August 2014 | By: Scrooble The Scrotable Scribbling, Dribbling Scribe
“The Hills are Alive…"
We were all gathered at The Ponderosa ready for the 2.30 pm cattle drive to North Payangan when suddenly one of our party (was it Hoss or Pa Cartwright?) announced that he had received an urgent dispatch from Trail Boss, Spook Hare Raiser to the effect that the run had been moved to 4pm in the interests of public health and safety. Suddenly we were thrown into spectacular confusion “What the f…k?, another time change? Are these people insane? The last one didn’t work. Quick, where’s the hash map? Who’s got the car keys? Has anybody checked the website? Who killed Cock Robin? Have you seen the Muffin Man? Call the Hare Raiser or his brother or his dentist, they ought to know.” We made The Three Stooges look like a crack S.A.S. team.
After several false starts and bouts of spluttered cursing that turned the air inside the Mirth Mobile a deep shade of blue, we were on our not-so-merry way to…yes indeed, a fifteen minute traffic jam in Singapadu, which seemed to be occasioned by some joker in a huge blue truck parked in the middle of the road while he just ducked into the warung and had a three course nasi special with bebek betutu and babi guleng washed down by a couple of kopi susu and casually pleasant conversation with Ibu. We despaired of getting to the run at all, let alone early. As it was, we arrived 15 minutes late at 4.15 (or early, depending on how you looked at it) futzed around trying to figure out where to park and jogged grumpily off in the direction indicated by the returning hare. It was one of those days that I began to wish I’d stayed on the ranch and had Hop Sing cook me up a mess ‘o viddles.
But wait! It was only a few minutes into the run when it began to dawn on me that this was shaping up to be something special. And it just got better and better. It started out with some fairly above - average paddy views that became really above average, then superlatively, sweepingly, amazing! They were precipitous, dramatic and set off beautifully by background hill country in the far distance. Huge trees and giant berm-side bamboo groves bore down on us as water trickled, fell and foamed at every turn. Things were looking quite progressively up. My mood lightened and I was positively buoyant, well at least neutrally. I was no longer sinking - put it that way.
Suddenly, as they say in Marvel comics and Shakespearian plays, we were headed downhill on a pretty severe angle in preposterously Jurassic-looking surrounds – even more elaborately outsized bamboo stands, gigantic ferns, and incredibly large and solid rock formations in a valley complete with tumbling waterfall at the river crossing. This was on a slippery concrete flyover, the height above the water of which pricked up the ears a tad I must say. Craning upward I could see hashers perched impossibly high at various points on stairs that wound unendingly and unnervingly almost straight up on the valley side opposite. The Von Trappe family fleeing Nazis - without the snow.
“Holy…” (supply the missing word here as I can’t remember precisely what noun I employed, it may have had something to do with sacred feces, or the male offspring of a female dog). Dancing Queen was later quoted as having counted 350 steps; it seemed twice as many to me but his legs are twice as long as mine and anybody else’s who doesn’t come from a country that eats rollmops. It was an appallingly torturous climb but once we were at the top, the view of where we had just laboured up, and down for that matter, was vast and stupendous, the opposite valley clothed in every imaginable kind of lush tropical greenery. Sorry about all the purple prose this week folks; but this was one hell of a hash run, easily run of the month and quite possibly run of any other month (the year, that is).
The very last section of, again, seemingly unending upwardly winding asphalt was a bit painful (in so many ways) but a fitting way to finish the challenge that was the uncle Leong birthday run this year. We unanimously enjoyed the heck out of it. Nice one YeYe, well done, old son.
The circle was a fairly grand affair as well befitting the occasion: Labia, Wooden Eye, the Grand Master and Jangle Balls all showed up to pay their respects in their various (perhaps slightly unhinged) ways, however wild – eyed and grog fuelled it may have seemed, or been. Night Jar’s “Ship Ahoy” with its attendant sexual shenanigans’ was particularly spritely and well - illustrated, as only Night Jar can illustrate. J.B. regaled us with a downright marathon Dung Beatles outing and Wooden Eye pummeled us with a range of sick jokes it would take a convention of psychiatrists to explain. Chocolate cake was apportioned; Uncle Leong would have been in his element.
It only remains to be seen what Muddy Man and Muddy Girl (?) will make of Hari Merdekaan next week and what, if any, time it will start.
On on.
