The Hippie Trail......

[theblether]

I don't think we would ever tire of contributions of that calibre nisakiman. Thank you very much.

[CMHomeboy78]

A bibliography of the Hippie Trail would be of interest to many.

Can anyone add to this short list?

Tiger for Breakfast.

Michel Peissel.

London 1966.

My copy is a cheap Indian reprint from 1987.

A biography of Boris Lissanevitch - Boris of Katmandu. White Russian. Dancer with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe in Paris during the 1920s.

Then in East Asia, involved in all kinds of things until WWII when he opened the famous [infamous] 300 Club in Calcutta.

After the war his connections with the Ranas in Nepal led to his becoming the founder of the legendary Royal Hotel in Katmandu.

He drove from London to Istanbul to Katmandu in 1957. The first, as far as I know, to make the trip by road.

Midnight Express.

Billy Hayes.

New York 1977.

It was made into an excellent movie, but the book was even better.

Not about a trip on the Hippie Trail but set in Istanbul.

A very good comparison of the movie with the book can be found on Wikipedia.

Indian Journals.

Allen Ginsberg.

Grove 1970

Like Midnight Express, not a trip on the Hippie Trail but some very interesting high times in India 1962-63 when the Beats were turning into the Hippies.

The Great Railway Bazaar.

Paul Theroux.

Houghton Mifflin 1975.

Reprinted many times.

London to India and beyond. Mostly by rail. Excellent book. I reread it recently and enjoyed it as much as the first time.

It's too bad that more hasn't been written about the Hippie Trail.

In many ways it was like going back to biblical times.

A truly unforgettable experience.

Edited February 28, 2013 by CMHomeboy78

[HeavyDrinker]

Look for 'First Overland' by Tim Slessor.

They made the trip long before the hippies were even thought of.

There is also a lot of film from the trip but the BBC seem really reluctant to release it even after very generous offers have been made.

Edited February 28, 2013 by HeavyDrinker

[SteeleJoe]

A bibliography of the Hippie Trail would be of interest to many.Can anyone add to this short list?Tiger for Breakfast.Michel Peissel.London 1966.My copy is a cheap Indian reprint from 1987.A biography of Boris Lissanevitch - Boris of Katmandu. White Russian. Dancer with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe in Paris during the 1920s.Then in East Asia, involved in all kinds of things until WWII when he opened the famous [infamous] 300 Club in Calcutta.After the war his connections with the Ranas in Nepal led to his becoming the founder of the legendary Royal Hotel in Katmandu.He drove from London to Istanbul to Katmandu in 1957. The first, as far as I know, to make the trip by road.Midnight Express.Billy Hayes.New York 1977.It was made into an excellent movie, but the book was even better.Not about a trip on the Hippie Trail but set in Istanbul.A very good comparison of the movie with the book can be found on Wikipedia.Indian Journals.Allen Ginsberg.Grove 1970Like Midnight Express, not a trip on the Hippie Trail but some very interesting high times in India 1962-63 when the Beats were turning into the Hippies.The Great Railway Bazaar.Paul Theroux.Houghton Mifflin 1975.Reprinted many times.London to India and beyond. Mostly by rail. Excellent book. I reread it recently and enjoyed it as much as the first time.It's too bad that more hasn't been written about the Hippie Trail.In many ways it was like going back to biblical times.A truly unforgettable experience.

Good post.

Re : Midnight Express - I really liked both the movie and the film but they are different and the movie distorted the truth quite a bit (as movies will do and generally, as in this case, to the benefit of the narrative).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[SteeleJoe]

Look for 'First Overland' by Tim Slessor.

They made the trip long before the hippies were even thought of.

There is also a lot of film from the trip but the BBC seem really reluctant to release it even after very generous offers have been made.

Nice one! I read that years ago and you've just inspired me to look and buy it for my Kindle.

Done.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[Fookhaht]

Hippies were certainly here in Thailand, as attested to by this sign at a Thai immigration border post:

[Songhua]

Is anybody else jealous reading this thread or is it only just me? :-)

Absolutely fantastic thread.

