Can't touch this - Malana

After a beautiful week full of music, yoga, hot springs and beautiful peaks in Manali region, we had to leave Martin behind (18/11) and head to Parvati valley where is one of the most laid-back areas in Himachal Pradesh department. 

As usually the bus took more than expected and we stopped in the infamous Jari to sleep. We followed a hilly path to find the village guest house. At some point we took a turn we shouldn't have taken and we arrived in a house thinking that this is our place. Alex started shouting "hari om!!!" and a lady at her 60s came on the balcony. Alex asked for room and she waived us to wait. She came down and first thing she said was "charas?" (Charas is the word for hasish in Hindu). "From my garden" she continued. 

Alex went upstairs to communicate better so we get a room and as I was waiting in the dark, I came across for the first time in my life with a marihouana plant. 

So that's the forbidden plant I thought (or the sacred plant for some others). I cut a leaf and examined thoroughly (I learned later that the leaf is not actually used for making the hasish).

Of course I am against the legalization of this plant as I know they did it for industrial reasons. It is just a super plant with many many uses such as making strong fabric or medicines. I also know that overusing it, is not good and can destroy lifes. 

Mom and dad you shouldn't worry about what I m writing. I never bought or thinking to buy hasish in the future. (I ve tried some times but still dont get it why people like it so much).
So we got a cheap room at the end :)

Next mornind leaving the place, we realised that there were many wild plants along the path... I guess it is normal as it is indigenous here but still its funny to see so many.

Dont focus on the corns only, the green plant is important too

The plan for that day was to try to go to Malana. I first heard this village my forth day in India by an Astrologer I met in the main road of Shimla. When I told him I was Greek, he said if I know this village nearby called Malana where some soldiers of Alexander the Great decided to stay there and started this closed community. He also said that they talk a language that is very close to ancient Greek. 

After that story i knew i ll go there. The funny thing is that later on, whoever I asked, noone knew this story about Alexander the Great but all indians knew that Malana is famous for the best cream (charas) in the world.

The village is in an altitude of 2600m while we were a bit below 2000m. Every body was giving us different instructions on the distance but we realised that it was hard to do it walking in a day. We decide to wait for cars and ask for a ride. We waited two hours and around 10 cars passed by (really strange for India). Everybody was asking us ridiculously lot of money to take us there. When we were ready to give up and forget the whole Malana thing we stopped a last car who finally gave us a decent price. The distance from the river is 13km and its good we didnt walk it up. The car left us in a place where we could see Malana on the mountain. 

Malana on the top

We took the path and in 40 minutes we were up.

Indeed Malana is a hardcore village. 



The best pix I could get

The people of Malana have their own language, cast system and religion. They dont mix with outsiders and you must not touch them or their houses because they will make you pay big fine. The first word anyone will say to you is "charas?" And later comes the no touching thing. Even the kids were selling charas here. 

Having Alex around was good as he likes to speak with everybody. At some he started telling to the villagers "hey, don't touch me, ok?". 

There are no roads or shops in the village and that makes it already an extraordinary place. Everywhere between the houses we could see marihouana fields. We were walking not believing our eyes. I guess it is the main income of the villagers and that was the time of the year when thew collect all the flowers to make their "cream".
At the top of the village there is a cafe where we met a Malana guy and we tried this famous cream. It was nearly 15:00 and we should head back and catch a ride at daytime. On the last walk, we met this woman withher 3 kids making charas. The kids were removing the leaves and she was rolling the flowers inside her hands giving her black palms. On a cliff, we found a big flower of one special variety they have here, a black leaved one. 

The black leaved marihouana

Going back to the where the car left us, we found a car going down asking again for crazy money. We decided to walk it back and after 3 long hours we were back to Jari. Happy to do 20km that day.

Next day we left for Manikaran. Manikaran is a holy place famous for the very hot springs it has (94ºC).
There is a nice story on how these springs started but to sum up, Shiva and Parvati were bathing in the river when Parvati lost her earrings and from her anger the earrings started boiling from the ground. There is more to the story so google it if interested.
We did a small trek on the mountain and we reached a temple where we were offered some chai. There we met an indian couple and we went to the springs together later. The guy was from Sikh religion so he took us around to the temple and the holy cave.
Again, hospitality is a great thing we should all do.

Next day we went to the most famous place around Kasol but we didnt like it and we decided to leave for Rishikesh (14 hours away).