LET'S START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING...….

At the end of each day when we camped and after dinner, it was my writing time of my diary ! 

I simply noted down what I did and saw and how I felt, etc…. And here we are….   

I. AUSTRIA - ON THE SEARCH FOR EDELWEIß Flowers

DAY 1
1) TUESDAY, 28 JUNE 1977: 181 KMS. – KITZBÜHEL

Munich - Photo : Rudolf Sterflinger / Bing images search

Very excited to start our journey today, we left Mu’s house in ECHING, northern suburb of MUNICH, around noon. We took the autobahn (German highway) in the direction towards ROSENHEIM in OBERBAYERN, arriving about 3 pm. and stopped to buy more small things for personal use, like Knirp umbrella (with red dot symbol DM. 75.-), sunglasses and leather sandals from Brasil (DM. 25- each). It’s a pity that I wanted to buy a Wind-jacket (Windjacke) which is very popular at present and should be very useful against wind and rain on the way and when I will be back home but the color was too bright for me. We should have gone for shopping in MUNICH instead as, in fact, Tilo wanted to buy some more spare parts for our Mercedez van and some canned foods for emergency occasions.  

Houses in border area of Austria and Germany are typical Alpen style, the same as in Switzerland countryside. It reminds me of my gilded music box, a souvenir for tourists purchased from  ZURICH few years ago. There are flower pots, growing gardenia or geranium full of blooming red or pink flowers, adorn all window frames or balcony. These houses are not much different from wooden houses in the tropics. I noticed a small bell tower and a weather cock on the roof toward the gables of the house with some metal pieces like an arrow to tell the wind direction. Every house looks beautiful and quaint. I understood that the little bell tower on the roof would be used to sound the alarm or announce major events or emergencies.

It was nearly 5 pm. when we got almost everything and started to roll on again down the autobahn to LAUTERBACH, FARSDORF, NIEDERASCHAU until we passed through the German-Austria border at SACHRANG into Austria territory. It didn’t take us too long for passing all formalities, we just showed what the officers asked, like lifting up seating (compartments) and opening the back doors of our van, showing what we have inside.
          

Jagged mountain peaks : Wilde Kaiser

Shortly before 6 pm., we arrived NIEDERNDORF. The road is full of winding paths, up and down the mountain, very scary and risky to cause accident if one drives carelessly along the edge of deep chasm. Between KUFSTEIN and ST. JOHAN we saw a peculiar jagged mountain peaks like I've seen from a scene in cowboys films where the Indians usually reside in such region. It is WILDE KAISER – very well-known in Austria.

Wilde Kaiser - Photo : Skiwelt.at / Google images search

It was not even dark when we arrived KITZBÜHEL a bit later than 7 pm.  KITZÜHEL is very popular ski resort. (located away from INNSBRUCK, the capital city of TYROL about 100 km.) It is  famous tourist destination in Austria for spending holidays near doctor, especially for elderly people, for their health checks or physical rehabilitation. It is known in German as KURURLAUB. Tourists of all nationalities come here during holiday season, American, German, Dutch, Italian and French for snow skiing in the winter as well as during off-season time. Although when we arrived it seemed quiet than it should be, the beauty of the city and specialties inspiring natural forest surroundings, made me wanting to stay longer.  After parking down the very quiet street, we left our van to walk around the city.

Kitzbühel - Photo : Bing images search

As a beautiful tourist city, most products and souvenirs are more expensive than in Germany, they are not well crafted neither. What I liked when firstly saw was crystal handicrafts of Swarovski as hedgehogs and rats. They are white crystal but very expensive, upto DM.40 - (1. - Mark = 7. - Shillings  = 10 . - Baht . , 1US $ = 2.38DM = 20.40 BHT) in spite of their small sizes like a thumb. There are also handmade souvenirs invented of stumps in strange forms such as dwarf from Snow White tales for house wall decorating, cosmetics bag made ​​of black cloth or cartridges for face powder with mirror or covered with black cloth and silk embroidered with beautiful Cross Stitch patterns, dried flowers and jewelry boxes. 

I thought to buy a nice one for my mother, but still have not found very nice one that I really like. I've seen it also in Germany as a powder cartridge but I had little interest in it and I did not buy it earlier. However, I only have thought to buy things for everyone but did not dare to buy anything as I am not sure if there will be obstacles in getting to the final destination. I don’t know how many things I can carry back home. Until now I’ve recently got only visa for 4 countries : Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. I still need to apply for visa to enter more other countries.   

BEFORE ROLLING.....

