Bali & Magic Mushrooms: Tripping In The Tropics

Tripping in Bali is an otherworldly experience. Magic mushrooms are available for the tourists to consume and take a trip to the higher consciousness.

Magic mushrooms are easily acquired and experienced on the intriguing island of Bali. The streets are filled with local salesmen, usually teenagers, that sell these magic mushrooms for a living. Kuta, the main tourist city of Bali, has a great supply of these trippy funghi.

Seeing tourists with dilated pupils, walking in zig-zags, observing the surroundings meticulously, is not an uncommon scenery in Kuta. The picturesque clouds and sunsets produce a wonderful environment for trippy experiences. In Kuta, there’s no shortage of entertainment, from Blues bars to Reggae bars, EDM clubs and fantastic restaurants, Kuta has it all. It’s a classic Southeast Asian tourist destination that brings in thousands of visitors each year.

Indonesia has an extreme zero tolerance towards drugs. Purchasing marijuana as a tourist can lead to serious consequences, such as incarceration. The possession of drugs like cocaine and heroin, if detected by the police, will most definitely bring serious trouble. Here’s how it works in Bali: drugs salesmen have connections with the police, they all know each other and once a tourist purchases drugs, the police is informed, and the tourist is threatened by the police with potential incarceration, unless thousands of euros are delivered. Once the money is transferred, the police release the tourist and give a cut to the salesmen. Even though the magic mushrooms are illegal, they are unofficially approved for sale. So purchasing magic mushrooms will not cause any trouble.

Let’s also get to the party islands of Gili. There are three round shaped islands outside of Bali called Gili Trawangan, Gili Air, and Gili Meno. The biggest and most popular tourist island is Gili Trawangan. The police do not visit these islands very often, henceforth the locals are selling weed and of course, magic mushrooms. The islands have amazing sceneries, beautiful sunsets, and amazing beaches filled with fantastic restaurants and bars. Snorkeling is a common activity, due to the abundance of coral and marine life, which includes all types of fish and of course, turtles. Sometimes, huge turtle colonies swim through the waters, creating an amazing experience for the snorkeler. In regards to restaurants, you can eat amazingly fresh caught fish, grilled with herbs and spices for only 50.000 rupiahs (about €3.5).

Instead of getting into details about the mushrooms and the culture I decided to interview a friend, who has experienced Bali and the Gili island mushroom experience. Let’s begin.

“Exiting the airport. The tropical humidity instantly made my clothes stick to my body, and the intriguing smell of Bali’s essence entered my nostrils. The taxi driver tried to charge us 200.000 rupiahs, although we knew that 50.000 was the price, so that’s what we paid. Upon arrival in the center of Kuta, my friend and I carried our bags to the nearest hotel we could find. On the way, teenage boys were persistently trying to sell us mushrooms, weed, and other stuff; not today, we thought. On the balcony, I smoked a cigarette and embraced Kuta's tropical scenery with awe.

The next day we ate a luxurious breakfast; BLT deluxe sandwich with fries I believe. Afterwards, we enjoyed the inner yard pool of the hotel. “Should we try some of these mushrooms, that they advertise everywhere?” my friend asked, “Sure why not!” I responded with excitement. So we went out on Poppies Lane street, and found an add on the wall “Magic Mushrooms 24h Super Fucking Trippy”, seemed legit, so we followed the arrow to the local family's house. A local woman greeted us and asked if we wanted some magic mushrooms, we responded “Yes!” in unison. She took out a bag of mushrooms and poured some into the mixer. The mushrooms were small-sized, half black, half silvery, before the woman covered them in cherry juice, and turned on the mixer. We went to the hotel room, clinked our cups, and downed the cherry mushroom drink. After about 30 minutes we started feeling them; after 1 hour they really kicked in.

The experience was not great. There was too much stimulation from the street happenings, we had to keep it together because we didn’t want to become the prey of the local drug dealers, which we heard horror stories about. My stomach was hurting a bit, and once we got to the beach, the sky was completely grey. We noticed that the entire beach was littered with plastic bottles and chips bags. It felt like an apocalypse of some sort. It was an interesting bad trip because we saw what Kuta was for the locals, it was the tourist trash can. Many epiphanies came to light, and after the experience, we went home and slept for many many hours.

The next day, my friend decided to leave, due to a sudden “I need to get my shit together” epiphany. So I stayed in Kuta. The feelings from the previous day were washed away, and I walked around the city enjoying talking to the locals and other tourists. Many cool stories took place, although let’s get to the mushrooms. I couldn’t leave Indonesia without having a great shroom trip, so I decided to travel to Gili Trawangan.

The amazing sceneries, beaches, sunsets; it’s a really amazing place with a tropical climate. One night I met some English tourists, cool people. We partied, had a couple of drinks, and we all decided to take some magic mushrooms. Almost all bars in Gili Trawangan have a decent supply of mushrooms, so we went to the bar and asked for the shroom drinks. They cost us 100.000 rupiah per cup, which is definitely enough for one person. So we all bought 1 cup each. The mushrooms were mixed with vodka and red bull. After we chugged our drinks, magic happened.

We went down to the beach and laid down. The shrooms were kicking in. The entire sky started to change colors, it’s like my perception of what colors were, started to shift. The distances between objects were really distorted. I looked at my hand and it felt like it was as long as the distance from Earth to the stars. I watched a boat that looked like the Titanic, although it was a small fishing boat. Then I started to see a huge face-like object in the sky, that started to resemble more and more a real face. Then Buddha's face appeared, as big as a distant planet, closing in on Earth; but what was Earth at that point? Many questions were swirling in my mind without meaning. The stars started to swirl around Buddha's face, and I thought, well, I didn’t really think, I was just there, in the moment. My fellow English friends were great, they were goofing around, and dancing. Suddenly, we all decided to go swimming in the black waters of the night. It was so cool. The water felt like a jelly substance, I was just floating, and the movements in the water felt really nice against my skin. Everything felt cool. Touching my legs and toes was a bizarre experience. I thought, does this belong to me? After the trip, we all separated and I went to bed; I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about all these cool things and epiphanies. The End.”

There is an interesting element to the Bali and Gili experience. This phenomenon is clearly seen in Southeast Asian tourist destinations. There is a lot of partying going on, tourists are enjoying their lives. Although, 10 minutes away from the main street in Kuta, you can discover insane poverty. Workers in the tourist agencies only make €70 a month, and the people hardly get by. It’s good to pay attention to the imaginary tourist world that has been synthetically constructed to blind the tourists from reality while having fun. Either way, if a mushroom trip is what you are looking for in Southeast Asia, then travel to Bali or Gili islands, and enjoy your trip.