Where Have All the Hippies Gone?

In the 1960's, the hippies insatiable search for something other than the suburban status quo brought them to the far reaches of the globe. Their goal was to travel as cheaply as possible - overland - to countries that offered a glimpse of enlightenment. "Finding yourself," "finding God," or simply finding a place to smoke a joint without risk of imprisonment opened up the East for these pioneers and for future generations of backpackers.

But now with discount flights, spring breaks, cell-phones and world-wide Internet access, the untouched exotic world of the hippie has turned into a commercialized highway ferrying travelers from one party hot-spot to the next.

Hippies are a rare sight in South-East Asia these days. One can spot a few dread-headed misfits among the crowds of college frat boys sporting Billabong surf shorts and girls whose suitcases are big enough to sell timeshares. A few still live in enclaves such as Goa or Kathmandu having never returned home once the thrill of the road had abandoned their peers for more lucrative, responsible options.

Countries like India, Vietnam and Iran are no longer so cheap you can live off a dollar a day. The Lonely Planet guidebook series has devoted itself to unmasking tranquil paradises to the credit-card masses. It seems that while the spirit of adventure, the unknown, the "new" are natural human cravings, Toronto or London or Singapore could offer nearly the same right from the comfort of your own city block.



But times change. Fashion changes. Local modes of transportation are quickly becoming the exact modes we use at home. And how is it the traveler's fault if they journey for days into the interior of a foreign country, only to meet locals more interested in learning new Warcraft strategies than smoking hashish?

Our modern world makes it difficult for anyone to truly become lost. The backpacker's way is paved and truly well trod. But does that mean travel has lost it's ability to inspire, transform or enlighten?

Even with the explosion of technology, a generally higher standard of living and more McDonald's than there have ever been, travelling still remains one of life's best teachers. My friend SistaK just attended the wedding of a Indian friend to a man she only met the day of the marriage. In Burma, I helped farmers gather their hand-tied bundles of rice in a sun-dried plateau of terraced fields before they beat them over rocks to release each single grain. Even in tourist-swarmed Cambodia, rivers overflow their banks forcing travelers to wade neck-deep in putrid water, their backpacks held above their heads.

Although the world may be getting smaller, our spirit of adventure doesn't have to. Like the hippies whose trail-blazing journeys made them into pilgrims, our search for genuine encounters with new ways of life must take on that same sense of intrepidity. Because the world of the hippies is still there, just disguised, just buried, just a little bit further...

When Does Backpacking Exist?

The Israeli took a long sip of his beer and then agreed with me. "I really think," I continued, "that it's impossible to backpack in Thailand anymore. It's just too easy." The Danish man, also a seasoned traveller, agreed as well. But the Englishman wouldn't have any of it.

The electricity had been turned off for the second night in a row. All four of us were squashed into a closet-sized bar called Mr. Hi's whose drunken patrons howled their laments at not being able to play their electric guitars that night.

Our talk had turned to travelling and terminology. Drinking Burmese beer over candlelight in the remote trekking center of Kalaw seemed the best place in the world to have this discussion.

All four of us had varying levels of travel experience. The Israeli was a fresh-faced army graduate intent on separating himself from the thousands of other Israeli army graduates who flock to S.E. Asia free from discipline. This was his first trip abroad and while telling tales of the madness of Haad Rin's Full Moon Party, he admitted that a beach full of Westerners is a nice transition for someone going abroad for the first time. (In my post on backpacker ghettos, I've talked about the comfort of transition spaces.)


With talk of transition, our conversation moved to the Khao San Road in Bangkok. "There's a pressure from within to resist the temptation for comforts of home," I said. "Yes, I'm definitely checking out who caved and is standing in line in the McDonald's on the Khao San."
The Dane hid his face in shame but soon bolstered - "Wait a minute. Yes, okay I ate McDonald's but that was because I'd been travelling for three months and just wanted a hamburger! I know it's wrong, but why should it be?"

What's Right and Wrong for a "Backpacker"?

We simply dispensed with the term "backpacker" after a time because all it seemed to refer to was someone's method of carrying their belongings. As the Englishman said, "Backpacking has to do with your intention, not the name-brand on your gear or the fact that you're the only foreigner on a bus of locals."

By that arguement, and one that I find to ring more and more true, a sixty year-old grey-haired couple totting suitcases into their hotel whose appetite for exploration and investigation of the local culture outmatch those of the college-grads smoking weed on the roof of some 4$/night hostel, have more right to call themselves "backpackers."

When "Home" is only an internet cafe away, where then is "Away"?

The Danish man piped up again, "Is it all about suffering? Who can sleep in the dirtiest bed? Who can eat the most rotten food or take the cheapest most uncomfortable mode of transportation? Why should that be a competition?"

We all agreed it was though. Backpacking implies sacrifice - usually of comfort at the expense of budget. It means eating local unknown food over familiar but overpriced food because it's ten-times cheaper. It means not being chauffeured airport to airport, hotel to hotel, swimming pool to swimming pool, but using local transportation and staying as close to the country as possible, not high above it. So does that mean the dirty hippy smelling like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts cartoon wins?

"Again," the Brit said, "It comes down to your intention. Maybe he wins, maybe he doesn't."

The next day on my trek in the sun-scorched countryside surrounding Kalaw, my guide Henry told me stories of travellers whose sense of adventure far outmatched any I boasted for myself.

