I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal from 1967-69, living in a small village in the flatlands of southern Nepal, just a few miles from the Indian border. My Peace Corps group was working on "rural food production." I use to joke that we were "fighting on the front lines of the green revolution", but the new varieties of wheat really took off, and I felt Norman Borlaug, instrumental in developing them, did deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in 1970.
I went to Kathmandu about a half dozen times during my two years in Nepal. There we Peace Corps Volunteers differentiated between the young American and European backpackers we saw. The "hippies" were those who seemed to have come just to do drugs, which were legal in Nepal then (a 35mm film can of hashish cost about a dollar in the government store). Some even ended up begging on the streets - that in one of then-poorest countries in the world. The "world travelers" ("WT's") might get high, too, but they were also there to see and learn what they they could about Nepal and its people.
I haven't yet read On The Hippie Trail, but when I do I'm guessing Rick will be seen as very much a WT.
There are no replies to this topic.