I've scored a lot of dope in a lot of places all over the world. It usually isn't very difficult unless it's the dry season that is and even then you can still score but it's usually not worth the effort or the price. Every place in the world has it's own special quirks and special products.
Here are a couple of tips: Always go with the specialty of the house, it'll be the best deal at the best price. When you find something really good and won’t be crossing any borders for awhile, buy all you can afford or all they have because you never know when you’ll be able to score some killer dope again, and you certainly don’t want to run out. Of all the places I've scored, Asia is my favorite. Not only is it always easy and seldom expensive but it has the most variety. In fact, here how easy it is: Check into your hotel, then ask your room boy, tout or better yet, the manager for the dope. You'll get one of three reactions: "No sir, I don't know of any." In which case spend the night then in the morning find another hotel.
Or, "I don't have any, but perhaps I can you find some." Forget it, it's usually over priced and probably bunk.
Or, "Yes sir, go up to your room and I'll be up shortly." You've found a doper hotel. The manager or room boy will come up, knock on your door, come in then show you what he's got.
Another tip: Always go to the hotels that advertise, "Where all your dream come true." or "Anything is possible." or something to that effect. Also, any hotel or restaurant with "Rasta" in it's name in another sure sign.
For hash, the best place is the Middle East where it's so cheap that it's almost free. When you get a source there they'll always want to sell you at least a kilo for anywhere from $20 to $200 depending on the quality and the country that you are in and how many other tourist there are running around with money. If you want some for free just ask for a sample, the guy will usually chop off ten or twenty grams, hand it to you then tell you when you want to really buy some to let him know. In the mid east hash is everywhere since almost every adult male smokes it. Lots of times we've been chatting on the street, in a train or in a restaurant with them and asked if they can get us any hash. A lot of times they'll just reach into their pocket and hand us a chunk as a gift which sometimes they'll smoke with you and sometimes not. Sometimes the hash is so good that even after a few tokes you'll be immobilized and where ever you are that's where you're going to be for the next few hours.
One of the most bitchen places my true love, Kelly and I were ever turned on was the very first time that we visited the Taj Mahal. We timed our arrival in Agra for the full moon, checked into our hotel then waited until just before sundown when we took a bicycle rickshaw to the Taj. It’s all surrounded by gardens that are just full of peacocks. As you come up to the Taj you can’t see it because it is surrounded by a 100-foot high red brick wall. We paid the 2 Rupee admission and went in through a large door that’s cut into the wall. As soon as we were in the doorway we saw it and smiled. We’re actually here, The Taj Mahal, we could hardy believe it. We walked through the door and into the garden that surrounds it with water fountains and pools that lead up to it. It was so lovely that at first we just sat in the garden taking in all that beauty. The sun was setting and the moon was rising, the peacocks were crying, the ring-necked parakeets and the fruit bats were flying and the firefly’s started winking on and off, we were enchanted. We walked up to the Taj and when we got to the foot of it there were some men who watched your shoes because you had to walk those white marble floors barefoot.
When we told the shoekeeper how entranced we were by all of this he said, “Yes, I am very lucky to be working here. I never get tired of seeing this wonderful sight. Here, this will make it even more beautiful.” Then he lights up a joint and hands it to Kelly who takes a toke then passes it to me.
We smoked the entire doobie with the shoekeeper then thanked him and walked up into the Taj Mahal, the most beautiful structure ever created by man. Kelly and I strolled hand in hand around and through that magnificent white marble building with the full moon light reflecting off of it and the river that flows by it until they closed it around midnight. We retrieved our shoes from the shoekeeper, thanked him and again, then left and got a horse and carriage back to our hotel, clip-clopping along under a full moon. We could hardy believe how incredibly lucky we were and that we would be returning there again and again.
In India the ganja and charras is hit and miss, sometimes it's incredibly good and sometimes it's so bad that you mise as well throw it away. Also, in India they always give you the crapo stuff first so you have to hand it back, and tell them that you want the best they can get, the stuff they smoke, and for the same price. You'll have to do this two or three times before your get their best, but unless you're in a high tourist area, it's always real cheap.
One of the weirdest scores I ever made was in Kashmir. Kelly and I were walking down the main street in Sirinagar when this young Kashmiree whisper, "Hash?"
We asked him if it was good and cheap and he assured us it was. Just follow him to his house and check it out. We followed him for about ten minutes through the twisting turning ally ways of Sirinagar until we get to his place. He tells us that he has to go and get it and that we'll have to wait in the basement. We go in and he locks us in. After around half a hour we start getting concerned. It could be a rip off or worse. After another ten minutes he comes in with a bud of his who is holding. He packs a chillum and we smoke it, and it was very very good. We buy all he has with him.
He tells us that if want any more to come by and see him anytime, takes us out into the street and says, "See ya later.” then leaves us.
We are truly stoned and have no idea where we are or how to get back to the center of town so we call a small boy over and offer him 5 rupees to lead us back to our hotel, which he is delighted to do.