Nothing to contribute unfortunately because I joined the army at nineteen in 75 but I'm reading with great interest.

[Fookhaht]

Is anybody else jealous reading this thread or is it only just me? :-)

Absolutely fantastic thread.

Nothing to contribute unfortunately because I joined the army at nineteen in 75 but I'm reading with great interest.

Hear hear! Frankly SE Asia was a place to avoid when my peers were hippies: Bombings and war throughout Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam--and everywhere else, communist insurgency. The only "tours" my friends took were with a rifle, helmet, and a 1A draft status. Sadly, some never came back.

[harrry]

Another hairy moment was when travelling on a railpass in India after Mrs Ghandi sent the troops to occupy the Golden Temple. I was on a train to Amaritsa that night and the train stopped several times to let trains of military with tanks and big guns pass. I did not know what was going on but on seeing the headlines...Troops Enter the Golden Temple on the front of a newspaper I turned round and got on the train leaving on the other platform. It turned out to be the last train from Amaritsa. Other foreigners were locked up in a hotel for a few weeks until being taken to Delhi.

A couple of years later I was the first foreigner to go through there and cross the border to Pakistan after that but that is another story.

We all lived charmed lives then...

[SteeleJoe]

Is anybody else jealous reading this thread or is it only just me? :-)

Absolutely fantastic thread.

Nothing to contribute unfortunately because I joined the army at nineteen in 75 but I'm reading with great interest.

Hear hear! Frankly SE Asia was a place to avoid when my peers were hippies: Bombings and war throughout Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam--and everywhere else, communist insurgency. The only "tours" my friends took were with a rifle, helmet, and a 1A draft status. Sadly, some never came back.

Well, that was precisely when "hippies" and the trail existed - in the 60's and 70's. So despite the war in Indochina, lots of young people were on the trail (after all, most people weren't drafted).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[Fookhaht]

Is anybody else jealous reading this thread or is it only just me? :-)

Absolutely fantastic thread.

Nothing to contribute unfortunately because I joined the army at nineteen in 75 but I'm reading with great interest.

Hear hear! Frankly SE Asia was a place to avoid when my peers were hippies: Bombings and war throughout Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam--and everywhere else, communist insurgency. The only "tours" my friends took were with a rifle, helmet, and a 1A draft status. Sadly, some never came back.

Well, that was precisely when "hippies" and the trail existed - in the 60's and 70's. So despite the war in Indochina, lots of young people were on the trail (after all, most people weren't drafted).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

Enlightening. I must've been circulating in another crowd...

[SteeleJoe]

Is anybody else jealous reading this thread or is it only just me? :-)

Absolutely fantastic thread.

Nothing to contribute unfortunately because I joined the army at nineteen in 75 but I'm reading with great interest.

Hear hear! Frankly SE Asia was a place to avoid when my peers were hippies: Bombings and war throughout Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam--and everywhere else, communist insurgency. The only "tours" my friends took were with a rifle, helmet, and a 1A draft status. Sadly, some never came back.

Well, that was precisely when "hippies" and the trail existed - in the 60's and 70's. So despite the war in Indochina, lots of young people were on the trail (after all, most people weren't drafted).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

Enlightening. I must've been circulating in another crowd...

Must have. I know I was...my crowd was in primary school. (But the war made an impact on my life nonetheless).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[watutsi]

One of the most interesting characters of the early "hippie' travellers who made it beyond India is Tim Page.He was in Laos in the mid sixties during a coup de tat , took some pictures which eventually reached some editors desk and by pure accident ended up with Press Accreditation.

He went on to become one of the legendary photographers of the Vietnam War.He was as much known for the ridiculous risks he took, the hedonistic life of drugs and drink as his photographs.Seriously wounded 4 times he just kept coming back.The Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now is based on Tim Page and he is the main character in one of the best books of the Vietnam War - Michael Herr's" Dispatches" along with his best mate Sean Flynn [the son of Erroll Flynn] who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 and was presumed killed by the Khmer Rouge.

