Hippie India

In the 1970s many thousands of young persons travelled from Europe to Asia on the Hippie Trail in search of adventure, spiritual enlightenment, and personal discovery. Their sprawling, free-wheeling escapades changed their lives and the places they visited. While the overland route between Amsterdam and Kathmandu no longer exists, its stopovers in India — Pushkar, Rishikesh, Hampi, Goa, and the Pushkar Valley — continue to attract counterculture travelers from throughout the world. And just as the visitors have absorbed experiences and material culture, even spiritual wisdom, from their Indian hosts, so, too, have local residents learned a thing or two from their hippie guests. During the past half century, an intense cultural intermingling has taken place in these distant locales, where lifeways, architectures, and philosophies are exchanged as freely as costumes, music, and hairstyles. This photographic book, the first of its kind, vividly captures the beguiling love affair between East and West in its portrayal of modern-day India and the free-spirited people who travel or reside there — Westerners and Indians, alike. Acclaimed essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer wrote the book foreword entitled “The Long Strange Trip.”