Asian Trips - The Bandit of Kabul: Episode Two of the Series "As The Prayer Wheel Turns"
![The Bandit of Kabul: Episode Two of the Series]()
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List Price: $29.95
www.asiantrips.info Price: $29.95
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Manufacturer: Regent Press
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 915
EAN: 9781587900945
ISBN: 1587900947
Label: Regent Press
Manufacturer: Regent Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 250
Publication Date: 2006-08-01
Publisher: Regent Press
Studio: Regent Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Filled with real life action in the great American tradition of adventurers / writers like Hemingway, Mark Twain and Jack London, "The Bandit of Kabul" is a tight, fast paced, emotionally driven narrative. This true story spans the decade before the Age of Technology and is filled with cutting edge global views of history during the last days of the legal Afghanistan-Kathmandu to Amsterdam hash smugglers and the rise of the smoke shops in Holland. Go off the beaten path with rebel, Hollywood outlaw artists. Humor, hedonism and high jinks in Asia are haunted by the spector of serial killer Charles Sobaraj. Romance, mystics, Burma, Bali, and a wild ride through the early days of reggae across the Caribbean. More Romance in the evolving lives of ex-pat close friends through death, divorce, and children. Poets, informants, and nominees for "heroes for that era's history." The genesis of the Emerald Triangle pot plantations . . . peaceniks, museum thieves and Royalty. The Dali Lama. Author Jerry Beisler enhances the incredible tale with a snapshot camera that reveals life before cellphones, laptops and instant banking. Plus, rare horses and one great dog.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Radical politics, Asian spirituality, and hash smuggling
Comment: Jerry Beisler is in the midst of chronicling his eventful life, decade by decade, in a series of books called "As the Prayer Wheel Turns." The 1970s is covered in "The Bandit of Kabul" ($29.95 in paperback from Regent Press), studded with black and white photographs of the times and the people -- from Rebecca, whom he marries in 1971 in Goa, India, to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, to "Dutch Bob," who "tried to recruit anyone of worth he met in the Kathmandu Valley to assist him in his Hash-to-Amsterdam deals." The author signed up.
An author's note sets the tone: "This book is set in some of the world's most remote and exotic locations, but you will not be reading poetic or minute descriptions of the sights, sounds or smells of those places. & There is no time for dwelling on these things during this era of endless war that produces murderous national leaders, idiotic economic policies and draconian, tyrannical laws. But the historical facts, the action and adventure, the spirit and spirituality of human beings are here; this story beings and ends in love."
It's also the story of Beisler's entrepreneurial spirit. Gravitating away from the "false-bottom suitcase parade" smuggling contraband into Amsterdam, he and Rebecca would return periodically to their ranch in Northern California where Jerry would sell museum-quality Tibetan carpets and tend his marijuana garden (now long gone, of course, replaced by "ecologically perfect nut trees").
He also helped produce music shows "for the local college crowd & about 8,000 party-hungry students." It sounds like the unnamed "state university" was Chico State University, described as somewhere between the Bay Area and Oregon, 157 miles from San Francisco, just outside the radius promoter Bill Graham insisted on when he booked his acts so as not to dilute the potential audience. For Beisler that meant "Fleetwood Mac, Santana and Taj Mahal, came through town on their coastal swings to or from San Francisco."
During a time of estrangement from Rebecca, Jerry had met a woman in San Francisco. Later, once again united with Rebecca, he received a letter from "that 'hot-house flower.'" Almost matter-of-factly she wrote: "I am going to have your baby in a few months & and someday, if the child asks about the father, I'll just say he was the Bandit of Kabul."
Copyright 2007 Chico Enterprise-Record. Used by permission.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Remembering the Hippie Trail
Comment: If "The Bandit of Kabul" writer/adventurer Jerry Beisler were to revisit Afghanistan and environs today, he would surely perform the appropriate bodily function.
A New York Times travel section piece (1/21/07) by Joshua Hammer provided a timely comparison between the Afghanistan of the early 70s, as described in Beisler's book, and the Afghanistan of 2007.
What was once called the "The Hippie Trail," before that, "The Silk Road," and before that "The House of Genghis Khan," is now undergoing, according to the Times article, "an accelerating nationalistic effort to bring tourists back by `promising them that they won't get killed.'"
