Kathmandu, July 12 -- Perhaps it's the reflective, introspective mood brought on by the lockdown, or the re-examination of history as we seek to define Nepal's border limits, but the media has recently seen considerable nostalgic chatter about the distant days whenKathmandu was a hippie haven.

The freedom of the well-worn Hippie Trail of the early 1970s, overland from Istanbul to Kathmandu, seems unimaginable in today's world of COVID-19 travel restrictions - during this pandemic we can only dream of the joys of the open road.

From the mid-1960s, hordes of hippies in search of Shangri-La bussed or hitchhiked through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before culminating in our Valley paradise, the end of the road. They came in...