The Overland - London to Kathmandu in the '70s & '80s

The Overland - London to Kathmandu in the '70s & '80s In the grey light of an early London morning, the coach park next to the Gloucester St tube station in South Kensington is buzzing with activity. Engines are revving, filling the air with acrid fumes. There has been some rain overnight and travellers weave, dragging their suitcases and bags, around the scattered puddles. Couriers and conductors with clip-boards tick off names; point to specific buses; answer the anxious questions of flustered passengers. A flustered overweight woman dragging a huge suitcase, fortunately with wheels, approaches a bearded young man dressed in a well-worn anorak with an old baseball cap perched on the back of his head, who obviously knew what was happening,. She looks at him hesitantly, and in a distinct American drawls asks: “Is this the bus to Luton Airport.” With an impish grin, the bearded man replies: “No, love, this bus is going to Kathmandu. The Luton Airport bus is over there,” waving his arm nonchalantly towards the opposite side of the coach park. “Kathmandu!” The American woman’s mouth drops open and she backs away, her case toppling over. She picks it up and drags it away, glancing nervously back over her shoulder as she moves in the direction indicated, no doubt still digesting the seemingly facetious answer of this rather impudent young man – Kathmandu, indeed!. A tousled-haired young man with a giant rucksack looks at the bearded man, grins and says: ‘Well, I guess I’ve got the right bus!” Scenarios such as this were not uncommon at the Gloucester Road coach park, in the late 1970s - early 1980s from where, besides service-coaches, many Overland and European tour coaches departed. It was always a scene of bustle and seemingly chaotic confusion with many vehicles leaving around the same time. There were outbursts of bad-temper, particularly with the service-coach personnel who issued tickets on the spot on a first come – first served basis, but eventually order was always restored in the mayhem as the time for departure drew near. Inside the coach to Kathmandu, excited passengers are finding their seats, introducing themselves to each other, stowing hand luggage in the limited capacity overhead racks or under the seats. The last few people climb aboard and I check off the last names on the clipboard. I officially introduce myself as the tour leader and the bearded young man in the anorak as the driver, and finally the coach to Kathmandu is ready to depart. Slowly we crawl out of the Gloucester Road coach park into the busy early morning traffic on this typically grey London day. It will be slow going until we reach the open highway to Kent. We must reach Dover by midday to catch the Channel ferry to Zeebrugge and then the long road journey to India and Nepal will begin in earnest.

An Overland coach on the Red Sea at Aqaba, Jordan

The Overland was a journey which had its commercial genesis in the mid-1960s, with the opening up and the accessibility to a number of Asian countries. After the Second World War there was a period of instability with Civil War in Greece, the emergence of Israel and the subsequent disruption in the Middle East. The Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan led to further tension which still periodically rears its ugly head. Nepal had been a secretive Country high in the Himalayas and when the borders opened in the mid-1960s, the Overland, the road to Kathmandu was complete and as safe as it would ever be. Earlier travellers such as Peter Pinney who recorded his journey in Dust on My Shoes travelled by local buses, by train, and or hitch-hiked across the lands of the Orient. In Pinney’s case his journey ended tragically with the loss of his travelling companion in the swollen river Chindwin in Burma. Tim Slessor and his Expedition from Oxford/Cambridge Universities completed the journey by Landrover – all the way to Singapore & back - in the mid-1950s. By the mid to late 1960s the journey was becoming common-place with the route to Kathmandu becoming known as the ‘Hippy Trail’. Many commercial operators were offering overland tours at various prices and of various standards, all of which were far more adventurous compared with other forms of travel, particularly for Australians and New Zealanders who found it was a much more exciting way of getting to Europe than by sea or by air. Politically the first half of the 1970s, although India and Pakistan did fight the war that saw the creation of Bangladesh in late 1971, was a period of relative stability across Asia. The commercial overland tour operations boomed but towards the end of the decade things turned to custard once again. In Afghanistan King Zahir had been deposed in 1973 after a reign of almost 40 years. The political situation gradually deteriorated through the late ‘70s leading to the Soviet invasion on Christmas Eve 1979, the bitter war that followed and the rise of the Taliban. In Iran, after years of unrest the Shah of Iran was forced into exile and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established an Islamic Republic. In late 1979 Iranian students and Republican guards stormed the US Embassy in Tehran holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days and in 1980 the Iraqis under Saddam Hussein invaded Iran precipitating a war that lasted for 8 years leading to instability, the American intervention and the ongoing conflict that has racked that region ever since. Due to this uncertainty many of the remaining Overland companies flew their clients from Karachi to Athens or Istanbul, or just operated on the Indian sub-continent, but one by one they shut down and by 1985 it was pretty well all over, the Overland era had ended and the world had changed forever.

© Neil Rawlins  text & photography

 I have written two books on these halcyon days on the Overland. Both available on Amazon ebooks: