Malana (India) 2005

[RoMoney]

The Utopia thread reminded me about Malana cream and my going to Malana in 2005 in search of it, so dug out a few pics to share.

In April and May of 2005 I spent the two months (of a nine month trip to the Indian sub-continent) in Parvatti valley, the champagne region for Indian charas. On the way to the valley you climb up for hours on treacherous roads and often look out the window and see nothing but a 30 metre drop (approx. 100ft for those who haven't heard of the joys of the metric system) as the roads were so narrow. Many times we came to roadblocks where the mountain had fallen down on the road. We would have to climb over the boulders and wait until a bus came to collect us on the other side which was usually a few hours.

When I got to the valley I first stayed in in a town called Jari and then Kasol, or little Tel Aviv as I used to call it due to a proliferation of Israelis. They even had Israeli rabbis there to save any of them who took too much acid or smoked too many chillums, it was very wierd.

Anyway one fine morning I made the trek up to Malana which didn't have a road at the time. I believe with the hydro power station program of the Indian government this has now changed, but it took us 2 hours to hike up. The place was interesting to say the least, you could not touch the locals as they were a special caste (not untouchables, they were special as in revered). This made for fun times when going to the local shop. They would put a chair outside the shop, you told them what you wanted, they put it out on the chair and you took it and left the money on the chair. They were so afraid we would touch them as it had religious implications. It nevers ceases to amaze me the bullshit people will believe when they haven't had access to a good education and even that won't save everyone. That said in Malana the people were quite sheltered from the ourside world, cut off for much of the year due to the climate at that altitude. When leaving Malana to get back down to Kasol we hiked over a pass which was 3600m (12,000 ft) so you can imagine winter up there!

Up there we stayed in a guesthouse especially made for unclean non-locals like myself and we met this cool Italian guy I'll never forget, it was strange how many Italians were in that valley, a lot of hashish aficionados One of them I met another time in Bangkok by shear chance and we got really drunk together and reminisced about India, he was deported for reasons I won't go into.

Needless to say we got some of the local cream, which was of a really gooey consistency and probably more suitable for dabbing rather than chillums. As I asked in the Utopia thread, was there even dabbing in 2005? I think the nearest thing I'd ever seen to dabbing at that time was hot knives!

Anyway, for someone used to, up until that point, smoking shitty Moroccan soapbar hash, this stuff was beyond a revelation. In general the charas in India was, but this was another level. I always remember a few days after we got back down to Kasol and I smoked a few chillums with two guys from London and I was walking back to my place and I was fully sure I was floating. Considering it was 12 years ago I forget lots of it and the two months blend together somewhat in a haze, it's pretty cool that this memory sticks out.

Malana in the morning, after some light snow


Malana from other angles



View from the pass at 3600m


Stream outside the village


I miss India, I should go back.

[kalima]

mate, your right it was a great read and brings plots of great memories, i think i have a few pictures of Malana and our purchases , but pre phone days, so it is finding the old pictures. Malana was a crazy place, being stoned, but also remembering not to touch anything, due to being considered unclean by the locals. Yes charas,is a very different smoke, and smoking a chillum , is a whole different effect, spiritual, hence the smoking for shiva. the ritual of making the chillum, and hand rubbed charas, is a completely different hit.
the different villages had different charas, i remember the "arguments " between the Malana heads and the the tosh heads, yes there is no a bus service all the way to tosh now, so the police can get up to the fields easier.
like you i really miss india, but no tobacco these days, so it would have to be a vape and genius pipe.
i should try some charas in the dam, but it was alway 3rd grade years ago, as i said, we were too greedy and smoked the best stuff yt there

[RoMoney]

i think i have a few pictures of Malana and our purchases , but pre phone days, so it is finding the old pictures

Amazing how times change, but in 2005 I was afraid to take any charas or chillum smoking pics in case the Police stopped me and searched my camera. I was only 22 and had never been further than Belgium or The Netherlands on my own. I did on one occassion get caught with charas (going from Bhuntar to Dharamsala by Mini-van) and had to pay some baksheesh. It was the equivalent of €20 which was nothing and much better than getting caught somewhere like Goa where they would've extracted 10 or 20 times that.

