November 2013 | By: The Scrutable Scribe
Sorry, can’t tell you where the beach is, it’s a secret!'
However, if you head in the general direction of the ocean…This is the assumption on which we operated last Saturday with mostly satisfactory results, it has to be said. Ever the pessimist though, I insisted on a punctual assembly and departure at 3 p.m. from a certain Sanur address (whoops, secret too). Envisaging the usual choked congestion of Nusa Dua, the Bukit and environs we were pleasantly amazed, after a short cruise on the toll road watching the car ahead doing aerobics because of the novel configuration of the asphalt thereon, followed by a swift interlude on the bypass, at the clear run all the way to the Hash site near Pendewa “secret” beach in Nusa Dua. Unbefahkinlievable! As our revered Hash Master is given to utter; about 40 minutes max, maybe less.
Also, I of course took an umbrella expecting downpours of Old Testament proportions in this the rainy season. Emerging from the car into a blindingly white quarry in the blazing sun I was thus forced to purchase a hideously comical hat from Hash boutique. It was the only one they had, I was told, as they pissed themselves laughing and relieved me of Rp 25.000 for the multi coloured monstrosity; not a good start, not. Exposure to the sun being a leading contributor to sunstroke, I squashed it down on my bonce, gritted teeth and trotted off amid hyena howls of hysteria with the pack (of hyenas) to the “secret” beach.
Perhaps some time ago, or maybe even last week, considering the head spinning pace of Bali development, this beach may have been accurately described as “secret”. Take into account in this description, however: several gigantic molded statues of Hindu Gods in arches carved into the side of the quarry face adjacent the beach road (what isn’t a quarry face on the Bukit these days?), tour buses disgorging jeans-and-jilbab clad Javanese tourists into a huge limestone bus-park decorated with nice shiny piles of garbage, bakso carts, a warren of lean-to warungs, bedeg and bamboo sarong shops on the sand and more comely cement versions of these under construction behind them. If it is a secret it’s Bali’s worst kept and possibly ugliest one. There was a large sign on the beach walk that said “TOILET” with an arrow pointing to a location several shops deep, an invisible but decidedly wafting W.C. This word just about summed up the whole place if you ask me.
After that there was nowhere to go but up, literally. The paper took us up a practically perpendicular abrupt rise, a cliff, if I stop fucking around with purple prose, that had us (well, me) gasping, stopping, stooping, sitting, sweating and every so often marveling at the dramatic views of the turquoise and blue ocean below through the green trees and brush, absolutely spectacular as advertised. At the top, congratulating ourselves on surviving the ordeal, we were in pleasant green undulating vaguely Irish-looking surroundings. Whaddya know, Patrick? Pots o’ gold, leprechauns, and rainbows, Daniel Day Lewis and his left foot, poets sitting on rocky outcrops appeared all over the place… goats! N-o-o-o-o-t, goats used to be found on the bukit but villas and limestone mining have forced them from their natural habitat, so we didn’t see any endangered goat species but we did scamper by a luxury villa compound perched on a lookout staring out at the never ending ocean.
I don’t know if they have these in Ireland, but I often wonder about the motives of people who buy and retire to them. What do they expect post-career life in Bali to be like? A kind of Gaugin-esque idyll with friendly brown islanders bringing them fish on papaya leaves for eternity. Languishing by a lagoon under a palm tree with ukulele playing, straw hatted locals serenading them into tropical slumbers, a pink gin on the verandah under a punka operated by a punkawallah? What? Wouldn’t they feel a little short changed when they find themselves stuck on the edge of a cliff several quarries from the nearest cocktail hour with absolutely fuck all to do but go troppo looking at the view and watching Indovision?
This was a very different run than what we’re accustomed to in the foothills and higher into the mountains and we all enjoyed it tremendously. Great job hares Anonymous and Mrs Anonymous I believe, very nice folks when they’re not selling you gaudily embarrassing head wear. So not much more to say about that other than: did you know that you can re-arrange the letters of “Pendewa Secret Beach” into “be aware, end cheap stew”? Watch out, bakso men of Pendewa.
The circle was a huge improvement over the last two weeks. People were actually listening and enjoying themselves, some even got involved. Can you believe it? There was an actual air of camaraderie that seemed to be, along with the Rare Bukit Goat, threatened with extinction only last week. It was loads of fun as those two jolly Burlesque Bulehs, Labia and Jangle Balls, found their stride and had the crowd in the palms of their hands, and that wasn’t all. Labia wielded a mighty bush destroying virgins effortlessly, well one virgin, but it was funny. J.B. Dung Beatled his way through an ode to a desperate individual who couldn’t cope with his girlfriend’s new Brazilian hair style “She’s Got No Thicket to ride”.
Kiwi Pete, ever the gentleman, took it in his strides being hash named “Whykickanenema’’ by the crowd (it’s a long story); and a German dressed in business attire complete with pocket pen guard appearing miraculously in the crowd (the German, not the pen guard) was incredibly good humoured about J.B.’s merciless roasting, going so far as to let loose with a Biergarten refrain on request. It seemed on interrogation (something they know a bit about) he’d been trying to get to the hash for a while before finding himself on business on the Bukit up the road from us and popped down for a humiliation.
But I digress, the beer still ran out early about which something should be done, and we bid a fond goodbye to the limestone Bukit, small “b” or big “B”. Who knows? Pendewa or Pandawa? (You say Pandawa and I say Pendewa, you say stigmata…)
On on.
