SYNOPSIS

It is 1972. A young attorney walks away from his budding law career and sets out with a backpack, no plan, and a restless "hungry ghost" — a craving for purpose and deeper meaning that won't leave him alone.

What begins as a summer in Europe becomes a year-long odyssey — driving a battered VW minibus from Athens east toward India, crossing the dangerous high desert of pre-war Afghanistan by open-air truck, wandering along the ghats of Varanasi, the beaches of Goa, the marble halls of the Taj Mahal, and finally climbing the hill to Kopan Monastery outside Kathmandu, where a month of meditation training with Lama Yeshe and Thubten Zopa Rinpoche changes the course of his life.

Drawn from the actual letters and journals Bruce Berlin wrote on the road, From Camden to Kathmandu is a rare firsthand account of self-discovery on the hippie trail of the 60s and 70s — a Kabul buzzing with free spirits, a mystical India opening to Western seekers, and the earliest days of Tibetan Buddhism's journey west. It is also a timeless story about trusting the road when you can't see where it leads.