Said to hear about Tosh too, thought that was still one you needed to walk too

[kalima]

i think i have a few pictures of Malana and our purchases , but pre phone days, so it is finding the old pictures

Amazing how times change, but in 2005 I was afraid to take any charas or chillum smoking pics in case the Police stopped me and searched my camera. I was only 22 and had never been further than Belgium or The Netherlands on my own. I did on one occassion get caught with charas (going from Bhuntar to Dharamsala by Mini-van) and had to pay some baksheesh. It was the equivalent of €20 which was nothing and much better than getting caught somewhere like Goa where they would've extracted 10 or 20 times that.

Said to hear about Tosh too, thought that was still one you needed to walk too

yes i remember, getting pictures developed in india, and frantically hiding the ones of the stash or fields of plants growing, wow you got off lightly with the fine, i remember in early 90's it was a few hundred rupees, but then by mid 90's they wanted 100's of dollars in kasol/manikarran. one time we came out from Malana, the police were waiting in the valley, so we ended up being led out by a "local" path down the mountain side and then over the river in a basket . very reminiscent of the freak brother comic story of Don juan, great comics , and worth a read . So many happy memories of India, especially the mountains, we lived just above Bhuntar, in the village between the Beas and Parvati rivers for 6 months.

[RoMoney]

yes i remember, getting pictures developed in india, and frantically hiding the ones of the stash or fields of plants growing, wow you got off lightly with the fine, i remember in early 90's it was a few hundred rupees, but then by mid 90's they wanted 100's of dollars in kasol/manikarran. one time we came out from Malana, the police were waiting in the valley, so we ended up being led out by a "local" path down the mountain side and then over the river in a basket . very reminiscent of the freak brother comic story of Don juan, great comics , and worth a read . So many happy memories of India, especially the mountains, we lived just above Bhuntar, in the village between the Beas and Parvati rivers for 6 months.

Well, there was three of us in the Mini-van and we paid about €20 each, you know the way India is, if you're with the guilty party you are also guilty In Goa people told me they would look for €400-€500. Still great value versus 10 years in an Indian jail though, they had pretty draconian sentences of 10-12 years at the time if I recall.

When I was in Kasol it was safe enough as the locals had completely paid off the police so you could fire up a chillum in any of the restaurants or cafes. You mainly risked being caught leaving the valley at Bhuntar, or indeed coming back down from Malana.

You must've been there for some very cold patches so! I first arrived there in April and it was still quite cold, I had one of those little wood fire heater things in my room. I want to go back and huddle around one of them again. They were lovely of a cold evening.......chai, chillum and the fire going

[OneHighMofo]

Awesome stuff thanks for the memories

[kalima]

i have heard now that there is a massive head scene amongst the younger Indians and this combined with Modi, has lead to the police leaving smokers alone in India, but it is years since i have been up in the mountains , so i personally don't know the score. but be good to go back, but with vaporiser these days ,oh for chai , chillum chapati

[RoMoney]

i have heard now that there is a massive head scene amongst the younger Indians and this combined with Modi, has lead to the police leaving smokers alone in India, but it is years since i have been up in the mountains , so i personally don't know the score. but be good to go back, but with vaporiser these days ,oh for chai , chillum chapati

Can't believe I forgot the third "C"!!! Shame on me.

You see more and more young Indians in the hostels in AMS. I met a few posh kids from Delhi last year who had been to Parvatti, we had a good chat about the place, they were so proud that you could get charas from India in Amsterdam, they were cool guys but you could tell they were not used to hostels. I think the hostel conditions would be similar to what they would provide for "the help" back home in Delhi

I keep threatening to go back, but it's not like Morocco which is closer and which you can go to for a week or two, you need a month MINIMUM to go to India. If I ever get redundancy I'll be on the first flight to Delhi!