As soon as we finished modifying our campervan, we began to prepare for all provisions needed for our long journey. In fact, we were very excited to realize the journey as soon as possible but I had to see the doctor in the hospital for final check-up (after my lung operation) to make sure that I won’t have any serious problem during the long journey. Besides vaccination against Cholera, I also needed entry visa as a tourist for every country !

 

Friends from Sindelfingfen : Ralph & Gaby, Hans-Martin

I, myself, would definitely leave Germany and return home after having not seen my family during the last 4 years since I left home. Certainly, I won’t see all my friends in Germany again in the near future.

Heinz, Ralph and Me

They were good friends, having given us morale support more or less, namely Ralph and his girlfriend Gaby, Hans-Martin and Heinz in Sindelfingen as well as Chris and Elke and some others in Stuttgart - Rudi, Marinsa  and her sister Nisa.  We would send our slides of photos of our journey to the lab in Germany and they would be sent back at Marinsa’s address to keep for us.

Elke & Chris : I won't forget your huge collection of good records of nice songs and music ! Some of your favorite songs accompanied us along the way to India.

The most important couple was my friend Tilo’s parents (Vati & Mutti - RIP) in Oldenburg.  We began to make our farewell tour from the north to the south. Our last stop in Germany which was our starting point as well was In Eching near Munich, where we said goodbye to my friend Mu and Paul.

Tilo's parents : Gerhard & Helen Grabowski (Vati & Mutti - RIP)

 

Traveling overland to India in those days was a very popular route for westerners and hippies as India has been one of the world 's oldest civilizations, cradle with her various gurus, leaders of thoughts and faith, including religions and philosophies, art and music with their own charms. The unique sound of “Sitar” lulling spellbound by the master Ravi Shankar, said to have inspired and recognizable to some works of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones - were the most famous in that era.

Beatle George Harrison and Ravi Shankar (Photo : thesupersplice.com / Google images search)

We did not travel alone in some certain parts and periods of time because it had to be taken into account for safety on our  way . Sometimes as we went off-way, we did not move on existing roads but on the ground of packed sand . We could only follow tracks of vehicle tyres left on the sand which may be disappeared after a sandstorm in the desert. So we would look at the sun for our orientation for proper direction. Luckily that we had mostly found other travel companions (campers) on the route and to the same destination.

Tyre traces on desert road ( Photo :  Wahyu Hidayat / Google images search)

It was uncomparable pleasure that we were so independent to travel where we would love to go and to spend our nights without depending on luxurious hotels and restaurants. Each of us was restricted only by banking account but not limited by the time. Thus we were so happy to be on the Hippie Trail….. 

PROUD TO PRESENT.....

Interior of our self-modified campervan

We were among those lucky travelers, having realized our dreams before the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan ! For me, I may be one in a million or many millions of Thai people having done such a long overland journey to India from Europe.


Unfortunately, most of our photos (in transparencies) have gone bad due to long-time storage under bad condition of hot tropical climate and it's a bit too late to restore those slides taken during our journey more than 35 years ago. It's a pity that I was not aware of possibility to convert my slides to digital photos earlier and I have only found my hand-written diary of the journey (forgotten and kept away out of reach for quite a long time) just 2 years ago.  However, during that time I've already posted my diary in my native language (Thai) on facebook as well as created my page of the same. The attention of my travel diary seemed to have reached only readers in a small number because of my writing media limited to those who can read my language.


I'd like to rewrite / translate my once in a lifetime experience of my longest journey to India on my blog as to share it to more readers. Anyhow, I can't promise anyone of how interesting my diary will be as I can only write simple things and moreover English is not my mother tongue. Please apologise for mistakes and if it's not clearly expressed, you're kindly to post questions for further explanation.

For your getting clearer pictures of my stories, I may have to add some nice photos of different dates from my journey, available from the internet, compatible with some parts of my diary as well as some nice videos from You Tube (with most gratitude to their owners and photographers).

FOREWORD

India, as a sub-continent and her civilization has been a topic of my interests since my childhood. When I was a kid, I liked seeing Indian movies with many scenes of dances and songs with exotic music. 


I was 28, when my post-graduate study at Stuttgart University in Germany  was disrupted because of my long illness and hospitalized,  which finally ended up with my left lung operation in early 1977.

Overland route from Munich to Madras

Without any hesitation, I asked to travel with my German friend, who had planned to make an overland route to India many years ahead. We spent a few months in converting a used parcel mini-van, bought by auction from the Deutsche Bundestpost to our campervan as well as our rolling hotel, by ourselves in a friend's garage.

As I haven't known how to drive (- such a big handicap  :-(  !!), my role was like a co-pilot or navigator (in reading route maps) and a travel companion. Though, I shared expenses for all costs, except the vehicle. I was then mostly responsible for cooking meals for us whenever we camped in camping areas along the route.