passport and all my money,” she said. “Amazingly, the villagers where I was staying took a collection to buy me a train ticket to Delhi.” As soon as she had her replacement passport, she headed home.

Diane’s experiences, some distressing and others unbelievably wonderful, changed her life. Like many other overland travelers, she returned with a heightened appreciation and acceptance of other people regardless of race, religion, health condition, or social status.

One of the most life-changing results of Diane’s year and a half adventure was that she could now let go of previous plans and simply let her life unfold. This was the understanding that she had set out to find.

The post A Young Woman on the Hippie Trail appeared first on Klang Slattery.

Hippie Trail Adventures

According to Wikipedia, the Hippie Trail is the name given to the overland journey from Europe to India and Nepal taken by travelers between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s.

Some weeks ago, a friend phoned to let me know that she was watching a webinar “about the road you wrote about in your memoir.”  Though I was unable to join the online event, I did order and read the book written by the presenter, Sharif Gemie, a historian of contemporary culture.

Based on interviews and self-published works, The Hippie Trail, A History by Sharif Gemie and Brian Ireland, is described as the first history of the Hippie Trail. “It records the joys and pains of budget travel to Kathmandu, India, and Afghanistan . . . in the 1960s and 1970s.” Dense with facts and analysis of trends, this book was fascinating in spite of its academic style.  Many of the quotes, taken from oral histories and personal memoirs, reminded me of my own days on the trail.

One of the key elements of the trail was the idea of travelling as cheaply as possible.  For Tom and me that meant a budget of $10 a day to include everything from food to gas to car repairs to souvenirs. We never stayed in a hotel and almost always cooked and ate in our van.

For many, cheap travel meant taking local transportation or hitch-hiking.  Others paid for a ticket on one of the overland bus tours that plied the route. These companies (like Indiaman and Penn Overland) provided basic transportation along a planned itinerary. Sleeping arrangements ranged from reclining seats to tents, from bunks in the bus to scheduled stops at third-rate hotels and guest houses. As the authors state in The Hippie Trail, the trip was often an “epic struggle concerned {with} the maintenance of an aging coach across thousands of miles of rough roads, dodgy towns, dangerous mountain passes, and barren deserts.”  These overland bus trips usually took about a month to get from Istanbul to Kathmandu.

Many independent travelers, like Tom and me (see my memoir at https://www.amazon.com/Wherever-Road-Leads-Memoir-Travel/dp/1734279648), drove their own vehicles, mainly Land Rovers or VW vans, all the way to India and back. In spite of the ever-present possibility of mechanical problems, this mode of travel allowed for more personal control, flexibility, and comfort.

What kind of travelers chose this exotic adventure?  My memories match the research presented by Gemie and Ireland.  We came mainly from England, North America, and Australia, but there were also travelers from throughout western Europe, especially Scandinavia, France, and Germany. We were mostly young. Tom and I, in our late twenties, were older than most. But we sometimes encountered older couples and families like our Danish friends who were in their middle years with teenage children.

Many of the youthful travelers were iconic hippies with long hair, fringes, and beads. They searched for drugs, enlightenment, and free love on the beaches of Goa.  Travelers like us simply wanted to see the world and experience different cultures.  We took great pains to not look like hippies, especially at border crossings. One thing I believe we all had in common was a desire to experience places and people in a more intimate way than standard tourism allowed. There were even a few true adventurers, like the Kunst brothers who walked around the world with a mule.

The heyday of the Hippie Trail occurred at a time when many young people were turned-off by the traditional life-style modeled by their parents. It also coincided with the Vietnam war when anti-war politics were rampant. And it was war that ended safe and easy access to the trail.  In 1979, the Hippie Trail received a double-whammy: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian Revolution.  Since then, there has not been a time when the entire length of the trail, from Istanbul to India, has been safe.

Those of us who were lucky to travel the trail and see Eastern cultures up close, almost always came home with more inclusive ideas, totally changed by our experiences.  And many became travel addicts like myself.

Did you or anyone you know travel the Hippie Trail between 1955 and 1979?   If so, I’d love to hear from you.   Please contact me and share your story.

To learn more:

The Hippie Trail: a History , by Dr. Sharif Gamie and Dr. Brian Ireland.  https://www.amazon.com/Hippie-Trail-History-Sharif-Gemie/dp/1526114623YouTube.com: search “Hippie Trail” for several interesting videos.

 

The post Hippie Trail Adventures appeared first on Klang Slattery.