Bali Hash House Harriers 2

X is Kind of There and Almost Marks the Spot (aaarrr!)

Disclaimer, for the severalth (Shakespearian or Pirate measurement) time: Do not, under any circumlocutions, stances or cisions take anything written in these pages remotely seriously, or you will be shot at dawn on Pulau Kambungan for Hash Treason. There is as much reward in looking for serious and constructive criticism here as there is in, for example, trying to find the run site last Saturday armed only with the “Buried Treasure” map (aaarr, but I joke, aaarr). However, we did have a teeeensy weeeensy bit of difficulty, as in driving around in circles for fifteen or twenty hours hopelessly and irretrievably lost. When we finally gained the site, Grand Master Night Jar was sighted waving his map (yes, just his map) on high exclaiming in excited Oxbridgian tones “What kind of f…ing map is this? It was about as hard as finding buried f…ing treazhah”. We apparently weren’t the only ones.

Never mind though, this was the Bastille day Run and the kodok2, led by none other than Grand Fromage Allez2, put on a terrific show in the service of Bali HHH2. The run was in an area that was if not often used, then pretty unfamiliar (non merde, Monsieur le detective Sherlock you might well respond) certainly to moi anyway. At the end of the long there was as impressive a mass of ruins as I’ve ever seen on a Bali Hash, and while it wasn’t exactly Borobudur or Angkor Wat, it was no mean size either. I’m sure if you go to Feces Book (Livre Merde) or something, somebody will have posted photos. It was, to employ a cliché (another Frog word), tres awesome, le dude. Hewn out of solid rock face and including several splashing white water features it appeared to be some kind of cleansing holy water site of antiquity. The rest of the run was also surprisingly varied, lush and attractive with not a huge amount of garbage, featured river crossings, padis, mild up ups and down downs and was so well marked that only a complete idiot could become disoriented and come in well after dark. That idiot was of course me, wait, no it wasn’t, I Beau Jest, but I’m never going to tell you who it was (Gudang) (maybe) see sentence one, paragraph one…
There was an entirely novel situation after the run and before the circle when half the population of Bedulu showed up with portable gongs, transistorized gamelans and drums and dressed in white ceremonial garb milled around on one side of the tiny enclosure while hashers drank lager, guffawed, scratched various body parts and matched them mill for mill on the other as the grenouilles passed around elaborate Marie Antoinette cakes to the whole crowd. It was bizarro.

Various scenarios were entertained such as “we all have to pack up now and piss off now”, “maybe we should change the venue” and “to where at this time of night for f…’s sake?” This weird stand-off that wasn’t a stand-off suddenly resolved itself after the rearranging of a few cars and St. Tits’ new motorbike, a blast of gamelan and the entire retinue of musicians and paraders wove past us and headed off up the road into the night. It seemed there was a complete misunderstanding with at least four languages involved and several varieties of para linguistic gesticulation.

No harm done, another international incident narrowly avoided and the entirely reasonable decision to open another keg was made. In the lack of a Hash Master, Dancing Queen now liberally doused virgins and down downed them with beer that was jealously guarded and came only in bottles moments before. He told true stories that bore no relationship whatsoever to anything remotely resembling truth and for some reason has developed a disturbing habit of referring to himself in the third person. It didn’t matter, it was still even funnier than the U.S. electoral process, if that’s humanly possible.

Night Jar reminded us that it was the birth date of a 19th century English portrait painter who couldn’t be more obscure if he was dressed in camouflage in a rain forest on another planet. I am assuming he is currently dead and will therefore not have to go to such extreme lengths (the portrait painter that is, not Night Jar). Jangle Balls seemed miffed that nobody remembered his birthday, serenaded himself with the birthday song (lyrics adjusted to reflect his intake of the frothy article – “May you live one hundred years, may you drink one MILLION beers” -27 beers a day). He also gave us a version of “When I’m Sixty Four” containing the arresting couplet “I can barely make it through the night without taking a pee three times or maybe four, mostly on the floor”. I bring this up just in case you think that only the U.S. Republican party has the concession on deeply repellent sentiments.

In well overdue course it was time to take the party elsewhere after all and we wobbled and wove off in our own inimitable style. We thanked and drunk to the frogs for the run, who as usual had hopped off early. I always thought “Bon Marche” meant “good walk’’ or “attractive course” or something like that, but I find it actually means “cheap”. Oh well, suits me (in more ways than one).

On on
J.B.