Opium Dreams

As part of our tour yesterday we stopped at a couple of rural villages.  At one a very Hindi looking man wearing a turban invited us to sit on a couple of cushions and he sat cross-legged on the ground in front of us.  There was a complicated looking titration device in front of us.  He pulled out a baggy containing a thick, sticky, black tar-like substance, and began mixing it with water and running back and forth through a series of filters and containers.

Our guide, Sandeep, kind of a hippie looking Rasta man said, deadpan: "This is opium.  The government gives these desert tribes a special permit to import this.  They mix it with sugar water - it is very diluted - and drink it.  It helps them work long hours in the desert sun."

"I'll bet it does," I thought.

"Would you like to try some?" he added.

SuperK and I both froze, admitting to each other later that our initial thought was: "Hell, yes, I'd like to try some."

I've never tried opium.  Funny how the visceral reaction is still Yes until the training takes over.