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Several years ago, two friends and I ended three months in India in Manali, in the shadow of the Himalayas. We ventured up the Kullu Valley, trekking for a few days, and back in our guesthouse we enjoyed sunny days and cool evenings, fresh baked bread, and washing from a pot of boiled water every third day.
One day, word started that there was a party happening the following night. Rumours varied, and the impression we got was that it was happening in a building just down the hill. I’d pictured a school disco type affair, and we weren’t really interested.
On the evening in question, only two of us bothered to check it out. We met some people on the quiet, dark road going down towards Old Manali, and we joined them as they walked across the hill going up towards Dhungri and the woods.
We had ventured up to the temple at Dhungri in daylight, but now it was pitch dark and the forest on the hills above us looked quite foreboding. Still, we were young and adventurous and followed along not really caring what happened.
Once we started through the woods of very tall trees, the floor became crunchy and it was very spooky and quiet. After about ten minutes we heard a distant thump of bass, and knew that we were on no fool’s errand. The music grew louder, and suddenly we entered a natural clearing surrounded by tall trees and huge rocks, everything sprayed in day-glo colours. Some lights from a couple of chai stalls gave the woods an incredible atmosphere, and we smiled at our good fortune. There were about seventy people stomping around to some primitive techno music: a western-looking saddhu in full garb, dancing strangely with a Gandalf-esque staff in his hand, a long haired western guy dancing furiously on a rock, and many travellers we’d seen around Manali in the week we’d been there now being seen in a very different light. We were welcomed with “you made it” smiles as we took in this semi-organised chaos in the woods.
We decided not to mess about, and within five minutes had sourced and dropped hits of acid, and stoked up the chillum. The DJ was furiously working several walkmans, and a pile of dead batteries lay on the floor at his feet; he was doing a bang up job, and kept the music coming on strong all night.
The party ended around eight in the morning, and we staggered back to the guesthouse, tripping like bastards, to wake our unlucky friend up to tell him what he’d missed. He was sorely disappointed, but he more than made up for it in the three weeks of parties in the woods ahead of us.
From Koh Phangang full moon parties, to high end bars and nightclubs, to raves with thirty thousand people in fields back in the day, to squat parties all over London, to the pathetic offerings we’d just had in Goa, those parties in the woods were beyond doubt the maddest and the most memorable I’ve ever attended.
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