[nisakiman]

One of the most interesting characters of the early "hippie' travellers who made it beyond India is Tim Page.He was in Laos in the mid sixties during a coup de tat , took some pictures which eventually reached some editors desk and by pure accident ended up with Press Accreditation.

He went on to become one of the legendary photographers of the Vietnam War.He was as much known for the ridiculous risks he took, the hedonistic life of drugs and drink as his photographs.Seriously wounded 4 times he just kept coming back.The Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now is based on Tim Page and he is the main character in one of the best books of the Vietnam War - Michael Herr's" Dispatches" along with his best mate Sean Flynn [the son of Erroll Flynn] who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 and was presumed killed by the Khmer Rouge.

That's very interesting. I've not heard of Tim Page before, but I will most certainly investigate further now. I'll also look the book out, as I haven't read that, either.

Thanks for those snippets of info!

[SteeleJoe]

One of the most interesting characters of the early "hippie' travellers who made it beyond India is Tim Page.He was in Laos in the mid sixties during a coup de tat , took some pictures which eventually reached some editors desk and by pure accident ended up with Press Accreditation.

He went on to become one of the legendary photographers of the Vietnam War.He was as much known for the ridiculous risks he took, the hedonistic life of drugs and drink as his photographs.Seriously wounded 4 times he just kept coming back.The Dennis Hopper character in Apocalypse Now is based on Tim Page and he is the main character in one of the best books of the Vietnam War - Michael Herr's" Dispatches" along with his best mate Sean Flynn [the son of Erroll Flynn] who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 and was presumed killed by the Khmer Rouge.

That's very interesting. I've not heard of Tim Page before, but I will most certainly investigate further now. I'll also look the book out, as I haven't read that, either.

Thanks for those snippets of info!

Page is a legend. Had the pleasure of spending some time with him and aside from the fact that he's such a remarkable man whom I can't help but admire, it was especially a treat for me as someone who's spent decades studying the war(s) in Indochina.

And "legend" is also a word used by many to describe Sean Flynn. He was known, even by his almost entirely male colleagues and friends, as an astonishingly good looking and charming man who was also truly fearless (on occasion seen carrying a rifle and in FRONT of US soldiers on an assault) - of the many unknowable things in the world, I would desperately like to know the details - as grim and tragic as they must have been - the story of his ending with the KR.

I have a minority opinion about Herr's book: it's very highly regarded and indeed it's beautifully written and he has insights not available to most of us who weren't there but it's NOT very valuable as history. His biases and interpretations and romanticizing are off-putting to me - as is what I see as some self-glorification and somewhat boastful and arguably slightly exaggerated accounts of the danger he was in - and in fact he even distorts certain objective facts at times; it's worth reading but...a few grains of salt should accompany it.

[SteeleJoe]

I hope I will be forgiven one more post on this tangent but I found myself thinking about Page and Flynn and I went back to read my post and realized with guilt and shame that I hadn't mentioned Dana Stone, another of that extraordinary group of photographers and "war junkies" and the other person with Flynn when he was captured.

A good book on their disappearance is "Two of the Missing" by Perry Young who was one of their circle. (Tim Page is featured prominently in it as well).

A sad footnote: Dana Stone's brother John joined the Army in part in hopes to somehow find his brother or find out what happened (which endeavor he kept at for long after). He stayed in for his whole life - only to be killed on his THIRD tour in Afghanistan (where, among other things, he (a medic) set up a clinic for Afghan civilians ). He was someone else I was pleased to have known a little bit and admired a great deal.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[NeverSure]

Did the true "hippies" even know HOW to find their way out of California? I doubt if most could even afford the price of a plane ticket.

Boy you are young. The movement started on the East coast of the US with Beatniks and then moved to the West coast. Try reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The New York Times called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test "not simply the best book on hippies… [but also] the essential book. You also might want to read, " Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers"

The youth of the 1960's were the only generation in North America to actually do something beyond sit on their bums and sponge off of mom and dad. Stopping the war in Vietnam, Civil rights movement, 2nd wave Feminism, gay rights, Hispanic and Chicano movement to name a few. Actually one might say every generation before and after the Hippies were lost.

