On the Mushrooms Trail!

Mushrooms – sounds like the usual fungi which we fondly eat as a pizza topping. But does that perception change when I add the word Magic before Mushrooms? Magic Mushrooms – psilocybin mushrooms also known as psychedelic mushrooms, I would say “THE MUST TRY” at Gili islands, yes they have psychedelic effect that kicks in 30-40 minutes after inducing the “Mushroom Shake”, the ingredients typically include tiny ready to screw you magic mushrooms(10-11 buds), huge pieces of pineapple, jaggery, sugar, soda and the Indonesian bhang is ready! The guy at the Sunset Bar offered us this drink on the night of arrival but we refused as we had to dive the next day, but we resolved that we would try this on the last night at Gili’s. The last night arrived and we were pretty much exhausted after the late afternoon dive, we were one beer down to get rid of tiredness hitting us hard and decided on ditching the diver’s Chinese dinner. I was almost freaking out reading the symptoms and effects of it, mushrooms were pretty new for both of us and the sites on internet have absolutely over exaggerated the effect, it is not as scary as you read. After all the reading I was glad that I was not doing this alone. With all that trepidation we headed towards Sunset Bar but by the time we reached there it was closed or I guess it was their day off, the only place we knew served Shrooms was closed, but the vigour of trying it today had reached to level infinity by then, we decided to walk some more look for some more places, bars that could help us with our endeavour.

We walked a few miles asking at every bar on our way for Shrooms, some gave us a weird look, some just said no and finally we found the place we sought. It was bar with Machans for guest to sit and feel the breeze while the alcoholic or shroomy effect strikes. The place was an instant Yes and we asked him for the “Shrooms”, here we had to choose between five options {Low, Medium, Strong, Super Duper Strong, Fucking Bloody Super Duper Strong}, since both of us were beginners we decided to go for Low but the bartender persuaded us to atleast have Medium. So we decided on one low and one medium, but the ingredients and their proportion remained same for both low and medium so I couldn’t see much difference there!  We decided to gulp the shake so that the effect kicks in ASAP, but the digestive system has its own role to play, sitting on the Machan gazing the sky, trying to spot few planes, looking for lights in the water I felt it was all hoax,  I was not even near to psychedelic state, my impatience began to soar and I started nagging Instructor to have another round of medium so that we will be at par with the stronger one, the Instructor very calmly asked me to wait for a few minutes and yet if it didn’t kick in he promised to shoot some more.

I am glad I listened to him and after 15 minutes of hold off all of a sudden I feel tingling in my legs, then somewhere on the back and shoulders, very quickly traversing to hands and fingers and finally entire body. I felt like someone is tickling me and I couldn’t control my laughter, I started laughing as some laughing gas broke loose, the instructor was still fine. I was laughing on every single action, every stupid word. All of a sudden the instructor tells me the green and white dolphin soft toy which was just hanging around somewhere in the corner of machan and we actually hanged it to the roof for our punching and kicking practice seemed pink to him and he went on kicking spree. I just couldn’t control the tingling and laughing, somehow we stopped whatever activities we were doing and started gazing at sky and water, all I could see were bright lights in the sky as if I was looking at many airplanes in the sky with their orange-red tail lights everywhere one popped up and vanished, the instructor noticed same effect but with lights in water. It felt as if the sky, water, waves everything just blended into each other.

The moment I turned my head left I saw two baby giraffes walking on the beach, I couldn’t believe my eyes, I told Instructor about my perception but he couldn’t see them, by every passing second I could see them closer and closer to our machan bathing themselves in the sea. Somehow my brain realised I was hallucinating but the same instructions were not transferred to my eyes as if there was a lag in my receptors. I started liking that ecstatic feeling and didn’t want it to leave, so I went asking for some more shake, now getting down from that machan was not easy with your entire body trembling and not in your control, I somehow got down but by then the bar was closed so I asked a guy working at bar if he could sneak some shake and it took me a second to realise that I was dancing all this while, I am sure even if he could sneak some looking at my antics he didn’t. We had no choice but to leave as the bar, but the trip was on and we decided to walk the island.

Thus began the longest themed adventure ride, all of a sudden we felt heights lengthened and our widths broader, the first theme was starry night with beach on one side and lush green land with nothing but trees on other side, then came theater theme with few people watching some old American classic sitting by beach side, followed by beautiful and elegant villas. Then came the zombie land theme where I started imagining people walking on the road as zombies but it was vice-a-versa, a guy scared a shit out of me by flashing light at me, its the same feeling when you are scared of dog and dog is scared of you and you both don’t know what to do and end up being scared and scaring each other and came the zoo now I wasn’t hallucinating but there was a giraffe sculpture in one of the resorts and not just giraffe but an elephant, few zebras, deer what not.  After walking some more on the never ending beach we ended up at a bar, the locals were singing some local song and smoking pot, the music was real catchy I waited there for a moment but it was late and we had to get going, the locals there recognize Indians and greet them with old Shahrukh Khan songs, the rest of the road we answered atleast 5 locals where we were from and finally irritated the instructor answered Pakistan once, the questioner turned blank.  On the way I bought a Popsicle just because it reminded me of the pepsi-cola I loved to savour and saved money for in school. I don’t know if it seemed so weird a girl walking on empty roads eating popsicle that a guy standing near pool in one of the diving centres on the way was taking a nice peeking look and all of a sudden splash!  He went into the pool out of nowhere and all I remember is hearing that sudden splash in water and the next moment we are sitting on the road and laughing our ass out.

The effect began to wear out as we were about to reach the hotel and the hurting legs made me realise that I just walked the entire island without resting for a minute, I cannot remember myself walking so much back at home. Was it the Shroom effect or the island effect? I still do not know but the rest of the night we spent raving in that wearing effect and gazing stars on the beach.

P.S : Please don't deem your kids druggies if they ever come and tell you that they have tried psychedelic mushrooms, please note they are very organic and safe if done in right quantities and its effect completely depends on your emotional and mental state.