Traveling Woodstock

I never felt drawn to India itself but in the late 60s and early 70s I wanted to go Nepal and Kashmir. I never made it and nowadays they don't seem like such attractive destinations. Nonetheless, I really liked this story on the Nepalese rock band Nepatya, who are traveling through Nepal on a Peace Tour.

"People are so terrified of the gun, [of] Maoists and army people," lead singer Amrit Gurung said.

"Everywhere, there is the gun. So people cannot walk from village to village. From the villages they don't want to come to the market towns."

Nepatya were playing eight concerts on a tour of the country, aiming to spread a message of peace and give hope to Nepal's rural population, traumatised by nearly a decade of conflict. Some 200,000 people watched the Sundar Shanta Nepal (Beautiful Peaceful Nepal) Travelling Peace Concert, which toured the country from east to west and back again.

We're talking backcountry here, where people don't own cars and rarely leave their villages. Yet the came for the music.

By midday old men and women, toddlers and babies and innumerable teenagers had turned up for the show. Some had walked for hours, organisers said.

Amrit Bahadur Pandey, 70, told the BBC that conflict had become a way of life in the area and that he simply wanted to be part of such a big gathering, the largest ever seen in Charikot.

"I'm curious to know if a concert can bring peace," he said.

So am I. I certainly hope it can.