Good post but you sell the other generations a bit short (showing your age, I'm afraid!); in particular you do a great disservice to the people of the 50's who REALLY moved the struggle for civil rights into it's most important phase - and risked their lives in doing so.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

In the US the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the major legal change. I think all the participants would have to be over 60 now. For extra reading, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_%281955%E2%80%931968%29

To have been politically active in the 1960's how old would you be now?

I know quite a lot about the history of that movement - I don't need Wikipedia for that - and without reading your link I can guarantee it doesn't refute my point.

By the way, I know you like to move the goalposts in threads but not only is " the major legal change" not the point, but that act was passed by a previous generation to that which you gave credit as a result of actions by a generation previous to that which you gave credit; nothing to do with the hippie generation (who in fact arguably achieved far less than you claim).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

Since you started it...... What did the generation born in the 1950's contribute to the civil rights movement? I was 18 in 1965 and thought it was pretty much over by the 1970's.

What you're missing Kelly is that things enacted in the 60's were enacted by people who were then in their 50's, 60's and 70's. They weren't hippies. The hippies had no power yet. They held no offices, at least on a national scale. The movement did indeed start not later than the 1950's.

We can't just look at when things were enacted, but we have to look at who enacted them, and what their ages were at the time.

This whole thing was coming together all at once, but JFK was born in 1917 and Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908!! Those guys would be 96 and 104 years old today.

[SteeleJoe]

What you're missing Kelly is that things enacted in the 60's were enacted by people who were then in their 50's, 60's and 70's. They weren't hippies. The hippies had no power yet. They held no offices, at least on a national scale. The movement did indeed start not later than the 1950's.

We can't just look at when things were enacted, but we have to look at who enacted them, and what their ages were at the time.

This whole thing was coming together all at once, but JFK was born in 1917 and Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908!! Those guys would be 96 and 104 years old today.

Spot on. Moreover, when he says, "The youth of the 1960's were the only generation in North America to actually do something beyond sit on their bums and sponge off of mom and dad" he is also overlooking that not only, as you point out (and I tried to), did the youth of the 60's NOT enact all those changes themselves, in some cases they didn't even set into motion - or do some of hard work in - the movements that culminated in those changes (the Civil Rights movement especially - who does he think was with MLK Jr and other earlier and contemporary heroes of that movement when they were risking their lives in the mid 50's in Montgomery and elsewhere? It wasn't the youth of the 60's.)

And another small problem with his claim: both my grandfathers joined thousands of other young Americans as they joined our allies to risk their lives and too often lose them in a little project we can "call saving the world" - that would be the youth of the 40s...(and then there were the thousands of other youth throughout North America's history that did minor things like build the country they lived in).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

Edited February 28, 2013 by SteeleJoe

[IMA_FARANG]

Did Thailand actually have airplanes as far back as the sixties? 50 odd years on and it has still not developed yet. Will Thailand ever develope?

\

A member of the Royal family of Thailand had what was one of the first military aeroplanes (as they were called then) in what was then Siam back just after World War I.

He actually went to learn to fly on a Wright plane.

The Thai Air Force is over 80 years old.

[theblether]

The Hippie Generation was most certainly a direct result of WW2, a lot of people don't understand the sociological impact of that particular war. From a US perspective I believe there were 10 million men in uniform at the peak of the war effort, by definition many of them were of the age to be young fathers or family men.

In the UK while we didn't have as many men in uniform, we had men serve in the armed forces longer than their American compatriots during the war effort. The effect of this is that many young families grew up not seeing their fathers for years, and their fathers were strangers to them when they walked back in.

You can imagine the amount of disruption and rebellion that would have caused in many a household, as well as the ex-servicemen having to deal with the effects of the war, whether mental or physical, as the case may be.

The concept of teenager didn't exist in the 40's and early 50's, teens went to the same type of dance halls as their parents, wore effectively the same clothes and listened to the same music, in effect they were mini-me's.

The UK charts started in 1953, and that brought a slew of promoters determined to get their acts to the top of the hit parade, so around 54/55 things started to change, as the new teenagers didn't want to be mini-me's any more. Here comes prosperity, here comes modernity, new fangled contraptions in the house like washing machine's and TV's, and the World opened up.

Bill Hailey brought out his anthem, and the World was never the same again. The young kids that lived through disrupted family lives in the 40's were of an age to demand more independence and freedom. Rebels without a cause indeed.

I'm fascinated with the period between Rock Around The Clock and Woodstock, I think it was a time of the most outstanding social change, and in that short period, ( approx 14 years ) the explosion of youth culture was phenomenal. Instead of accepting " knowing your place " the young effectively countermanded the expectations of their parents and just went and did it for themselves. To go from this......

To this.......

to this........( next post )

Edited February 28, 2013 by theblether

[theblether]

To this...........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVyJVYWHJaY

In just over a decade......I wish I'd seen it.

[Dancealot]

A bibliography of the Hippie Trail would be of interest to many.

Can anyone add to this short list?

Tiger for Breakfast.

Michel Peissel.

London 1966.

My copy is a cheap Indian reprint from 1987.

A biography of Boris Lissanevitch - Boris of Katmandu. White Russian. Dancer with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe in Paris during the 1920s.

Then in East Asia, involved in all kinds of things until WWII when he opened the famous [infamous] 300 Club in Calcutta.

After the war his connections with the Ranas in Nepal led to his becoming the founder of the legendary Royal Hotel in Katmandu.

He drove from London to Istanbul to Katmandu in 1957. The first, as far as I know, to make the trip by road.

Midnight Express.

Billy Hayes.

New York 1977.

It was made into an excellent movie, but the book was even better.

Not about a trip on the Hippie Trail but set in Istanbul.

A very good comparison of the movie with the book can be found on Wikipedia.

Indian Journals.

Allen Ginsberg.

Grove 1970

Like Midnight Express, not a trip on the Hippie Trail but some very interesting high times in India 1962-63 when the Beats were turning into the Hippies.

The Great Railway Bazaar.

Paul Theroux.

Houghton Mifflin 1975.

Reprinted many times.

London to India and beyond. Mostly by rail. Excellent book. I reread it recently and enjoyed it as much as the first time.

It's too bad that more hasn't been written about the Hippie Trail.

In many ways it was like going back to biblical times.

A truly unforgettable experience.

Someone said Midnight express..^ ^ The music on there was far out . Hence my Avatar.

Paul Theroux, great writer and father of louix, indeed

[Dancealot]

Oh and i have 1 things to add..

[Dancealot]

A bibliography of the Hippie Trail would be of interest to many.Can anyone add to this short list?Tiger for Breakfast.Michel Peissel.London 1966.My copy is a cheap Indian reprint from 1987.A biography of Boris Lissanevitch - Boris of Katmandu. White Russian. Dancer with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe in Paris during the 1920s.Then in East Asia, involved in all kinds of things until WWII when he opened the famous [infamous] 300 Club in Calcutta.After the war his connections with the Ranas in Nepal led to his becoming the founder of the legendary Royal Hotel in Katmandu.He drove from London to Istanbul to Katmandu in 1957. The first, as far as I know, to make the trip by road.Midnight Express.Billy Hayes.New York 1977.It was made into an excellent movie, but the book was even better.Not about a trip on the Hippie Trail but set in Istanbul.A very good comparison of the movie with the book can be found on Wikipedia.Indian Journals.Allen Ginsberg.Grove 1970Like Midnight Express, not a trip on the Hippie Trail but some very interesting high times in India 1962-63 when the Beats were turning into the Hippies.The Great Railway Bazaar.Paul Theroux.Houghton Mifflin 1975.Reprinted many times.London to India and beyond. Mostly by rail. Excellent book. I reread it recently and enjoyed it as much as the first time.It's too bad that more hasn't been written about the Hippie Trail.In many ways it was like going back to biblical times.A truly unforgettable experience.

Good post.

Re : Midnight Express - I really liked both the movie and the film but they are different and the movie distorted the truth quite a bit (as movies will do and generally, as in this case, to the benefit of the narrative).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

I fast forwarded 1 scene from ME. No offence meant .

