1969: Travel home from Malaysia

Unfortunately I caught infectious hepatitis in Kashmir - probably from the water - and had to cut short my voyage, fly to my parents in Hamburg, Germany (John was there on a Fullbright, I think), and check in to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine.  (about 20 years later I was able to see the sections I had missed: click here for that adventure.)

I recently reconnected with Jane - 55 years after our overland adventure.  Click here to see the video I created of her recounting our trip.

We traveled in what I would call the "Golden Age" of travel.  There were no tours, no Airbnb, few other tourists - mostly hippies, many seeking enlightenment in The East.  The "Magic Bus" service was operating between London and India, the so-called "Hippy Trail".  There were no cell phones, no Internet, no tour groups.  For entertainment you read, played a musical instrument, or played chess.  Drugs, mainly hashish and marijuana, were everywhere.  Information on where to go, how to get there, where to stay, and where to eat was passed from traveller to traveller.  Reservations were rarely needed.  Fellow tourists were young and adventurous - and there weren't very many.  You often were the only person visiting a museum, or an archaeological site, or a game reserve.  And everything was incredibly cheap.  

The first stop I had taken before, when I escorted Victoria Institution students on a trip to Bangkok.  All they wanted to do was eat Thai food - they had zero interest in seeing the sights.  So this time, with only a former VI student (Sunil Kumar) and fellow PCV (Jane DeCourcy) as travel companions, I was able to see some of Bangkok's sights. 

The next stop: Cambodia, Angkor Wat.  You can't visit this part of the world without seeing Angkor Wat.  Enough said.  

The next stop was Rangoon (now Yangon), the capital of Burma (now Myanmar).  We were only allowed to stay in Burma for 24 hours, and our required hotel was The Strand, where we were lent ties before dining to the accompaniment of a string ensemble.  There were only a few guests, all overland travelers like ourselves. The Strand opened in 1901.  Along with the Raffles Hotel in Singapore and the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang, Malaysia, The Strand was one of the most luxurious hotels in the British Empire, with a clientele of exclusively whites.  Unfortunately Jane's bed had bedbugs, and she ended up sleeping on a couch.

We paid for our short stay in Burma with the proceeds of a sale of a bottle of Johnnie Walker scotch whiskey, which we had earlier purchased at the Bangkok International Airport - one of the many cost-saving tricks we learned from fellow overlanders.  

This was my first visit to Burma.  In the years ahead I visited twice more, each time able to stay longer.  See the trip listings on the Sam Edwards page for details.

The next day we flew on to Calcutta, India, for stop number 4.  Of all the places I've visited, Calcutta affected me the most.  My favorite activity was to simply sit at the roadside and observe the crush of humanity passing by: endless, ever-changing, powerful, and completely fascinating.  India became, and remains, my favorite country - but also the most frustrating.  

We stayed with Sunil's relatives for a few days, eating home-cooked meals and taking short excursions.  My most notable excursion was to a locally famous guru, who was popular amongst travelers for his hashish smoking ceremonies.  We "devotees" sat in a circle, passing around a fully loaded chillum.  When it came to my turn, I inhaled mightily, gagged, and blew its contents across  the circle.  Everybody laughed - including the guru.  

Next stop: Kathmandu, Nepal.  over the years since I visited, Kathmandu has become crowded, noisy, polluted.  But in 1969 it was simply magical.  Most of the buildings were beautifully decorated wooden structures, seldom over two stories tall.  I remember seeing people - often children - sitting at their windows, watching the street scene below.  In the evenings I would often come across small groups of musicians in the town squares.  Everywhere there were shrines, statues, stupas, flowers, bells and now and then a cow wandering along.  And hashish was king.  There was a government hashish shop, lined with trunks of the stuff, tended by shopkeepers in suits and ties.  many of the restaurants were run by Chinese communists, with propaganda posters on their walls.  Hash candy was a staple in most restaurants, as well as bhang lassi (marijuana-infused yoghurt).  And everything was really, really cheap.  It was a hippy paradise.

Next stop: Pokhara, Nepal.  Our first hike was from Kathmandu to Pokhara, about 130 miles.  There was no road then (its construction did not begin until in 1967), so we shouldered our backpacks, hired a guide to show us the way, and off we went, with our indispensable sherpa guide Pudorji finding us homes to stay in each evening.  A beautiful walk, with the Himalayas to the north, traversing deep valleys, passing through tiny villages, and getting in great shape.  We saw no other hikers.  

From Pokhara , Pudorji, Sunil and I hiked into  into the Annapurna Sanctuary for a quick look at the old girl.  I would have liked to continue on and complete the Annapurna Circuit, considered one of the best long-distance treks in the world, but we should be satisfied with our next stop: Everest. 

So we returned to Kathmandu (this time by plane) and, still with Pudorji, trekked east to his home in Khumjung Village, only a few miles from Everest base camp.  We hired another guide to carry firewood, hiked a bit more, and even with the firewood, spent a really cold night at around 18,000 feet.  We never actually reached Everest base camp, but we came darn close.

Pudorji was an amazing individual.  Gentle, funny, generous, he was much more than just a guide.  At the end of our trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary, he gave a good portion of his fees to a monastery in Kathmandu.  But my best story was when he related to us how the Nepalese government directed him in 1960 to climb to the South Col of Mt. Everest, at 26,300 feet, to observe the Chinese team that had announced it would be attempting an ascent.  Pudorji waited one week at the South Col, but saw no climbers from the Chinese side.  The Chinese government later claimed it's team succeeded during that same period, holding aloft Mao Tse-Tung's red book of quotations as they climbed, and depositing his bust on the summit.       

OK - we had seen and done enough in Nepal.  It was time to move on:

Next Stop: Kashmir, India.  Lots of travel, mostly by buses, but we (Jane and I - Sunil had returned to his parents' home in Calcutta) finally reached Kashmir, what The Mughal Emperor Jahangir called a "paradise on earth".  And he wasn't wrong.  It has beautiful snow covered mountains, green valleys and natural lakes, countless gardens with terraced lawns, cascading fountains and flowerbeds.  And best of all: houseboats on Dal Lake!  Ours was beautifully decorated with carpets, wall hangings, flowers, and a table setting of brass, and it had a front porch and a rooftop lounge (the family lived and cooked in the back).  Various merchants would row by selling fruits, soft drinks, candy bars, saris, sandals, silk cloths, you name it.  Paradise indeed.

Only one negative: I caught hepatitis (probably from the water).  Bummer.  Jane and I decided it best to leave immediately, or risk being being stuck for the winter when the snows began, and the road out of Kashmir becomes blocked.   We luckily found a ride with two Americans in their VW Bug, who got us all the way to Kabul (I was looking and acting pretty sick on the drive, to the point where I overheard the two Americans discussing what to do it I died on the way...). 

The Peace Corps doctor in Kabul confirmed I had hepatitis, and recommended I fly to Europe for treatment - and not to tell anyone when I bought my ticket, or I might not be permitted to board the plane.  

Final Stop: Hamburg, Germany.  Ah, Germany.  Everything was so clean, so organized.  The hospital put me in an isolation room, stuck a "liver cocktail" drip into my arm, and put me on a diet of mashed potatoes.  After about a week of this, my meal arrived with the usual plate of mashed potatoes, plus, for the first time, a second plate, with a cover on it.  I decided to look at what was in the second plate only after I finished my mashed potatoes.  My excitement mounted as I slowly uncovered the second plate, and discovered ... a second plate of mashed potatoes.   

John and Nana were in Hamburg, John on a Fullbright, Nana checking out the the art scene.  (This interest eventually blossomed into The Merryman Collection, a very successful contemporary art business Nana ran out of their home in Menlo Park.)  Jane handed me off to them, and headed off to do some traveling in Europe.  Mom, John and I headed for Lisbon, Madeira, and finally California.