September 2014 | By: Scrooble The Scrotable Scribbling, Dribbling Scribe
"Lost in the Holy (Shit!) Land"
I’m not a religious man but there is a passage in the Bible that is quite prescient. It is in the Book of Big Jobs, Chapter 4 gazillion and 2, Row 6, seat D (aisle) and it clearly speaks to me: “In your very late middle age you will visit the Land of Umalas on the Dark Side of Bali. Yea though you joggeth through the Valley of the Shadow of Canggu, you will fear no evil, for thou will haveth thy Bali Hai Hat and thy BHHH2 (TWO!) 1000th Run Bandana with footprints uponeth it to comfort thee.”
It was possibly the amount of times that I found myself uttering the biblical invocation “Holy Shit” on last week’s run from a “villa” in Umalas that put me in mind of the Buku Bagus quote above. “Holy shit, that’s a friggin’ vast hotel in the middle of nowhere”, “Holy shit, I’ve never seen so many half-finished ‘villas’ in my life”, “Holy Shit, is that an incredibly modern up-to-the-minute exciting retail space I see in the middle of a blasted landscape and adjacent a burnt out field?” After a while I ran out of Shit but I had plenty of Moly left: “Holy Moly” (as you know, ‘Moly’ is a punitive lymphatic adverb because it ends in ‘ly’) “there’s more garbage and crap around here than ‘The Grammies Red Carpet with Ryan Seacrest Show’ ”. And of course, the utterance that practically every hasher not from Umalas gave full throated voice to that fateful day: “Holy Shit, how long have we been on this fucking road?”
Nevertheless it was an interesting run, not one that we would necessarily experience every Saturday, nor on any other Saturday in the long term foreseeable future for that matter. Kidding! Just joshin’ around, joking, as it were. The best fist that could possibly be made of it was made by the redoubtable Muddy Man and the estimable Tintin Balls. Who knew, for example, that there was any paddy at all left in Canggu or Umalas, that wooden bridges spanned generously wide streams? That there was actual residual areas of bush and, dare I say, almost thick greenery from time to time? The beach was, of course, the stand out feature of the run with a roiling and angry looking ocean throwing quite the impressive tantrum, seemingly the result of an unseasonable onshore gale force wind blowing 40 bastards an hour and stripping the shoreline of hash paper.
We found our way back through the randomly placed internet cafes and strangely positioned “villas” and “hotels” (“Why are you using quotation marks around ‘villas’ and ‘hotels’, you smartarse?”, you may be asking yourselves at this point. Aha! Well spotted and a good question. I have no idea.) As one alert Hasher pointed out “This whole joint looks like God or somebody put “villas”, “hotels” (his quote marks, not mine) and “garbage” in a box, shook it up and dumped it on some rice paddies”. Another old hand from Sanur expostulated “If you parachuted me in here, I wouldn’t have a fucking clue where I was, apart from the offerings”.
I personally think it’s an age related thing. I read in a newspaper (for you young readers, that’s a paper with news written on it) article recently that older folks or even fantastically old folks such as some Hashers, like me, for example, prefer places with a more traditional layout, such as Sanur where there is a distinct hotel area, a shopping precinct, a main tourist strip, and more suburban “villa” areas; whereas your younger Turks prefer a more “free form” arrangement. I think the newspaper was “The Bali Advertiser” and I think it was a real estate promotion for Canggu. It might not have been though, this could have been the result of just another brain fart from a drooling old fossil, doddering aimlessly around with poop in his Y fronts. “Having a Sanur moment”, it’s called by sniggering, youthful Canggu types.
The circle, as noted by the Hair Raiser, was an event that was assisted by great outpourings of what can only be described as “beer”. Yes sir, yes sir, three kegs’ full. Well, it was bloody hot over there in the Badlands and we worked up almighty thirsts. I, personally (me), had a thirst you could photograph and it refused be slaked by the kind of consumption normally employed at higher altitudes. No, no. This was serious, dust-in-the-gullet, exhaust-fumes-wrapped- around-the-tonsils, rubbish-particles-in-the-nasal-hairs beer craving on a truly Bazza McKenzie/Sir Les Petterson scale. My back teeth were already visibly submerged 15-20 minutes after getting back to the “villa”. I had barely stopped for breath when Grand Master Night Jar called us to order.
Thank Christ he was there, because no other bastard on the committee answering to the name of Hash Master or R.A. was, and he was in amazing form. Possibly assisted by massive injections of amber ambrosia, he had us in helpless hysterics, like an epileptic’s convention with strobe lights. What a trooper! He single handedly performed every office from visitors and virgins to naming sessions, jokes and songs. It was an arresting display of Grand Mastership rarely seen anywhere. The man should be given an award. Let me go on record right here to suggest that he be given a Victor at the Victors by Victor (only fitting) for service above and beyond the call of Victor (huh?) that evening. You know what I mean.
Jangle Balls took the reins when the Gland Master finally ran out of steam but it was a comprehensively Maestro outing and he relented only grudgingly. It was also a shitload of fun, like having a Hash party in your garage with a master comedian. The revelry and merriment seemed to have its own volition; jokes and songs came out of nowhere and everywhere and the Grand Finale was a Night Jar / Jangle Balls duet of “My Sister Belinda” with all hands contributing to the urinary defenestration (“She pissed out the window all over my brand new sombrero”). You know the one.
Pity we had to suffer out Jalan Kerebokan on the way home to our respective “villas”.
See you at Bentuyung next week.
On on.
