RoMoney wrote: ↑Sat 13th Jan 2018 02:19 pm
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.
Long-time lurker brought out by this post. Thanks so much RoMoney for bringing back memories. Your description brought them flooding back - I took a similar route in '97/'98.
After spending weeks in Kashmir (smoking the purest GreenGold) and trekking through Zanskar and Chamba (smokeless), I took a long bus ride through back valleys and closed roads, arriving in Manali. Despite what some might say, it was fairly touristy even back then, but Old Manali was still a free-for-all. People were giving away the equivalent of what's now called Manali Cream, sometimes for free, never more than $2 a tola. Malana cream was between $7-$10 a tola, depending if you scored off a celebrity Sadhu or a wide boy coming down from the hills. Old Manali was a blast (it had turned into a regulated internet cafe scene within five years). So many characters - one Australian I remember had saved up for a year to take a life-changing trip around India. He arrived in Manali direct from Delhi airport and spent 7 weeks there getting fucked up on Pakistani phramaceutical coke and Malana cream in turn... eventually maxing his credit card and returning to Delhi airport. Anyway, I knew I had to get out of that scene and took a bus to Naggar.
From there, like RoMoney illustrated, it was a different vibe - the mother valley for good smoke. I remember at the time that hash would be identified even by the small area it came from. Naggar cream was gorgeous, not quite as heavy as Malana or some of the triple-pressed (?) stuff from the hills behind Vashist and Malana, but a really beautiful smoke. Back then, I'd often score from old men who'd just finished their harvest. I remember one guy in a field calling me over, insisting I have a smoke with him while he teased his daughters as they worked (the horror...) and they laughed. When I told him, I'd come back the next day to buy some, he insisted on pressing a couple of grams into my hand "for tonight." It was easier to communicate with him and his five words of English than most tourists I'd meet.
Tried to go over the pass from Nagar to Malana, stoned and ill-prepared, but ended up meandering around the slopes, finding unbelievably beautiful spots overlooking valleys and snow-capped mountains, just blissing out power-smoking chillums. Looped back around through Jari and Kasol as RoMoney described to get to the mythical Malana, expecting to be greeted by Alexander the Great's descendants... that was probably another guidebook fantasy, but the people were ok; they just didn't want anyone staying there. If you were respectful, they sorted you out though.
Tried to make it to Tosh (the road ended in Manikarran back then ), but a downpour made the trek impossible. Had to turn back and stay in Manikarran, eating kir and getting blasted good and cheap cream being sold by the town's respectable businessmen or the sadhus who's been ejected from other temples and taken up residence in Manikarran temple, smoking openly all day and trying to fuck anyone who'd made it to the end of the road. That town was full of whack jobs, both domestic and imported, but there were some characters and people who had come to smoke themselves right through to sobriety
So many other smoke stories from Parvati and Kashmir from those days. Returned five years later: a lot had changed and the money had taken over. Not saying everything was better for smoking back then. When you gain something, you usually lose something.
Think I'm going to have to plan one more crack at Malana and Tosh through to Spiti and down the foothills.
Thanks RoMoney. You made my day.
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