You may know Rick Steves, as I do, from his popular television travel show, Rick Steves’ Europe.
He’s an affable host, taking viewers along American travel documentary television on armchair viewing, from the length and breadth of Europe. I’ve since discovered that he also runs tour guiding trips to Europe and writes guidebooks to the continent.
His latest publication, On the Hippie Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer, is a diary account of a trip he took as a 23-year-old.
Already a lover of travel, as is clear from this book, he wanted to go beyond Europe, to take the fabled “hippie trail” all the way to India and Kathmandu. He travelled with school friend Gene Openshaw and together they went overland, taking the 3,000-mile journey (more than 4,800km) that echoed the Silk Road, and which was then full of hippies with backpacks, some of whom Steves and Openshaw met along the way. The route went from Istanbul, Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, crossing the Khyber Pass into Pakistan, before arriving in India and Kathmandu, Nepal.
A diary offers a sense of immediacy, written in the moment at white heat. Reading one pulls you right into the minutiae of what is being described. And that is one of the strengths of reading this account of this trip taken in 1978.
After returning from their journey, Steves packed the journal way, opening it more than 40 years later. It has been only lightly edited to clear up redundancies or repetition, but you are reading about a journey taken by a 23-year-old piano teacher who earned enough to travel. As he states, he expected to be a piano teacher all his life — but this trip changed him, as all the best trips do, and led him to becoming a travel writer and presenter. The narrative offers an in-the-moment account of the journeys, with Steves writing about 1,000 words a day.
However, though young and newly graduated, with some cultural insensitivities, as Steves admits, he still shows a thoughtful demonstration of his awe at travelling, with profound observations of the people he meets and the countries he passes through.
The book is packed with photos from the trip, from Steves and Openshaw on the road, to the people and sights they encountered. This adds a special fun layer to the reading, ensuring that you can also visually follow the journey. There are also facsimiles of selected journal pages.
The journey begins in Istanbul, a city that normally marks the end of his travels, but with his hunger to see India, it’s a beginning instead. And what a beginning: satisfied that they had booked seats on the bus to Tehran, they board only to find that their seats have been taken and they have two hard, non-reclining seats at the rear, for a journey lasting more than 60 hours.
The bus driver looked “crazy Barbary pirate ... my seat came complete with a sharp point and nasty, exposed screw”. Add to that a crash onto the median on the highway, a lengthy wait and an unexpected overnight stay, but they make it to Tehran, only 24 hours late.
There are reminders that the journey takes place over 40 years ago. There’s mention of Yugoslavia, which no longer exists, and of a dearth of information on the trail, there’s no internet. And, it seems so quaint to read that, “with 14 rolls of film, 36 shots in a roll, and 55 days of travel, I stayed within my limit of about nine shots a day — and Iran was worth every one”.
Yet as they explore Tehran, Steves is also aware of his American privilege. As they watch the news, “we watched the English news which seems to be more of a daily reminder that instability reigns all over this corner of the earth. You can’t put a price tag on the value of being an American. Stability. I really wouldn’t want it any other way. I am spoiled”.
Border control offices are stuck in the middle of nowhere as they cross into Afghanistan, there are delays, and a goat is being skinned by the side of the road. It’s all part of the journey, but Steves also notes that he will be glad when it’s done. They’ve endured desperate-sounding hotels with overflowing toilets, long bus rides, and Openshaw taking sick, among other hardships. But through it all Steves retains a sharp, observant eye and his descriptions of people in Afghanistan are visceral.
“We ventured down a dreamy side street full of colourful, flowery, horse-drawn taxis, busy craftsmen, fruit stands and dust. Each man who passed looked like something straight out of a 100-year-old travel poster. Strong powerful eyes behind leathery weather-beaten faces. Poetic windblown beards long and scraggily and turbans like snakes wrapping protectively around their heads.”
Through Afghanistan, they cross the Khyber Pass, “my dream”, into Pakistan, and getting closer to India. Days in Kashmir follow, with a stay on a houseboat in a dreamy, watery landscape. But there is also an observation that, “in fact, all along this Hippie Trail, there was a standard of gouging Westerners whenever possible. While it got tiresome, it did get me thinking about the gap between the First World and the Third World. Even scruffy backpackers like us had more money than most locals”.
