Book excerpt: This is a story of my Overland trips from London to Kathmandu in the early seventies. This was an interesting time with many changes going on, many of the travelers being born at the end of the Second World War and others post war baby boomers. We had moved through rock and roll, Dylan, Beatles, Hippies, the racial changes in the US, cold war, and still had the war in Vietnam, which most of us were against. What made us take an overland journey from Europe to Kathmandu? For many of us it was travel to the unknown, an adventure, plus an escape from conformity. It could be said it was the fore runner of the backpacker travel movement now a rite of passage for young people today. We in fact were following Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Monguls and Mughal invaders, Muslim Arab armies, as well as trading caravans which gave some of our route the romantic name of the Silk Road.