Magic Bus (37 page)

Later that week I take a small house a few miles up the coast and start to organize my thoughts. As Goa's autumn storms gather out at sea, their broad sweeps of lightning silhouetting the palms, I rebuild the overland journey in my head. I see Kerouac and Ginsberg listening to the Beatles. I hear John Butt singing Dylan again. I watch eighteen-year-old London girls raise their thumbs to hitch alone across Anatolia. I think of Rudy's sense of belonging to the world and Laleh's fear of belonging nowhere. I remember again Hesse's ‘home and youth of the soul' and Chatwin's assertion that the hippies wrecked Afghanistan. I imagine Ahmed strapping a dynamite girdle around his waist. I hold Penny as she kisses me goodbye in Kathmandu.

In the silence of this room, I begin to rework experience, looking at the shadows of the unseen, trying to find an order in the pattern. I'm not filled with melancholia, pining for a distant time or place which has been lost. I'm feeling my way over new ground, gazing inside myself as much as at geography, wandering and wondering away from certainty toward something open and flowing, toward a new destination.

‘The trail across Asia is narrow and there's only one road, one way to go,' wrote Douglas Brown in the conclusion to his 1971 guidebook. ‘When it broadens out in India, and you see the hundreds of cities marked in a very small area of the map, you will have at last the chance to go wherever you want, and find a place to rest and get into a way of life that will satisfy you. The one path has become many.'

Those paths spin out from this room like the threads of a vast spider's web. In a thousand departure lounges a fresh generation
of Intrepids stands on the brink of the world. Icelandic trekkers in flip-flops eye Gulf Air stewardesses in blue pencil skirts and high heels. Mumbai boys in transit chat up Filipino salesgirls at duty-free shops. A continent away, Argentinian kids board double-decker sleeper buses to cross the Andes and reach Pacific beaches. Uruguayan architecture students drive VW Campers on year-long study tours from Europe to India. In Tanzania, fledgling pilots buzz dirt runways to clear away giraffes, then try to avoid their aircraft being trampled by wildebeest. Malaysian teens fly to Hong Kong for shopping weekends. American undergrads jet into the Sorbonne for travel writing workshops. Gap-year Scots learn to enter Mongolian yurts by shouting ‘
Nokhoi khor!
' – ‘Hold the dog!' Egyptian newlyweds sleep under the stars in the Namibian desert. From the stark horizons of the Arctic tundra to the tourist deck of a Caribbean mail-boat, the new voyagers stand to greet the sunrise, Youssou N'Dour singing ‘Mr Everywhere' in their ears.

Like them, I am a foreigner, an open-hearted, sole traveller, spiralling out from where I was born, curious for the world and taking nothing for granted: not belonging, not possessing, at home in my skin and reinventing myself at every border. Moving on. That's our legacy from the sixties. Not simply ‘this now life… this here life'. Not just the raw experience of being. But living both in the moment and in the mind, striving to understand – and to express – how it feels to be alive.

The momentum of the sea marks off the days. Autumn makes way for winter. A bird nests under the eaves. The party people move on to Yangshuo, Saigon and Cairns. I stay behind in this packaged paradise, watching jet streams crisscross the azure sky. Then, eight months to the day after that hopeful morning in Istanbul, I pick up my pen and write, ‘My wonder at that first step moves me still, that stride into the unknown, that grasping for stars…'

Many people climbed on to the Magic Bus to help it on its way. In London, Colin Thubron was first aboard with early enthusiasm and gentle friendship. Philip Marsden and Bruce Palling opened the bus's rear doors. Jonathon Green stepped on, bringing his original interviews from
Days in the Life
and
All Dressed Up
in a tie-dyed shoulder bag. Hetty MacLise was enormously helpful with research and all errors and inaccuracies are due to my enthusiasm for her remarkable stories. Judy Astley, Ondine Barrow, Simon Calder, David Chater, Marlie and Michael Ferenczi, Christine Gettins, Gwyneth Henderson, David Jenkins, Sue Lascelles, Richard Ingrams, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Jessie Marshall, Towyn Mason, Desmond O' Flattery, Mary Price, Hawa Rawat and JoAnne Robertson took their seats alongside Christine Walker of the
Sunday Times
and Toby Latta and Josh Mandel of Control Risks Group. Joanna Prior and Barry Blackmore sat in the back, rocking to the greatest playlist of all time. On the pavement outside, Verona Bass packed us off with her 1967 diaries and banana-loaf lunches.

