HIGH IN THE HIMALAYAS
My life’s companion Kelly and I finally made it to Pokhara and it only took four days from New Delhi, a distance of about 800 miles. We started in India from New Delhi taking a train to Lucknow where we spent the night. The next night we took another train to Gorapur where we then got on a bus to Lumbini, a city on the Indian/Nepal border and the birthplace of the Buddha. We spent the night there then this morning at 7 a.m. we got on a mini bus for Pokhara. Well, I guess you could call it a mini bus if you used your imagination. It was really small, about the size of a small step van and it was so squat that anyone over about 5'6" had to stand scrunch over. The seats were made of wood and so tiny they didn’t even have leg room for short people. It was right out of National Geographic with the people in their native dress bringing along their goats, chickens and produce all on the way to market in the next little village. If you didn't like it on the inside of the bus then you could ride on top with the luggage getting sun and wind burned, but you had a fantastic view. The road, sometimes paved but mostly not, followed a really pretty river valley with the Himalayan foot hills on one side. On the other flowed the river that was anywhere from 50 to 500 feet straight down below us. We tried not to think about the edge especially when we met an on coming vehicle and had to squeeze past one another.
It's 8:30 at night when we pull in, not bad, 100 miles in just over 13 hours. It's dark because there's no electricity in Pokhara today but it’s still really beautiful. We can see billions of stars in the black night sky and there's even fireflies blinking in the darkness. There's a tout to meet the bus who takes us to his family’s hotel. What are those black boulders lying in the road? Why, they're water buffaloes absorbing the day’s heat off the blacktop. We know this place is majickal even though we've just seen a little of it and at night. Pokhara is a 3000 foot tropical valley on the edge of a large lake located about 15 miles from the base of a 23,000 foot mountain range that fills almost 180 degrees of the horizon. The tout tells us that tomorrow morning he will wake us at 5:30 so we can see the sun rise coming over the mighty Anapurnas.
Sounds good to us, but right now what we'd like to know is, have you got any Hash? Because Pokhara's not only famous for its mountains but for it's Finger Hash and it’s Majick Mushrooms as well. No, he doesn't have any, but his grandfather does and he'll go and get grandpa for us. Grandpa comes to our room and has two pieces, each about a tola and a half (a tola is 11 grams). He asked us if we'd like one or both. Well, we'll start with one because it is not No. 1 quality and it's late. Gramps promises us better stuff tomorrow so we give him about $3 worth of Rupees then ask for a chillum taking the bigger looking piece. We say good night to grandpa.
I tell Kelly that I’m going to get her high because I am not going to smoke any hash tonight, I am just going to prepare chillums for her until she either passes out or at least begs for mercy. Kelly looks at me and says, "We’ll see about that, but sounds good to me." Now Kelly’s a smoker, I've never seen her turn down a toke unless it was trash and even then she'll still try a toke or two just to see for herself. It's her philosophy that you can never get too high especially on grass or hash. So I start giving her chillums packed with pure Napali Finger Hash. I keep them going for her and she keeps smoking them... Two hours later the last chillum is dead, the 18 grams is gone up in smoke and Kelly is still with us, though just barely. I ask her, "You want me to go wake up grandpa and get that other piece?" She looks at me with eyes that are just slits and whispers, "Nooo..." I ask if she's had enough. She whispers, "Yesss...." Well, I guess she’s high so it's off to bed.
BAM! BAM! BAM! Someone is pounding on the door and it's not even light yet. "Get up, it's time to see the sunrise."
It's the tout. The fiend knows that we had a hard bus ride yesterday and a late night last night. We want to sleep in, but what the heck, we're awake now so we mise as well see the sunrise. We get up, go outside and look up.
The sun is just coming over the mountains and it is Magnificent. Wonderous. Marvelous. The mountains are all lit up golden and snowy white, and they are huge. They fill the entire sky and are so close that it looks like you can just reach out and touch them. The valley is all green and dewy looking. The lake is still and is reflecting all this grandeur. Truly this is one of the most beautiful places on earth. We stand there for a while not saying a thing. We are stunned and amazed by this awesome spectacle.
I call the tout over and thank him for waking us, then ask him, "Oh, by the way, where are those majick mushroom fields?"
He give me directions saying, "Just follow the children. They pick them and then sell them to the tourist."
I ask Kelly if she wants to go but she says no, she’s still too high from last night.
So it's off I go.
I see the kids right away and follow them to the rice paddies. The fields are close and I find lots of shrooms right away, eating a few just to make sure they're not poison. They're not because after about half an hour the valley and the mountains get even more exquisite. I pick a big baggie full, some to share, some for later and some to dry for much later.
Pokhara's one of the most majickal I've ever been. Kelly and I spend our days getting up at sunrise for the show, then go pick and eat shrooms, spending the rest of the day smoking hash and watching the mountains, waiting for part 2, sundown, which is just as wonderful as the sunrise. Then the fireflies, the moon and the stars come out while we smoke even more hash and watch them too.
We spent almost a month there. We did a little trekking on the Jomoson trail but mostly we just hung out with the other tourist and the Nepali's, who are some of the friendliest, nicest, hardest working people on earth. You see, there are almost no roads in Nepal so everything travels on foot on people’s backs straight up the sides of the mountains. Everybody carries everything everywhere.
