"Heavenly Hash Pipes"
The first thing you notice when you get to Khatmandu are the mountains - simply the greatest and most beautiful mountains in the world. The second thing you notice are the salesmen. They're all selling the same things: bracelets, sweaters, necklaces, girls for the "jumping and a bumping" and, of course, the hash. If what you want isn't in their "catalogue", it can be in five minutes and a five dollar bill. Another thing to know about Khatmandu is that travellers congregate like long lost friends, in places that they take for their own, despite the fact they've never been there. The pubs, restaurants and cafes are like a drunken United Nations, with the same, halting translations of language and culture in a foreign land. It is during one of these multi-national gathering that the story begins...We took over the third floor at the Sherpa Pub in downtown Thanel, where they have a pool room (pool closet, more accurately) and a balcony overlooking the city. There were about twenty of us, Dutch, Belgians, British, Canadians, Americans, Swedish, you name it...and we were enjoying the meal, atmosphere and local hash all under the watchful eye of the police constable whose office was on the second floor. Our 12-year-old boy servers were great at procuring what we needed, but their real skill was in the cleaning of our hash pipe. There was a lot of hash to smoke, you see, and it would often become jammed with the globally enjoyed nectar of the evening. For most of the night, the cop looked more bewildered than concerned....so we smiled him away - in fact, we forgot all about him. That is, of course until the short panted Brit finally got fed up with the constant clogging of our brand new hash pipe...In a fit of mock rage, he simply flung it off the rooftop patio onto the street below...At least it did hit the street AFTER IT HAD HIT THE CONSTABLE IN THE HEAD!!! We thought it was the end of the pipe, and that it might be the end of good times in Khatmandu - we thought wrong...Not only did the cop bring back our hash pipe, he tried to help us fix it....Ahhhhhhhh, Khatmandu, the only city in the world where hash pipes fall from heaven, and cops help you get them up and running. As for the short panted Brit, he spent the night camped under the table - afraid, I guess, of being hit in the head by a falling hash pipe. |
