Hippie Trail: Katmandu, drug paradise (video)

What were we looking for? Enlightenment. What did we find? Ganja-smoking Hindu sadhus.

Rock singer Bob Seger sang about Katmandu, whereas Led Zeppelin wrote a paean to Kashmir

(Hare Krishna Hare Ram) "Dum Maro Dum" (1971) In this Bollywood song about the detested hippies coming to India to smoke weed and worship Krishna devotionally like the Beatles, a brother searches everywhere for his hippie Indian sister who has fallen in with Western miscreants.

How the drug war destroyed a hippie paradise in Kathmandu

(ReasonTV) Sept. 13, 2019. Pres. Dick Nixon's pursuit of draft-dodgers and pot smokers fueled the communist ideology it was trying to contain.

In the 1970s, Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon tried to nip "communism" in the bud by destroying Nepal's Himalayan hippie Shangri-La.

In stopping the pot smokers, he sparked a Maoist blowback. As the last country on earth to forbid the sale, cultivation, and consumption of drugs, Nepal promised a mind-bending trip.

Hippie trail from Europe to Central and E. Asia

But in an era when few could afford round-the-world airfare, frugal flower children took a rougher route to the most far-out destination on the planet: The Hippie Trail followed the footsteps of the ancient [Buddhist] Silk Road.

Some travelers fled the U.S. War on Vietnam draft; others came to the Himalayas to find themselves. For whatever the reason, from 1965 to 1973, tens of thousands of young people hitchhiked or bused the overland route from Istanbul, Turkey, to Kathmandu, Nepal, annually.

The end of The Hippie Trail was a single bustling urban lane called Jhonche, rechristened as Freak Street by its new colorfully dressed inhabitants.

Far Out: Countercultural...in Nepal

Over time, the Western hippies created their own community in Kathmandu. In a fascinating look at Nepal's hippie history, Mark Liechty, author of Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal, describes Freak Street as a Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village on the other side of the world.

Hippies lived in a fantasy Nepal that existed in their imaginations: a land where old [morals or] traditions did not apply, where they could live freely and create themselves anew.

A youth culture that was too shocking for 1960s North America found a welcome home in a faraway religious monarchy [nominally Hindu but very Vajrayana Buddhist].

But "paradise" is not of either side of this earth. Two years after Pres. Dick Nixon declared an international "war on drugs," U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew was dispatched to Asia.

VP Agnew toured every country on The Hippie Trail before arriving in Nepal. Pres. Nixon threatened to withhold economic aid from countries that held a permissive attitude toward the drug trade.

Maoist rebels start Nepalese Civil War

Months later, Nepal enacted the first anti-drug laws in its ancient history. Kathmandu's hashish shops were closed. American narcotics agents roamed Freak Street, surveilling drug takers and draft dodgers for arrest on their arrival back in the United States.

And in a move that would have consequences for decades to come, Nepal's natural marijuana fields (where it grows freely for anyone to pick) were torched.

The hippies weren't the only ones angered by the new prohibition.

In Western Nepal, far from the capital city of Kathmandu, hashish cultivation (made from the sticky, oozing sap of budding cannabis flowers) was the main source of income.

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Sellers and growers were arrested. Private property with strains of the hemp (Cannabis sativa) plant growing on it was forfeited to the state in a land grab using the drug war as its pretext.

Tens of thousands of farmers were pushed to the brink of starvation. Promised development aid to the region never arrived from outside or materialized from the monarch.

Seeing political opportunity in economic collapse, the Communist Party exploited local grievances and persuaded residents that only a violent overthrow of the oppressive royal government would solve their problems.

"Dum Maro Dum/Dam Maro Dam" Hare Krishna Hare Raam original song

Dick Nixon's global war on drugs fueled the communist ideology it was trying to contain. By 2006, the communist Maoists controlled 80 percent of the country. The insurgency based in the agricultural heartland had grown into a national political force that paralyzed the nation with a series of national strikes and armed resistance to the bad king.

After a decade-long civil war that claimed 17,000 lives, Nepal's monarchy was abolished and the Communist Party were elected to power.

Today, the civil war is long over, but Nepal's war on drugs continues. It remains a hub for heroin (derived from the naturally growing poppy plant) and hashish (cannabis resin), with stories of drug busts, addiction, and violence, mainstays of Nepal's TV news coverage.

Freak Street or Hippie Row still exists in Nepal

Despite a small political movement to legalize hashish, cannabis is legal one day a year for religious purposes only. The rest of the time, locals and tourists take their chances in the black market.

These days, the real action has moved to Thamel. A short walk from Freak Street, Kathmandu's new nightlife hotspot offers visitors every kind of indulgence that was available during Freak Street's heyday and many more that the hippies couldn't have imagined on their wildest trip.

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Reason.com is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a Libertarian perspective. Produced by Todd Krainin. Music licensed under Creative Commons, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US. "Malashree Dhun" by Sringar Nepal. "Bass Bansuri" by Hamsadhwani. "Eastern Thought" by Kevin MacLeod. "Holiday (instrumental)" by Silence is Sexy. "Aspirato" by Kai Engel. "Long Time Gone" by Amaya Laucirica. ReasonTV