We had a very mellow time there because mushrooms and hash don't make you want to do too much. About the only exciting we had was when a Swede came up to me and asked if I did mushrooms.
I smiled and said, "Everyday."
So he wants to try them and asks the dose.
"4 to 40." I tell him but since it's his first time, I recommend six to start with then more later if he wants to get higher.
He says, "I vill take 12."
I tell him that 12 is a pretty good dose.
He nods and says again, "Ya, I vill take 12."
He eats the dozen then he and his buddy go off to see the sights.
Right after it gets dark Kelly and I hear screaming so we go outside to investigate. It’s the Swede. He's running around in circles pulling at his hair and screaming. Every now and then he stops, looks at that starry night sky and yells, "Gott in Himmel! Gott in Himmel!" then starts the whole trip over again.
His buddy is just standing there watching him. I go up to his buddy and tell him that I've got some Valium and that if he'll hold the Swede down, I'll jam some down his throat, then in about 20 minutes he'll be okay.
But the buddy tells me, "No, he vanted to see vhat is vas like zo let him see.”
Well, all rightee then.
We watch this for around 5 minutes then the Swede makes his escape. He's off and running out into the night screaming, "Gott in Himmel! Gott in Himmel!"
His buddy says, "Vell, I guess I’d better go after him." We never see either of them again.
After our month in Pokhara I had about a pound of dried mushroom to be used in case of emergency. We wanted to see Kathmandu so it's a 12 hour ride on another uncomfortable bus to go 120 miles but we're young and tough, and we have plenty of supplies. Yes sir, eat a hunk of hash and watch the world go by.
As we come into Kathmandu the bus stops at the police check post and there, growing all around it are big healthy flowering 8 to 10 foot Cannabis Indica plants. We know that we have arrived at the right place. As we drive into the city there are ganja plants growing everywhere, by the sides of the road, in peoples yards, even out of trash piles, everywhere we look, there it is. Man O Man, ‘Welcome to Kathmandu’ one of the world’s fabled places.
Now going to Kathmandu is like going back in time a couple of hundred years. There are only a few paved streets, the rest are twisty narrow little dirt or cobblestone lanes. They run between wood and brick two story buildings with shuttered windows and four foot high door ways, watch your head! We go straight to Freek Street where the buildings are really old and the hotels are real rat holes, dark dirty dingy dank and dreary little hovels, but very cheap. Anyway, there's always hash to brighten them up and there's so much neat stuff to look at outside that you don't spend much time in them. About the only bad thing is, about once a week the cops come around at night, pound on your door then sniff your room when you opened up. If they smell hash burning then you've got to backsheech them about $20 or they throw you in jail, but if you burn some really smelly incense then you're okay.
We spend a couple weeks seeing the sights, which are pretty trippy. Near Freek St. there's Dubar Square. A group of really old temples that have existed for as long as Kathmandu has been a city. If you go to the museum most of the stuff they have are old religious paintings on cloth called Thankas. They either show the Buddha meditating or Nepali Gods with giant hard-on's fucking beautiful babes. Now this is more of my kind of religion. But mostly we hang out in the pie shops, smoking hash, eating our dried shrooms, eating pie and other goodies, and having a pretty good old time except for some weirdness one night while we were there when they had the Festival of Light.
The Nepali’s have this festival where they drink, gamble and light off firecrackers all night long. At dawn they take their winnings (those that have them) and buy the biggest animal they can afford. At sunrise they sacrifice the animal by chopping off it's head with one stroke of a big knife and the streets fill with blood. They then take the meat home but the heads they mount on whatever vehicle they own, so you'll see maybe a chicken or duck head on a bicycle but on a car or truck you might see a goat head or even the head of a water buffalo. Then they drive around town all day showing off their head. A pretty strange sight for a westerner for sure.
However, the sight that impressed us most was; One day we were walking down by the National Stadium and Kelly says, "Look at those pot plants, they're huge!"
I look and say, "No way. They're way too big, they have to be something else."
But Kelly says, "I think they are Marijuana. Let's go look."
We do, and not only they are pot plants, they are huge! In fact, they're not pot plants, they're pot trees! And there are acres of them right in middle of the city. They're monsters, 10 to 15 feet high and 6 to 8 feet across the stems are as big around as my arm, plus they're flowering. We run and jump right into them, roll around in them and get high just being with them. Holy Mother Marijuana Comfort Me! We are giggling like kids because we just can't believe it, this is the way it's supposed to be. I once asked a guy who had some of these giants growing in his yard how much ganja he got off of just one plant. He told me 5 to 6 kilos. WOW! I was very impressed because I've grown a few plants every now and then and I'm lucky to get plants 6 or 8 feet high with maybe a quarter pound of buds from each. Five to six kilos! Man, that would even last Kelly all year.
Well, it started getting cold in Kathmandu so we were ready to go back to India where the weather was warm, the charras is potent and cheap, and the ganja is legal. Just ask any cop where the nearest Ganja Shop is and he'll be glad to give you directions. Hell, if it's near his brake time, he'll even accompany you and smoke a chillum or two with you. Smoking and enjoying the life WITH the cops, now that's the way it should be!