[kalima]

i have heard now that there is a massive head scene amongst the younger Indians and this combined with Modi, has lead to the police leaving smokers alone in India, but it is years since i have been up in the mountains , so i personally don't know the score. but be good to go back, but with vaporiser these days ,oh for chai , chillum chapati

Can't believe I forgot the third "C"!!! Shame on me.

You see more and more young Indians in the hostels in AMS. I met a few posh kids from Delhi last year who had been to Parvatti, we had a good chat about the place, they were so proud that you could get charas from India in Amsterdam, they were cool guys but you could tell they were not used to hostels. I think the hostel conditions would be similar to what they would provide for "the help" back home in Delhi

I keep threatening to go back, but it's not like Morocco which is closer and which you can go to for a week or two, you need a month MINIMUM to go to India. If I ever get redundancy I'll be on the first flight to Delhi!

Hahaha....age mate or too many chillums, yes you do need a good amount of time, i have been going to Nepal for last few years, and with 2 weeks there, i can catch up with friends and get 12 days trekking, but you making me think about a visit to morocco now

[RoMoney]

Hahaha....age mate or too many chillums, yes you do need a good amount of time, i have been going to Nepal for last few years, and with 2 weeks there, i can catch up with friends and get 12 days trekking, but you making me think about a visit to morocco now

Nepal is great. I went there to get a new Indian visa, only intended staying two weeks and ended up there for six. They had the Maoist insurgency at the time so there was a 9pm curfew and military checkpoints every few kilometers. Here's some pics of the Sonauli border crossing on the way back




Every country in Europe has cheap flights to Malaga, outside Malaga airport is a direct bus to Algeciras where you can take the ferry to Morocco, I use Malaga as an entry point for the north where the Rif mountains and all the good hash is. For the south of Morocco, I've the option of two low cost airlines that fly direct. Compared to the initial costs of getting to Nepal you will save a fortune. I flew return to Marrakech in 2016 for €140 return with Ryanair!!

[kalima]

Hahaha....age mate or too many chillums, yes you do need a good amount of time, i have been going to Nepal for last few years, and with 2 weeks there, i can catch up with friends and get 12 days trekking, but you making me think about a visit to morocco now

Nepal is great. I went there to get a new Indian visa, only intended staying two weeks and ended up there for six. They had the Maoist insurgency at the time so there was a 9pm curfew and military checkpoints every few kilometers. Here's some pics of the Sonauli border crossing on the way back




Every country in Europe has cheap flights to Malaga, outside Malaga airport is a direct bus to Algeciras where you can take the ferry to Morocco, I use Malaga as an entry point for the north where the Rif mountains and all the good hash is. For the south of Morocco, I've the option of two low cost airlines that fly direct. Compared to the initial costs of getting to Nepal you will save a fortune. I flew return to Marrakech in 2016 for €140 return with Ryanair!!

wow, that has changed ir was a couple of buildings on the side of the road, and a length of bamboo as the barrier for trucks, i do remember crossing over the first night, as the board was closed, saying in Nepal, then crossing back over in the morning to get stamped out of india, and into Nepal.
Yes that wasn't a great time to visit, from what hear, i didn't go back to Nepal for 19 years until 6 years ago, then i managed to go once a year for 6 , was there for the earthquake and for a few weeks after, mainly building toilets in the surrounding area of KTM
Yes that is a lot cheaper to fly too, i might have to think about it, sure their are lots of nice walking up there as well, chilled with the police nowdays ? for only personal
being closer, also makes a week trip more feasible, it is taking the out these days, gone are the times i could spend month-years travelling

