Last Minute Tasks

In the second week of September 1970, I boarded a Greyhound bus for New York City. I had a few last minute tasks before boarding my Icelandic Airlines flight. I knew that I would be crossing a number of international borders traveling from Luxembourg to India. If I hoped for a relatively smooth journey, I would need as many visas as I could obtain before leaving the US. So I dutifully made the rounds of the various consulates in NYC.

For my efforts, I ended up with tourist visas for Yugoslavia (for some reason I didn’t need a visa for travel through Bulgaria), Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Nepal. I don’t think that Turkey required a visa for US citizens in 1970. I was surprised by how easy the process was at most embassies, although I remember the staff of the Afghan consulate seeming a bit scattered. I always wondered if they had received something other than documents in their diplomatic pouches from Afghanistan. Afghanistan was notable at that time for its high quality hashish.

All that was left for me to do was to hop on the “Hippie Express” and begin my Indian Odyssey.