After time in India, seeing some more of the sights, including the fabled Taj Mahal, experiencing Delhi, seeing Varanasi, witnessing beggars who are deliberately maimed by their parents to gain more sympathy, and money, the journey’s end and aim of Kathmandu beckons. Nepal is then a land so underdeveloped that India gives it aid. Despite that, “everyone smiled and had a sense of humour — rickshaw bikers, customs officials, and little poor kids splashing playfully in the mud”.
Steves’ is an engaging guide to the trail. A year later the trip would not have been possible with the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. This book offers a nostalgic look at travel in a time that seems almost antique, but it’s also a young man’s journey into lands and cultures that were utterly foreign and new to him. Leavened with wit, sparkling with observations and descriptions of their adventures, this is a fun and yet also thoughtful look at the Hippie Trail.
Vagabond: A Hiker’s Homage to Rural Spain by Mark Eveleigh offers a very different perspective on travel. Travelling solo, aged 54, travel writer Eveleigh walks the Via de la Plata of the Camino pilgrimage in Spain. This is one of the longest routes taken to reach Santiago de Compostela, the end destination of pilgrimages in Spain. Having lived in Spain for 16 years before moving away, Eveleigh both knows the language, and has hiked throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
He writes that on one of his hikes he met a man who called himself a vagabundo. The man had no money, no home, no family and trekked the same route that took him roughly two years. He relied on the kindness of the villagers. Eveleigh was inspired to “recapture some of that spirit” as embodied by that man’s journeys.
This is a different journey though, it’s a trek of 1,225km up the length of Spain, from Gibraltar to Estaca de Bares at the northern end. In midsummer. My eyes popped when I read of the temperatures Eveleigh walks through, ranging from the mid-30s Celsius and edging towards the 40°C mark. He does admit that he wonders if he is being reckless. Admittedly, though, he walks in the morning, and waits out the hot afternoons before starting to walk again. As it’s summer, it’s still light into the evening hours.
And rather than staying in the sanctuaries provided for pilgrims on the route, Eveleigh is carrying a hammock. He intends to swing it up between trees and sleep in the open, again, like a true vagabundo. Spain is said to be one of the safest countries, he tells us, and this is certainly borne out by his experiences.
Starting at the Rock of Gibraltar, the British overseas territory, he comments on what he is observing along with local history — which is a feature of the narrative throughout the journey. There are also quotes from other writers who have trekked through Spain, from VS Pritchett to Laurie Lee, which serves to pepper the text with historical journeys that contrast with what he experiences.
His travels take him from dusty hamlets, to big cities such as Seville and Salamanca. He meets other pilgrims along the way, and also gets chatting to people who live in these villages. Knowing Spanish as he does certainly gives him an in he would not have had if he were not so fluent.
Humour is a must when travelling — when things go wrong, or the going gets tough, as it does — seeing the funny side of it all helps to maintain the pace. And Eveleigh sees the humour in his endeavour. There are nightly operations with a needle and dental floss to pierce his crops of blisters, wondering if the sting comes from the piercing or the minty flavour.
There is even a conversation with his legs: “A sure sign that the solitude of the trail might be taking its toll came the next morning when it dawned on me that I was actually talking out loud to my own feet. It was fair to say that they were taking the brunt of the strain. They needed reassurance so I was doing my best to broker a deal with them: ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I told them. ‘I know you didn’t sign up for this and it’s asking a lot of you. You’ve always been good to me and have carried me a long way without complaint. Just bear with me for a few more weeks and I promise I won’t ask this of you again, okay?’”
Speaking of solitude, he staves off the inevitable introspection by listening to audiobooks, which ‘provided an ideal opportunity to focus on something other than the nagging, muttering soliloquy in my head’. And when the going really gets rough, there is a note in his pocket from his wife who urges him on, reminding how proud she is of him.
The beauty of the landscape is ever present, whether it’s the coruscating landscape of the central plains or the greener spread to be found in Galicia. Eveleigh describes it in lyrical language, bringing a sense of Spain alive as you read. Here is a description of the land just a few kilometres short of the city of Sarria as the sun breaks through a rainy day.
“For the first time that day, the sun broke through the clouds. The land was bathed in silver light, and the tip of every leaf dripped with diamonds in the afternoon glow. A rainbow thickened, luminous stripes stretching across the hills like a threadbare tapestry.”
Vagabond is a treasure of a read, whether you’re aiming to do a camino, or are just content to do via an armchair read. I loved being on this journey with Eveleigh, hearing of his travails, laughing with him, and imagining those steps across Spain.
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