"One crazy guy, Australian," Henry said, "he walked all the way from Manadalay to Kalaw. He slept in the jungle in his hammock for six nights, eating fruit or rice from a sack he bought.

"Another one, a guy from Holland, he rode his bicycle over the border illegally and cycled here to Kalaw. A Brazilian couple told me they were cycling from Mandalay all the way to Yangon, but were stopped by police and told they couldn't do it."

I balked in evny at these mad adventurers. The sixteen hour bus ride from Yangon to Kalaw was barely tolerable and even then I was glad to be inside a bus and not on that tiny pock-marked highway swarming with everything. My adventure stories sounded dull in comparison to stringing your hammock from a giant jungle ferns, munching contentedly on fallen mangoes. A third-class train ride seemed nothing to brag about.

There are parts of Thailand seldom visited by the tourist hordes. Theortically, or even intentionally, it might still be possible to "backpack through Thailand." But after Burma, on my way to Ko Phangan to relax, I came face to face -and became part of the face - with the conveyor-belt tourist machine that slaps stickers on travelers and ushers them seemlessly from Bangkok to the island bungalows of their choice. How adventurous is that?

But after three weeks in Burma, I didn't need any more adventure. I wanted easy. Much like a McDonald's hamburger. And what Thailand offers most for travellers is easy.

The Lonely Planet forums are packed with posters who make sure to distinguish themselves as "real backpackers" not "tourists." I'm inclined to stick to the more generic term of "traveller" since that, at the core, is what we're doing.

But now back at home, I'm likely to think it would be more realistic and authentic to "backpack through Canada" than to "backpack through Thailand" simply because the tourist mechanism that makes it possible to book any journey in its entirety from a sidewalk kiosk (bus-boat-bus-bus-train-taxi-boat), doesn't exist here. What sense of adventure exists jostling through crowds of other adventurers?

Burma's Continuing Tragedy

"Now everything so strange," the monk said as I followed him through the crowd of money changers, book sellers and food stalls. "Now in Yangon nothing is easy."

I had met D. two years earlier at the Sule Paya and had told him by email I was to return to Burma. Ten minutes earlier, he met me with a huge but reserved grin and shook my hand strongly. Both the September demonstrations and Cyclone Nargis had rocked the country and I could tell by the mischievous grin stroking his face that he had stories to tell.

I suggested we go to Shwedagon Pagoda - Burma's iconic golden stupa - a peaceful and somewhat nostalgic place to talk.

"No, not there." he said. "We can't talk there." Nor could he explain why, either at Sule, on the street or at the coffee shop we drank a small sugary cup of tea at. I'd heard about the spies that disguised themselves as street-sweepers, cigarette vendors or even monks themselves. It wasn't until we were back at his monastery in the privacy of the abbot's upper room where we could talk freely.

"Since September, monks are no longer allowed to speak with foreigners at Shwedagon. The army doesn't allow it. If they see a monk speaking to a tourist, they will interrupt and stop the conversation. Big trouble for the monk."

I was shocked. Two years earlier, monks flocked to Shwedagon in hopes of meeting foreigners with whom to practice their English. That was how I'd met D. at Sule. The monks acted as impromptu tour guides on both Buddhist and Burmese culture. That this was no longer allowed spoke to the increasing isolation with which the government was punishing the monks. Further bans on communication in an already paranoid culture could only mean setbacks on the road to democracy.
"What were you protesting?" I asked.
His lively face grew serious.
"Have you heard of Pakkoku? The army hung three monks by their necks from a busstop. First, we demanded an apology for their deaths."

I had heard previously of the other three demands - to reduce inflation of gas and food prices; to release all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi; and national reconciliation. The story of the executed monks in Pakkoku had come as a hideous surprise. But it wasn't to be the last.

A classmate of D.'s confided in me more stories of atrocity. Those demonstrators who had been caught by the police had been rounded up, bound by the hands and feet and lined up in rows on the pavement. Army vehicles then drove over them as a means of quick, inexpensive execution.

Up north in the trekking district of Kalaw and Inle Lake, the people were eager to tell their stories to any tourist willing to listen. Stories of soldiers going door to door selling blankets and mosquito nets stolen from Cyclone Nargis aid. Stories of political prisoners being sent naked to prisons in Putao then being injected daily with amphetamines in order to induce madness. Stories of farmers being kicked off their land in order for the army to construct new buildings. The nightly power outages ("There's plenty of electricity. The government just sells it to China or sends it to Naypyidaw") were just a small reminder that the people of Burma were not just suffering from lack of organization as a nation-state, but were being deliberately and cruelly thwarted from making any kind of progress.

During one such power outage in Kalaw, two drunken men sidled up to us, mourning the fact that their band could no longer play their set.

"Do you like Burma?" one asked.

Usually when asked this question by a citizen, travellers politely gush about the beauty of the culture. That night I felt spectacularly uncomfortable doing so with Burma. Power outages were an adventure for me, not a daily inconvenience. The bar looked quaint, lit by tiny candles. Unpaved roads meant fewer tourists and better chances to interact with unjaded locals. But I had a plane ticket back to Bangkok. The drunken men, the monks, the families of the executed protesters didn't.

"The reason it's so difficult to get a passport," D. told me, showing off his new, unused one, "Is because the army knows everyone would leave!"

He told me of his plan to go to Bangkok, either by airplane - should he even find the funds - or by walking through the jungle and crossing illegally. "Either way, by April, I will leave this country."