Afghanistan in 1971

October 14, 2001 9:26 PM

Afghanistan in 1971 was just another destination for hippie trekkers and backpackers.
posted by gimonca (7 comments total)

Janis Joplin! No wonder they hate us.
posted by dydecker at 10:05 PM on October 14, 2001

The Road to Katmandu circa 1969 (probably long since out of print) was about hippie backpackers trekking through the Middle East...how innocent that era now seems.
An even older book that provides a telling look at Afghanistan itself (though set in the Cold War days, apparently things haven't changed all that much--except that the embassies are all gone) was Caravans by James A. Michener.
posted by StOne at 10:25 PM on October 14, 2001

Whether there was an earlier version I couldn't verify, but there's a Road to Kathmandu available today. It seems to be more of a retrospective.
posted by dhartung at 12:22 AM on October 15, 2001

dydecker: Janis wasn't the problem. It was that for the next twenty years, every female rock singer tried to emulate her. Ughh. Thank god that finally came to an end.
posted by HTuttle at 1:55 AM on October 15, 2001

As a young hippie wannabe, the only thing I knew about Afghanistan was:

- Afghani hashish was legendary
- my grandma used to crochet Afghans.

Was never able to connect those two facts, however.
posted by groundhog at 5:58 AM on October 15, 2001

yes, it is really, really sad that all this taliban nonsense has made it dangerous for eurotrash and american endowment babies to get killer weed and heroin at factory-direct prices. fight the power, man.
posted by nobody_knose at 6:26 AM on October 15, 2001

d
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 8:27 PM on October 20, 2001