Abrams on the Hippie Trail: A Wander Through the Prose (The Long of It)

just threw the cup out of the window and as it disintegrated it would become part of the track. When the monsoon came the clay would be washed back into the holes that it had originally been dug from, only to be recycled again the following season.After an extended hjourney on public transport when they took to their thumbs again the experience wasn’t quite what they expected:

It was nice to be hitch hiking again and it was not long before we were given a lift in a jeep. The driver bought us both a Coca Cola when he stopped in a small village and eventually dropped us about 25 miles up the road. After waiting about an hour we were picked up by a lorry and climbed into the back where there were a number of passengers already. There was a woman in the back who started to shout and create [sic]. It seems that she objected to our company and so the driver stopped again and made us get off.

and their luck stayed a little low alas:

The driver probably was probably not able to judge his peculiar clearance and his rear wheels went straight over Louis' luggage that also had his combat jacket lying on top of it. It bent the frame, burst open the suitcase and broke the bottles of medicine that he had in his jacket pocket. (Louis suffered from a fungal infection on his hand which he needed to paint on some medicine each morning to control it). We managed to get the registration number of the lorry, but we had no way of being able to report it.

But it wasn’t all bad, hitching still had its advantages:

I could have caught a train from Marmagoa in Goa, but I didn't have a timetable and decided that it was quicker to hitch out of the state and catch a train on the main line.

Abrams was perhaps the antithesis of Jamie Salazar and this was the pinacle of his self-reported lascivious behaviour:

The journey was long and boring, the truck rarely exceeding 25 MPH. It was an unseasonably cold day and we were both freezing cold. I had to unpack a pullover and lend my combat jacket to Monica to keep her warm. It was a good opportunity to snuggle together.

I had to laugh out loud at this episode:

Madras post restante was my first mail collection point since
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