Spring of ’78

In 1978, Mark Abley and his friend Clare took a break from their studies at Oxford to embark on a journey through Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. Clare looked forward to the splendid art and architecture, and Abley wanted to learn something about himself and his generation’s purpose in life. Might he even fill the “God-shaped emptiness” he felt growing inside him? The friends soon found themselves squashed into local trains and buses festooned with flowers, not fully anticipating the “ragged, discordant prelude to the shattering music of the future” that awaited them.

A fascinating chronicle of their journey, Strange Bewildering Time: Istanbul to Kathmandu in the Last Year of the Hippie Trail charts the dissipation of hopes at the end of an era. For about fifteen years, starting in the early 1960s, the famed overland trek offered young bohemians with vague dreams of...