It was morning, my eyes opened and feeling once again returned to my mind and body. Lifting my head from the pillow I looked to my left and laying beside me sprawled out in classic drunken form was Sandeep and beside him curled up in a cacoon of blankets was Wadood. I didn't leave the room at first, I couldn't unless one of them was awake, because the door couldn't close unless someone on the inside locked it, thus I went to the balcony and watched the river flow endlessly beside the hotel.It was the cleanest looking river id seen in India and yet off to the side where the water stood still, there floated countless plastic bottles, tin cans and waist of all kinds, a sad picture anyway you looked at it. Wadood woke up first and so I left the room in search of something to keep me occupied.Vinay, Nilma and Varsha were already awake but Michael, Jerry and Clement were still fast asleep, so I took a walk by myself around town and eventually found a little "German Bakery,"sacrilege to be sure but a bakery non the less. I bought a little chocolate filled crossant and headed back to the hotel, by that time everyone was awake but no one was ready to leave. Once all our things were all packed and we were ready to go it was past time to check out, thankfully we didn't have to pay the fee.We walked down the street to the pick up corner and sat waiting for our ride to come, during which time we saw a number of screw loose characters that easy ranked as heritics in most eastern european block countries. This one guy had dreads down to his ankles, sporting only a pair of ragged brown corduroy pants with a cloth belt, no t-shirt and no shoes, he was walking into a barber shop, I found myself wondering how long it took him to grow that barbarian worthy mane of his, and if I could ever loose enough sanity to do the same.Our Ride came and thus we were off, not 3 minutes into our drive we noticed that one of our bags was missing, we turned back and sure enough there it was sitting alongside the road... and off again we went.Our next stop was Malana, an ancient mountain village claiming to be direct discendants of Alexander The Greats army. To get to Malana we first had to pass through a mining site and something like a boarder check, I was the only Foreigner so I had to show my passport to the gaurds. Once we passed the check point we started through the blasted out mountains of the camp, driving past mining tunnels and through tunnels to get to the inside of the Malana Valley. Vinay told me that it took Alexanders army a long time to get here and thats why they stayed long enough to breed with everyone lol.Even once we got to the middle of the Valley we had to leave the car and walk a good 2 miles uphill before we entered the village. I was walking ahead of the group out of sheer will to get there and get it over with. Everyones legs were in complete ruins, courtesy of our reckless discent of Sur Kundi Pass the day before.I was walking along the path and out of no where comes a guy asking me some crazy questions. I recognized him from the hotel we had just left, as strange as this coincidence was I wasn't interested in what this mumbling buffoon had to offer so I merely turned around and continued walking.Everyone caught up and we entered the place together, it was a village like you might see in Zena Warrior princess, one of those upper class barbarian towns with a sorceror or witch lurking somewhere within the perimeter, spreading its influence and generally creeping the fuck out of anyone unlucky enough to enter. We were told not to look anyone in the eyes and not to touch them or their property, failure to comply would result in a hefty fine. We were walking along when a group of "women" came from behind us, we got out of the way but they didn't feel that we had moved enough and shushed us away, snarling, laughing and spitting all in disguting unison. In truth these people were nothing more than arragant and pompus wretches, merely pesants that have been stuck in a backwards line of thinking for hundreds of years that discovered the lucrative properties of weed and used that to continue the lifestyle and belief system of their most precious and deluded folk tale. A number of children came up to us with the intent to take us to their respective places of business, which in Malana is one of only two things, Weed and more Weed. You see Malana has its own government and has recieved special status from the Indian government to remain independant from all outside influence, although in truth I think that the mining company in the valley below used its own influence to make that happen, and when they have nothing left to exploit in the Malanan valley that Special status will quickly dissapear. The dilusion that had run the lives of these people for so long would fade away into history and all that would remain is a society with a drug based economy and nothing left to protect them from outside governance and the ever tightening grip of taxes and corrupt officials.We went to the highest point of the village and had some snacks. Some within our group were interested in buying (cream) a special type of weed thats made into a paste for either eating or smoking, supposedly this cream has won numerous awards world wide and holds the prestigious title of worlds best Marijuana, an award it recieves almost every year in Amsterdam. Even with all that said the price for a single gram was more than any of us were willing to spend, and so we moved on.I took one final look at the face of true ignorance and shook my head with total incredulity. We had all followed the rules, but somewhere inside me I had hoped that Blake could have been there with his friends from back home... I would have paid top dollar to see that spectical, knocking over vases and the elderly, tipping the live stock and running through their houses, it would have been a great shock to those stuck up bastards, an awaking for them that Im sure they will one day have to face.We left that god forsaken place and got dropped off not but 200 feet from babeli base camp, a place that we would all rather never see again. An hour of waiting in the dark later we stacked into yet another packed bus to Manali, it was midnight when we got there and the only thing on anyones mind was food, so we found a nice restaraunt and chowed down, we finished at 1 am and found a place to stay after that. As per usual for the past couple of days I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.