A good place to smoke in India and Nepal is to smoke is in the Shiva temples. For a few rupees you can usually smoke a chillum packed with a mixture of tobacco and low-grade ganja with the temple priest and any other males who happens to be there. You won't get real high but it's fun to do. In Nepal, the hash, grass and majick mushrooms can be very good and very cheap when it's season and you're not in either Kathmandu or Pokhara. You can't beat it for quality or price, but when it's not season it dries out fast in the mountain air so it's hardy worth smoking. The good hash you get in Nepal in the off season comes from Manali in India but in Nepal like India, you always have to ask for better.
In India and Nepal, up until the late 80's anyway, there were hotels that specialized in catering to heads. The only tourist in India and Nepal at that time came for one of three things: The sightseers, who came in small groups that stayed in the big hotels. The guru seekers, who stayed at the ashrams. And the dopers, who stayed at the cheap hotels. The yuppies and the Lonely Planet travelers have ruined all of that. They stayed at the doper hotels because they were cheap and the staff usually spoke English, but the yuppies either they didn't use drugs or worse; they drove up the prices.
At one hotel we were staying in we were smoking a chillum in the common room with some Indian friends when two young French girls, who were smoking those stinking Gitanes, started throwing a shit fit about: How dare we smoke that evil substance in their presents! They weren’t going to put up with that and unless we stopped immediately they were going for zee manager. We just laughed and told them to fuck off. Then I took an extra big hit and blew it their way, which really pissed them off. They went for zee manager. He told them that if they didn't like it then they were welcome to leave and find another hotel, which they did in a huff swearing at us in French, Mon Deiu!
At another hotel we were smoking some chillums, again with a bunch of Indian friends, when one of the guys broke out a small bottle whiskey. The manager, a woman, came running over and told him to take his filthy whiskey out of her hotel! And why couldn't he be a nice boy like the rest of us and just smoke ganja? Sadly these days are past thanks to that dirty rotten black mailer Reagan and the Lonely Planet guide books. Ganja is now illegal everywhere and almost all the doper hotels are now traveler’s hotels. You can still get dope at some of them but it costs more. Plus it's smoke it in your room and burn some incense.
One of the most famous doper hotels in all of India where we stayed on numerous occasions closed down a few years ago and is sorely missed. The White Diamond in Varanasi. When you entered, an Indian dwarf would greet you at the door waiting to take your bags upstairs for you. The lobby was all painted with Daliesque surreal murals. The manager was an Indian Irishman who would show you to your room then ask how much hash you wanted? The dwarf would then bring the dope up. At night the owner, an Indian, would show up and every one would follow him up to the roof where he would break out his own stash. Then we would all Bom Boli the evening away with him. It closed down when some white female traveler invited an Indian boy into her room one night, cried rape the next morning and the White Diamond is no more.
If it was the Lonely Planet travelers that ruined the dope scene in India, it was the yuppies that spoiled it in Nepal. Before they discovered trekking in the Himalayas hash was always plentiful and always very cheap. $20 a kilo up in the hills and even tourist prices in the cities was only $5 or $6 an ounce. ($2 a tola, 11 grams) But the yuppies are willing to pay $60 or more an ounce without even blinking, the ones who aren’t too pure to smoke that is. I know that things always change but the thing that gets me most is; the travelers and yuppies are the ones who are always complaining about how touristy everything has become. But it was them and their fucking travel books and excess cash that made it that way. Before, there were few white people traveling in India and Nepal because you had to have the heart and the balls to travel in third world countries. Now all you need is plenty of cash and a goddamn guide book.
At least there's still Thailand where money was always king and still is. Even though prices are way up from just a few years ago and there are a lot more tourists, the scene is about the same. You got the bucks, you get the goods; sex, drugs or ...?
Of course, in the old days you got genuine Thai or Buddha (opiated) sticks for 50 cents each (tourist price). Now it's all loose buds but it's still killer. You can still get a kilo for 1000 Baht ($40) of regular Thai or pay $30 an ounce for premium. We usually buy a kilo for every day use and supplement that with a bit of premium whenever it's around and at a decent price. Up in the Golden Triangle you can still smoke all the opium you want for a buck a pipe, the finest high in the world. There are even treks especially for this adventure. Paranoia, forget it. Unless you are holding a lot or are really stupid then most it's going to cost you if the cops do see you smoking is $40 per cop.
Although the last time that we were in Chiang Mai we were sitting in a tourist restaurant with some other falang’s, one of whom told this tale of woe. A young guy about 20 years old is talking: "So I was smoking a joint at the Tai Pae Gate (a square in the middle of town) and a cop comes over to me and says I'm under arrest for smoking marijuana. I tell him that I didn't even know it was illegal and I was sorry and wouldn’t do it again. He says too bad, I'm going to jail. I ask him if I can pay him the fine and he says okay, 1000. I tell him that I don't have that much money. So he says, then you're going to jail. I tell him that I'll have to cash some travelers checks. He says okay and we go to the nearest change booth. I cash $1000 and give it to him. He doesn’t even thank me, he just walks away."