[SteeleJoe]

The Hippie Generation was most certainly a direct result of WW2, a lot of people don't understand the sociological impact of that particular war. From a US perspective I believe there were 10 million men in uniform at the peak of the war effort, by definition many of them were of the age to be young fathers or family men.

In the UK while we didn't have as many men in uniform, we had men serve in the armed forces longer than their American compatriots during the war effort. The effect of this is that many young families grew up not seeing their fathers for years, and their fathers were strangers to them when they walked back in.

You can imagine the amount of disruption and rebellion that would have caused in many a household, as well as the ex-servicemen having to deal with the effects of the war, whether mental or physical, as the case may be.

The concept of teenager didn't exist in the 40's and early 50's, teens went to the same type of dance halls as their parents, wore effectively the same clothes and listened to the same music, in effect they were mini-me's.

The UK charts started in 1953, and that brought a slew of promoters determined to get their acts to the top of the hit parade, so around 54/55 things started to change, as the new teenagers didn't want to be mini-me's any more. Here comes prosperity, here comes modernity, new fangled contraptions in the house like washing machine's and TV's, and the World opened up.

Bill Hailey brought out his anthem, and the World was never the same again. The young kids that lived through disrupted family lives in the 40's were of an age to demand more independence and freedom. Rebels without a cause indeed.

I'm fascinated with the period between Rock Around The Clock and Woodstock, I think it was a time of the most outstanding social change, and in that short period, ( approx 14 years ) the explosion of youth culture was phenomenal. Instead of accepting " knowing your place " the young effectively countermanded the expectations of their parents and just went and did it for themselves. To go from this......

To this.......

to this........( next post )

Such a great post in so many ways. Bravo.

Indeed many things that ultimately came to fruition (for better or worse) in the 60s had much their genesis with the WWII (and its end): and whether we speak of the advent of disaffected youth (lindy hoppers or teenage rockers) in large numbers, people questioning materialism and traditional values (social critics, beatniks and philosophers), sexual freedom (Kinsey ad the pill), the women's movement (women who wanted to work), Civil Rights (the bus strike, sit ins), Vietnam (Eisenhower), the Cold War, Apollo (Mercury astronauts),and on and on...that was the 50's.

The Hippies didn't last that long. And while I do not AT ALL want to take away what was accomplished by people like my parents and so many others, nor deny any altruism or social conscience on their part, the fact is a lot of it - even a not inconsiderable amount of the anti-war movement or other struggles for social change - was about what was "in" and FUN at the time: there was damn good music at these gatherings and a LOT of people got high and got laid at anti-war rallies and such and being revolutionary was cool - chicks dug it.

It was the minority that was REALLY committed and working to make change and as Neversure pointed out, they largely came to their own later: the youth of the 60's no doubt generally believed in change and very much wanted it - so here's to them - but let's be honest: self-indulgence was often the order of the day (lucky buggers).

Edited February 28, 2013 by SteeleJoe

[SteeleJoe]

Re : Midnight Express - I really liked both the movie and the film but they are different and the movie distorted the truth quite a bit (as movies will do and generally, as in this case, to the benefit of the narrative).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

I fast forwarded 1 scene from ME. No offence meant:wai: .

First of all I just now see that I stupidly said "the movie and the film" when I meant to say. "the BOOK and the film".

Don't know why I would be offended! But if I were Turkish, that movie would definitely offend me (as it did many Turkish people, I understand). Nonetheless as a lover of cinema, I have to say it - Oliver Stone wrote a great screenplay and it was a good movie as its was presented - lies, stereotypes, distortions and all.

[Dancealot]

Re : Midnight Express - I really liked both the movie and the film but they are different and the movie distorted the truth quite a bit (as movies will do and generally, as in this case, to the benefit of the narrative).

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

I fast forwarded 1 scene from ME. No offence meant:wai: .

First of all I just now see that I stupidly said "the movie and the film" when I meant to say. "the BOOK and the film".

Don't know why I would be offended! But if I were Turkish, that movie would definitely offend me (as it did many Turkish people, I understand). Nonetheless as a lover of cinema, I have to say it - Oliver Stone wrote a great screenplay and it was a good movie as its was presented - lies, stereotypes, distortions and all.

