Imagine this if you can. In the early 60s and 70s, Kuala Lumpur was much a town like what Phnom Penh in Cambodia or Vientiane in Laos are today. KL was filled with bicycles, dusty roads, smelly open drains and rubbish strewn all over the place.

KL was nothing but a dirty little town, as I have probably written at other times years ago, the streets of Foch Avenue and Chinatown were filled with sugar cane husk. I, for the life of me, could not then imagine what KL would be today; in fact no one could imagine what KL would be today.

Although we were very close to the country, stories of war over there were pretty much being kept away from us.

Against this background, I decided to leave the country to hitchhike around the world — which I did — and many years later ended up in Canada.

There I had a new life.

What goes around comes around, as they say. I decided to come back… with a brand new family! This column is about a prequel of the beginning of my fantastic journey, a book I will one day write but probably never will.

I told my late father I was going to go around the world and he was convinced I was mad but yet got me a passport, RM500 and deck-class boat ticket on board Rajula London and off I went to see, among other things, the Bamian Buddha (ex now, no thanks to the Taliban),  the Khyber Pass, the Blue Mosque of Turkey and the magnificent and ancient Acropolis!

But my journey would not have been complete without Bukit Putus, yes Bukit Putus or the Broken Pass! It started there!

This is what I did. Before going on my biggest Minangkabau walkabout, or merantau in the true Minangkabau tradition, I had to practise.

In the early 60s, I hitchhiked from KL to Seremban and then walked one beautiful day at about six in the evening, yes I walked through Bukit Putus alone.

It was one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had. The Pass was so lush and green, and not that many cars were on the road, so I was determined to walk all the way to Seri Menanti.

At about 9pm, I saw a huge set of headlights coming  towards me and suddenly the car made a sudden stop when it got near me and the driver jumped out.

It was a red Chevrolet, with the registration number N 9 if I am not mistaken, and it was owned by a taxi driver named Udin, a Chinese Muslim from Tanjung Ipoh near Kuala Pilah, known to my late father.

He said, of course in a Negri dialect but in English: “Are you mad?

Your father asked me to look for you and  please get in. I will turn around and take you to kampung.”

To which I said: “No I am okay and I do not want to come with you because I want to walk.”  He pleaded but to no avail. You see, one of my traits that I hate the most is being stubborn.

But being stubborn has also saved my life many times — another story another time! But you see my early training had made it possible for me to hitchhike from India to Istanbul and like any other great endeavour in life, one must do serious training.

I remember hitchhiking from Lahore to Peshawar, then taking a bus to Kabul. I also remember having to hitchhike from Kabul to Kandahar across a desert in the early 60s. This was when Afghanistan was still ruled by a king, King Daud.

Years later, I ended up in Canada after “doing” Asia Minor, Europe, and North Africa and along the way I met people who are still friends.

Can you believe it?

But it is true! These are friends that will be with you forever, even though we may meet only once in every five years but we have kept our friendships alive, thanks to modern technology, via Skype, Internet and even Facebook.

My favourite is my ever faithful Nokia N82 which I use to call Southern California,  Amsterdam and Canada once every two weeks or so to talk to old friends.

Ingo from Holland called me over the phone one fateful evening in 1992, saying there was a massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but I did not believe him.

I told him to have a schnapps on me!

Well, the massacre happened and I still have nightmares over that phone call. Sometimes communication can be a drag!

Ingo and I go back a long way. He is married to Bedina who is from the Friesland, and we travelled across Europe to Morocco together.

Yes, we were hippies and we still are. We were part of a movement that did change the world.

We did influence the outcome of the Vietnam War. I may  not have made it to San Francisco in the summer time at anytime during my hippie days, but I did bring some flowers with me in my heart in Canada.

I still keep colourful stickers with colours prevalent with the hippie movement, that a friend, Marilyn Brown, gave me. Wherever you are, I hope you are well and still alive and kicking!  I still have my hippie peace symbol that I took out of the special “hippie box” that I have.

Whenever I feel nostalgic for the good, old days where loyalty was for real, friendships are forever, where betrayal did not exist between friends, where sharing bread and cheese and tomatoes and grapes were really communal things to do, I will open my hippie box which I hope I can share with my granddaughter  Zahra Ava one day, and tell her all about the magical journey that came with it!