In New York, the Magic Bus paused to collect Joy Press and Hervay Petion from
Village Voice
. In Massachusetts, Danny Karlin led the way to Kerouac's grave and bridged the Beats and the sixties. In Paris, George and Sylvia Whitman put us up between the stacks at Shakespeare and Company. In Amsterdam, Clive and Rebecca Tanquery reopened the Magic Inn, while in Berlin Dr Willi Steul helped to unpick the social fabric of Pashtun society.

In Turkey, I will never forget the kindness of the remarkable Freely family: John, Delores, Brendon and Maureen (who let me quote from her
Cornucopia
article on Carla Grissmann). Great thanks to them, to Jeremy Seal, Fatih Hatay, Pat Yale and to Nurdogan Sengüler of Les Arts Turcs.

Caution prevents me from naming the many generous Iranians
who welcomed me both into their hearts and their extraordinary country. In Afghanistan, I openly acknowledge the assistance of my fellow Intrepids Paul Clammer, Jason Elliot, Christina Lamb, Rory Stewart, Sanjar Qiam and Tahir Shah. In Kabul, John West gave me a place to sleep. Former Indian Army Major Sunil Shetty, SM, ensured I didn't get shot. Author and journalist Ahmed Rashid explained why no one would bother to waste the bullet.

In Pakistan, Meriel Beattie and Usman Homaira sped the Magic Bus further along the trail, as did Caro Coltman and Peter Berkeley, Norman Flach and Lory Thiessen, Fayyaz Ali Khan, Jonaid Shah of GTZ Peshawar, Neelofer Khan and Tariq Qurashi of the Canadian International Development Agency. Makhdoom Shahabuddin, gentleman and
Pir
, also treated me with great kindness.

Rosie Goldsmith helped me motor into India. Many thanks, as always, to her, to William Dalrymple and to Jayanta Roy Chowdhury, who guided me from Naxal to nirvana by way of Nehru. In Nepal, I am grateful to Daniel Lak and Manjushree Thapa, as well as to Ruth and Mark Segal for the great family breakfasts.

At Lonely Planet's offices in Melbourne and London, Tony and Maureen Wheeler could not have been more helpful, as were Simon Westcott, Jennifer Cox and Andy Neilson. Along with Bill Dalton of Moon Publications, Philippe Gloaguen of
Guides du routard
, Stefan and Renate Loose of
Stefan Loose Verlag
and Mark Ellingham of Rough Guides, they changed the way we travel the world. I am grateful to drivers and enthusiasts Jonathan Benyon, Graham Bourne, Kevin Buckley, David ‘Blossom' Johnson, Geoff Hann, Jim D. Holden, Geoffrey Morant, Brian Page, John Shearman and Chris Weeks.

Finally, with the Magic Bus now safely parked in my Dorset garage (alongside a Trabant, a Canadian birch-bark canoe and a light, white Cretan flying-machine), I wish to acknowledge the guidance and navigational skills of my agent, Peter Straus, my editor, Mary Mount and – most of all – my wife, Katrin. As they say, I get by with a little help from my friends.

www.rorymaclean.com

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge the following for permission to reproduce lyrics and verse:

‘Light My Fire', Words and Music by The Doors. Copyright © 1967 Doors Music Co. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

‘Brain Damage', Words and Music by Roger Waters. © 1972 Roger Waters Overseas Limited. All rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8 BS. Reproduced by permission.

‘Aquarius', Words by James Rado and Jerome Ragni. Music by Galt MacDermot. © 1967 Channel-H-Prod Inc., United Artists Music Co. Inc. and EMI United Partnership Ltd, USA. Worldwide print rights controlled by Alfred Publishing Co. Inc., USA. Administered in Europe by Faber Music Ltd. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.