[RoMoney]

wow, that has changed ir was a couple of buildings on the side of the road, and a length of bamboo as the barrier for trucks, i do remember crossing over the first night, as the board was closed, saying in Nepal, then crossing back over in the morning to get stamped out of india, and into Nepal.
Yes that wasn't a great time to visit, from what hear, i didn't go back to Nepal for 19 years until 6 years ago, then i managed to go once a year for 6 , was there for the earthquake and for a few weeks after, mainly building toilets in the surrounding area of KTM
Yes that is a lot cheaper to fly too, i might have to think about it, sure their are lots of nice walking up there as well, chilled with the police nowdays ? for only personal
being closer, also makes a week trip more feasible, it is taking the out these days, gone are the times i could spend month-years travelling

Can only imagine what it looks like now!

There is trekking in the Rif, though the Atlas mountains in the south are much bigger and more impressive (the hash is most definitely not though, quality drops the further south you go!). If you go to Chefchaouen which is like Kasol, there's a restaurant called Bab Ssour and the guy who runs it is a trekking guide, there are some national parks close by and he takes group, real nice guy and the restaurant is pretty nice too.

In the south you need to be discreet smoking outside, in the north far less so. In Tangiers they smoke sebsi pipes openly in many smaller back street cafes. A sebsi is to Morocco what a chillum is to India. I never encountered any problems and heard of nobody getting busted (with the exception of Ketama stories, but I would not go there - it's not for cannabis tourists - it's for the more entrepreneurial). Given the way tourism has gone in Tunisia and Egypt, Morocco is very focused on ensuring you feel safe and welcome. In India I was always afraid of the police as they saw me as a money source, but in Morocco I felt they wanted to make a good impression so I would come back. I would ask Moroccan police for directions, in India I would not talk to the police unless I absolutely had to!

Language wise Morocco is a little bit more challenging though. I've basic Spanish and they speak that everywhere in the north which helped me massivelt. In the south it's mainly French so I found it harder and if they speak English, the price just doubled

[kalima]

wow, that has changed ir was a couple of buildings on the side of the road, and a length of bamboo as the barrier for trucks, i do remember crossing over the first night, as the board was closed, saying in Nepal, then crossing back over in the morning to get stamped out of india, and into Nepal.
Yes that wasn't a great time to visit, from what hear, i didn't go back to Nepal for 19 years until 6 years ago, then i managed to go once a year for 6 , was there for the earthquake and for a few weeks after, mainly building toilets in the surrounding area of KTM
Yes that is a lot cheaper to fly too, i might have to think about it, sure their are lots of nice walking up there as well, chilled with the police nowdays ? for only personal
being closer, also makes a week trip more feasible, it is taking the out these days, gone are the times i could spend month-years travelling

Can only imagine what it looks like now!

There is trekking in the Rif, though the Atlas mountains in the south are much bigger and more impressive (the hash is most definitely not though, quality drops the further south you go!). If you go to Chefchaouen which is like Kasol, there's a restaurant called Bab Ssour and the guy who runs it is a trekking guide, there are some national parks close by and he takes group, real nice guy and the restaurant is pretty nice too.

In the south you need to be discreet smoking outside, in the north far less so. In Tangiers they smoke sebsi pipes openly in many smaller back street cafes. A sebsi is to Morocco what a chillum is to India. I never encountered any problems and heard of nobody getting busted (with the exception of Ketama stories, but I would not go there - it's not for cannabis tourists - it's for the more entrepreneurial). Given the way tourism has gone in Tunisia and Egypt, Morocco is very focused on ensuring you feel safe and welcome. In India I was always afraid of the police as they saw me as a money source, but in Morocco I felt they wanted to make a good impression so I would come back. I would ask Moroccan police for directions, in India I would not talk to the police unless I absolutely had to!