"When I told this to the hotel manager, he tells me that the cop meant 1000 Baht ($40) not 1000 dollars. I was so mad I called the Tourist Police and told them about this dishonest cop. They told me that I shouldn't even be smoking marijuana and it was my own fault that I gave the cop too much money and that there wasn't anything they would do about it. So now I have to cut my trip short!”
Kelly and I started laughing, what a moron!
He looked at us and whined, "Well, I don't think it's funny at all!"
Which made us laugh even harder.
The worst cop rip off that I ever heard about was: A white friend of ours from LA who married a Thai girl and has lived in Thailand for the last 15 years. He got caught by 8 cops with two kilos of Cambodian Red (the best grass in southeast Asia). It cost him $2000 and one of the kilos because the cops wanted to smoke some of that killer shit themselves.
Also, you can still score over the counter in India, Nepal and Thailand. Up until the early 80's you could even get morphine just for the asking. Even today you can still get an assortment of uppers, downers, tranqs and mood elevators at almost any pharmacy. Of course, they're not as good as the grass, hash and opium, but then nothing is.
The rest of Asia you can forget, China, Korea, Japan, no dope or worse, expensive bunk. Burma, Laos, Cambodia, plenty of cheap dope, but they're still killing each other and tourist too. Vietnam too expensive and too paranoid. Malaysia and Singapore, death penalty for anything over 100 grams. Indonesia and the Philippines are all right, plenty of shrooms and the grass is cheap and not too bad when you can find it, plus there’s no hassles if you're discreet. Australia and New Zealand it's always hard to find and always expensive as hell.
Same for Europe, except for Amsterdam, where it’s still expensive but with absolutely no paranoia. A truly enlightened environment. You can ask any cop where the nearest hash bar is and he'll be glad to tell you. They have a real variety and some of the best in the world. Most of the serious dope growers I know go either to Hawaii or Amsterdam to get their seeds which, when you can find them are $10 or more apiece. In the Caribbean I scored, but it too was expensive and hard to find. I haven't gotten to Jamaica yet. But who knows, maybe that will be my next trip because the dope out of there is excellent and I’ve heard lots of great dope tales form there. And it is on the ganja trail.
I've scored lots of mota in Mexico. It's always cheap and sometimes it’s fantastic, and as long as you're cool with your colas nobody ever hassles you. Mexico is my all time favorite country, if it hadn't gotten so expensive I’d have never left. I love the people, their culture, the food, the language and especially their attitude about life and death. About the only negative thing is the extreme macho bullshit but even a little of that is fun. Even the country itself is beautiful and varied. I love it.
So that leave the good old USA since I haven't yet been either to South America or Africa. We all know the trip here. Mostly it's sit around and wait until the dealer shows up, try it, buy it, take it home and get high on it so I won't bore you with a lot more of these tales of scoring except for my all time favorite American one, and it goes like this...
My friend George, Kelly and I are camped out in the woods near a small town up in the Sierras and oh no, we're almost out of pot so George hops on his motorcycle and goes in search of herb. Living right on the Mexican border all winter in the desert has spoiled us, $600 a pound for really killer Mex, but we didn't bring enough to last us all summer so now we know that we will pay through the nose. George comes back and tells us that he's found a source who sells quarter ounces of Mex reg so we jump in his van to go check it out.
We get to the house and knock, a woman in her late 20's with a couple of kids answers the door. We tell her why we've come and who sent us.
She tells us to come in. She shows us what she's got, $30 quarter or a full OZ for $100.
We tell her that buying in small amounts is for suckers and that we have the cash, so how much for a pound?
She tells us that she can't do it but if we come back tomorrow she'll see what she can do.
The next day we go back at the appointed time. As we walk in there is an old couple sitting on the sofa and she introduces us to as her parents who are also her source. The man is in his early 70's and the wife is not far behind. They check us out and tell us that they will sell us a pound for $1100, not bad.
We say, "Let's see it."
They tell us to follow them to their house. We get to their house and show us the dope. We weigh it then smoke some, it's pretty good so we give them the cash and they give us the pot. They tell us that they've been smoking grass for most of their lives, over 45 years and that they're both still healthy and happy.
We congratulate them, thinking, ‘ahhh, roll models.’
They tells us that if we want any more to just let them know, it's no problem and if they're not here then look for them at the skeet range. They show us their trophies and ribbons and tell us that he's the men's senior and she's the woman's senior skeet shooting champions for this whole section of California, have been for some time and they plan to keep it that way until they die. If we don't want any more pot, why then just stop by for a visit because it is kind of boring living in a small town with a bunch of narrow minded people who still think grass is dangerous.
Kelly and I visit them a few times but George hangs with them quite a bit, even shoots a little skeet with them. We even buy one more pound from them and they give us that one for an even grand. This will have to last us until we get back to the desert for the winter. We tell them so long and see ya in the funnies but we never saw them again because we never visited that town again. I sure hope that they are still shooting skeet and dealing pounds.