Mr. Beisler, using his own inadversedly, unfettered-by-graying-conventions writing style, vividly recounts the kind of wild-eyed, courageous inquisitiveness so prevalent in that early time by travelers, not tourists.
The smells, sights and intrigues of that wilder, yet no less dangerous, era are all in "The Bandit of Kabul."
Using Asia as a home base, the author and an assortment of his here-now-and-possibly-never-again fellow male and female adventurers and entrepreneurs blaze trails similar to Ken Kesey, Jack London and Kerouac. In fact, Kesey's cohorts appear among the many colorful characters in this counter-culture history. All journey by rickety buses, ox carts or horseback to explore the pre-Taliban world of the opiated East. We will begin by running hard and fast from the breakout of war!
To quote:
"Our first train trip was not nearly so posh. We were two of twelve, emitting excessive body odor from nervous fear . . . at Allahabad, we were forced off the train when it was commandeered by soldiers for the war effort."
That took place in India when the 1971 Indo/Pakistan war broke out.
Or, in Kabul:
"The gun slipped out of Billy Batman's hands, dropped to the floor, discharged and shot him in the testicles. He chose to die. Billy's wife said it was a conscious decision."
And have you ever been to a Christmas Day beach party in Goa?
"After piling a half dozen sated and stoned party-goers into boats and clearing the shore break . . . the fishermen set up for themselves several bottles of an illegal, powerful whiskey and launched into a celebration of their own . . . they swilled liquor until they were blind drunk . . . these outriggers were very narrow and no one had any experience in manning such a craft . . . we managed, by hand signals and body language, to get them to row us ashore for a swim at Chapora Beach. After a relaxing, enjoyable dip and a few hits off the chillum, it was then up to us to pile the besotted fishermen, now asleep, back into the boats and launch ourselves and the other fools towards our home beach - in the darkness, through shark-filled waters."
A four-part autobiography, "The Bandit of Kabul" is book two of the series "As the Prayer Wheel Turns." Book one "Hoosiers and Hippies in the Sixties" is due out in January.
Reviewed by Ed Leslie, now retired after 35 years writing for television and print.
Stinson Beach, CA.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Larger than life adventures
Comment: The Bandit of Kabul fell into my hands unexpectedly. In other words, I probably would not have picked it up at a bookstore. Like many gifts, this book was a genuine pleasure to have received. These adventures of a wide cast of "characters" are crazy and riveting. Additionally, the descriptions of Afghanistan, at that time in history, are vividly done. Hands down, this author has lived a story wilder than the earlier American beatnicks and counter culture tripsters. He took the road trip to new heights, so to speak. Not wanting to downplay the originality of hitting the American highways as described by Kerouac and Kesey, nevertheless, that is a far cry from riding horses through treacherous mountain passes in Afghanistan. Author Beisler and friends were smart, young and had nerves of steel!
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Summary: Wild women in an untamed country
Comment: Even if I were not on the scene prior to the time that this book takes place, I would enjoy reading about Jerry's high adventures along the now infamous hashish trail. I'm captivated by his love of adventure, political awareness and romantic vision. The characters and settings come to life in vivid detail punctuated by the wonderful snapshots that add spice to an already tasty book. Historians, politicians, archivists take note - this is the real deal.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A rollicking good read for those who 'missed the boat'
Comment: I saw this book in my local shop and liked the cover and the title. As one who had done a little traveling in Asia I was intrigued about the adventures Jerry and his intrepid friends had back when some of these countries were still somewhat innocent and open to westerners rather than the dark footnotes to current events they've become today. These guys' (I use the term loosely...) appetite for adventure and exotic travel knew no bounds in the anything goes era of the late sixties and early seventies.
As an old pot-smoking hippie myself I enjoyed their continuing quest for the next hashish haven. The descriptions of the places and the never-ending mad-cap adventures kept me turning the pages till there were none left. It, apparently, wasn't all fun and games as there were several near-death situations and judging by the last chapter, entitled: Where Are They Now? This parapatetic, picaresque life was not for the faint of heart as it seems that about every third person depicted in the book is either in jail or deceased. This 'Kat from Kabul' must be on one of his last lives. I highly reccommend this to anyone who ever wondered what it was like to be a wild and crazy hippie back in the day on the 'hashish trail'.
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