Language wise Morocco is a little bit more challenging though. I've basic Spanish and they speak that everywhere in the north which helped me massivelt. In the south it's mainly French so I found it harder and if they speak English, the price just doubled

cheers for all the info, your making it sound more and more interesting, yes i have dreads, so i tended to keep away from Indian police as much as possible , although in the early days of going there, you got an almost Baba status in most areas.
going to have to learn some basic spanish by sounds of it, as i want to be in the best smoking areas as well as see the mountains . need to do some research on Morocco,as it seems a idea for a short winter break from wind and rain, and cheaper than Amsterdam and has everything i love, mountains and good quality hash . what is the weed like ? especially as they are starting to grow so many different varieties, of non native strains

[RoMoney]

cheers for all the info, your making it sound more and more interesting, yes i have dreads, so i tended to keep away from Indian police as much as possible , although in the early days of going there, you got an almost Baba status in most areas.
going to have to learn some basic spanish by sounds of it, as i want to be in the best smoking areas as well as see the mountains . need to do some research on Morocco,as it seems a idea for a short winter break from wind and rain, and cheaper than Amsterdam and has everything i love, mountains and good quality hash . what is the weed like ? especially as they are starting to grow so many different varieties, of non native strains

Weed is quite hard to find except straight after harvest, for example, in Chefchaouen I've found weed after harvest, but none the far side of winter before the next harvest. I don't smoke tobacco so like a bit of weed so I can smoke the odd joint instead of pipes all the time, but the weed was never strong and defo never western genetics weed. The old timers there smoke some herbs/tobacco mix that they call kief (ironically it's nothing like kief as we would understand it). It's not strong and it tastes like shit. Also if you do find weed, prepare to spend some time separating out all the seeds

As for the newer strains. I've come across sativa hash there, which has to be from foreign genetics as Moroccan genetics are indica dominant. Ideally to know exactly what they are growing you would probably need to go during the growing season and venture further out from Chef. Similar to India some people go up and stay with farmers for a few months at a time. Met some long termers in Chef who had done that before, but you would need to make friends there to get invites to go anywhere worth going. I think anyone who tries to take you from the Medina to a farm should be avoided like the plague as they are usually junkies and it will be a garden patch as opposed to a proper farm with a few football fields of green goodness

[kalima]

cheers for all the info, your making it sound more and more interesting, yes i have dreads, so i tended to keep away from Indian police as much as possible , although in the early days of going there, you got an almost Baba status in most areas.
going to have to learn some basic spanish by sounds of it, as i want to be in the best smoking areas as well as see the mountains . need to do some research on Morocco,as it seems a idea for a short winter break from wind and rain, and cheaper than Amsterdam and has everything i love, mountains and good quality hash . what is the weed like ? especially as they are starting to grow so many different varieties, of non native strains

Weed is quite hard to find except straight after harvest, for example, in Chefchaouen I've found weed after harvest, but none the far side of winter before the next harvest. I don't smoke tobacco so like a bit of weed so I can smoke the odd joint instead of pipes all the time, but the weed was never strong and defo never western genetics weed. The old timers there smoke some herbs/tobacco mix that they call kief (ironically it's nothing like kief as we would understand it). It's not strong and it tastes like shit. Also if you do find weed, prepare to spend some time separating out all the seeds

As for the newer strains. I've come across sativa hash there, which has to be from foreign genetics as Moroccan genetics are indica dominant. Ideally to know exactly what they are growing you would probably need to go during the growing season and venture further out from Chef. Similar to India some people go up and stay with farmers for a few months at a time. Met some long termers in Chef who had done that before, but you would need to make friends there to get invites to go anywhere worth going. I think anyone who tries to take you from the Medina to a farm should be avoided like the plague as they are usually junkies and it will be a garden patch as opposed to a proper farm with a few football fields of green goodness

cheers for that, guessing it will be the genius pipe then, not sure about taking a vape, and travelling back across boarders, not worries coming into uk, but more leaving Morocco. i would only be going for a short time, so just be nice to find a chilled place to visit, do some walking and have plenty to smoke, at a reasonable price. If you go again, please do a write up on it,