If you really saw(remember) the film you knew what i meant. And this 'no offence' was not pointed directly to you, but was meant in general. Apologies for that.

Was the gay scene in the book as well?

Mr. SteeleJoe.

Cheers

Edited February 28, 2013 by Dancealot

[CMHomeboy78]

Look for 'First Overland' by Tim Slessor.

They made the trip long before the hippies were even thought of.

There is also a lot of film from the trip but the BBC seem really reluctant to release it even after very generous offers have been made.

Thanks for the reference. It's the first time I've heard of the book, although the name Tim Slessor sounds vaguely familiar.

I would very much like to know more about it. I make a distinction between road trips and expeditions. What category does his fall into? And when did it take place?

Certainly the omnipresent weirdnesses common to travel in Central Asia would be equal to both. But expeditions need logistic arrangements ; the bribing of warlords for safe passage, etc., that road trips just don't require.

I'm sure you're aware that there were many expeditions in Central and East Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but they couldn't be called road trips by any stretch of the imagination.

The post WWII era saw a chance not seen since Kublai Khan when unimpeded travel was possible between Eastern Europe and the China Sea; a chance that the Polos so famously took advantage of, as did so many young people of my generation later in the '60s and '70s.

I've always assumed that Boris of Katmandu was the first in 1957 to take the opportunity of this new freedom of travel and do it as a road trip.

But if I were to learn otherwise I would be much obliged for the new information.

[SteeleJoe]

I know the horse may have breathed its last but I'll flog it some more since CMK apparently remains unconvinced...

I found a quote I was trying to remember from Jerry Rubin (who WAS committed and a genuine activist for important changes - but was a Yippie rather than a Hippie - and there was a reason they had a different designation for themselves). Talking to Bobby Seale (founding member of Black Panthers - not a Hippie)' Rubin said, "They mostly prefer to be stoned, but most of them want peace, and they want an end to this stuff."

And as Dissent magazine pointed out, "Hippies emerged from a society that had produced birth-control pills, a counterproductive war in Vietnam, the liberation and idealism of the civil rights movement, feminism, gay rights, FM radio, mass-produced LSD, a strong economy, and a huge number of baby-boom teenagers."

Note they say Hippies emerged from a society that had already produced those things.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

[chiangmaikelly]

I know the horse may have breathed its last but I'll flog it some more since CMK apparently remains unconvinced... I found a quote I was trying to remember from Jerry Rubin (who WAS committed and a genuine activist for important changes - but was a Yippie rather than a Hippie - and there was a reason they had a different designation for themselves). Talking to Bobby Seale (founding member of Black Panthers - not a Hippie)' Rubin said, "They mostly prefer to be stoned, but most of them want peace, and they want an end to this stuff." And as Dissent magazine pointed out, "Hippies emerged from a society that had produced birth-control pills, a counterproductive war in Vietnam, the liberation and idealism of the civil rights movement, feminism, gay rights, FM radio, mass-produced LSD, a strong economy, and a huge number of baby-boom teenagers." Note they say Hippies emerged from a society that had already produced those things. Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

Giant topic. Whole bunch of stuff. Like did BC pills create the generation of free love? I was a teen

in the pre BC pill era and a young adult in the post BC era. It was like someone turned on a fire hose where before there had been a little drip. The US was polarized between the coasts and the middle. There were places a hippie could not go. They would shoot ya. Stone mountain GA was not ready for the kids from the Haight. I was really weirded out (Asia to hippy land). I worked for a company in Chicago and we moved the corporate headquarters to Evergreen Colorado. We didn't have any business even close to Colorado. But the executives were all hippies and liked to ski high. Willie Nelson lived in Evergreen then before he was big time and used to play at the little stoner biker bar in town. Everybody said, "Far out' a lot.

There was a time difference. The East and West coast first and a few years for the movement to work it's way the the Midwest Chicago and it never really got down South. It just didn't take in GA or Al.

Edited March 1, 2013 by chiangmaikelly