‘Sesame Street Theme', Words and Music by Joe Raposo, Bruce Hart and Jon Stone. © 1970, Sesame Street Inc./EMI April Music Inc., USA. Reproduced by permission of EMI Music Publishing Ltd, London
WC2H OQY.

‘Trust Yourself', Words and Music by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 1985 by Special Rider Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted with permission.

“The Times They are a-Changin”, Words and Music by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc. Copyright renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted with permission.

‘Gates of Eden', Words and Music by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc. Copyright renewed 1993 by Special Rider Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted with permission.

‘Dear Prudence', Words and Music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. © Copyright 1968 Northern Songs. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

‘In Goya's Greatest Scenes…(#1)' by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, from
A Coney Island of the Mind
, copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Reprinted with permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

‘America' and ‘Howl' from
Selected Poems 1947–95
by Allen Ginsberg (London, 1997), reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.

‘Our Beautiful West Coast Thing' by Richard Brautigan, from
The Pill versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
, copyright © 1968 by Richard Brautigan.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright-holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good at the earliest opportunity any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention.

Brown, Douglas:
Overland to India
(Toronto, New Press, 1971)

Byron, Robert:
The Road to Oxiana
(London, Penguin, 1992)

Chatwin, Bruce:
What am I Doing Here?
(London, Picador, 1990)

Crowther, Geoff and others:
Overland to India
(London, BIT, 1970 and Crisis-BIT Trust, 1975)

Dupree, Nancy Hatch:
An Historical Guide to Kabul
(Kabul, Afghan Tourist Organization, 1965)

Ginsberg, Allen:
Indian Journals
(New York, Grove Press, 1996)

Gloaguen, Philippe:
Guide du routard
(Paris, Hachette, various dates)

Gray, Michael and Bauldie, John (eds.),
All Across the Telegraph: A Bob Dylan Handbook
(London, Sidgwick and Jackson, 1987)

Green, Jonathon:
All Dressed Up
(London, Pimlico, 1999)

Grissmann, Carla:
Dinner of Herbs
(London, Arcadia Books, 2001)

Hesse, Hermann:
The Journey to the East
(London, Grafton, 1972) and
Siddhartha
(London, Picador, 1973)

Holmes, John Clellon:
Go
(New York, Charles Scribner, 1952)

James, Bill:
Top Deck Daze
(Avalon, NSW, Halbooks, 1999)

Karlin, Danny:
Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan: At Kerouac's Grave and Beyond
(unpublished paper given at Shakespeare & Co. Literary Festival, Paris, 2003)

Kerouac, Jack:
On the Road
(London, Penguin, 1972)

Macdonald, Ian:
Revolution in the Head
(London, Fourth Estate, 1994)

Miles, Barry:
Many Years from Now
(London, Vintage, 1998)

Morris, Jan:
Destinations: Essays from ‘Rolling Stone'
(Oxford, OUP, 1980)

Neville, Richard and Clarke, Julie:
The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj
(London, Jonathan Cape, 1979)

Saunders, Nicholas:
Alternative London
(London, Saunders, 1970)

Schultz, Mik:
Asia for the Hitchhiker
(Copenhagen, Bramsen and Hjort, 1973)

Shephard, Sam:
Rolling Thunder Logbook
(London, Viking, 1977)

Thapa, Deepak:
A Kingdom Under Siege
(Kathmandu, the print-house, 2003)

Twain, Mark:
Following the Equator
(Hartford, The American Publishing Company, 1897)

Wheeler, Tony:
Across Asia on the Cheap
(Sydney, Lonely Planet, 1973)

White, Kenneth:
The Wanderer and his Charts
(Edinburgh, Polygon, 2004)

Wolfe, Tom:
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
(London, Black Swan, 1989)

‘Light Years from New York', Maureen Freely (Istanbul,
Cornucopia
, 2001)

‘Moving Freely', Maureen Freely (Istanbul,
Cornucopia
, 2002)

‘The New Indiaman', Frank Riley (London,
Meccano
, October 1959)

‘Music Scene', Linda Solomon (New York,
The Village Voice
, 28 March 1963)