I've held romanticized ideas of the early hippie trail from the 60's/70's, idealizing the period as a perfect time to wander and experience Asia - more so than the last few decades. Around the middle of last year I came across Hippie Masala below which...".. focuses on the aftermath of the hippie migration to Asia, specifically documenting the lives of six hippies who chose to remain in India: Cesare from Italy, Erica and Gillian from South Africa, Hanspeter from Switzerland, Meera from Belgium and Robert from the Netherlands. No longer in their 20s, they are leading the lives of a traditional yogi and a female meditator in retreat, a painter with a local wife and children, designers of beach clothing in Goa, and a farmer who hunts and cares for his cows in the Himalayas."

For those who might have wondered, like myself, what happened to the hippies that stayed in India - here's part of the answer.

It seems the video takes a while to appear - but it does.

Goa Freaks: My Hippie Years in India by Cleo Odzer is an account of the lives of many who financed their hippie lifestyle through drug smuggling in the region at that time. Odzer returned to Goa in 2000 to be shunned by many in the community for writing her account - she died not long after.

You can read it free online here.

http://booksonline.com.ua/view.php?book=163811

To be honest Richard I doubt that one person was responsible for the smack that overtook Goa in the 70s. I remember meeting lots of junkies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, shared a room with a few in Bombay, mostly using Morphine most on their way to Goa. For some reason many seemed to be French ands Italian ?

The magic bus London to Kathmandu

The bus companies that sprang up to meet the demand advertised in Private Eye and the 'underground' press, and they shared the road with a motley procession of private cars, vans, minibuses, and even motorbikes.

Many vehicles never made it all the way, and many more never made it back - it was a journey of over 6,000 miles in each direction, and it took in high mountain passes, scorching deserts, and some very rough roads.

The overland companies used all kinds of buses - standard coaches, double-deckers, Transit vans and even old army trucks, stopping at hotels or campsites on the way, and helping each other out on the road.

Richard was a guy I met with on a bus journey from Phnom Penh to Koh Kong some years ago. Richard had been living in Koh Kong for many years. He was one of the original owner drivers of the magic bus. He had many of good stories to tell about the epic journeys of the time. It apparently came to a sudden end for his bus when the Pakistani authorities found a stash of hashish under the bus floor.

I rode my bicycle from Nepal to north India all the way up to Leh, Ladakh about five years ago. On my way, I made a point of visiting Kasar Devi, a mountain village above Almora in Uttarakhand.... They still grow up there, and produce hashish. Kasar Devi is idyllic --very quiet and lovely. Nothing there but a few guesthouses and cottages overlooking the valley. The road down the other side goes through the most gorgeous protected pine forest... Friendly local people. The guy running the guesthouse told me the story of how two British guys arrived way back in the 1970 or 72, hiking up the mountain, carrying a very large ghetto blaster (boom box) playing the popular folk rock music of the day... They came in search of weed, and found it... To this day some old timer hippies have cottages up there or revisit regularly...

https://almora.nic.in/tourist-place/kasar-devi/