Bali Hash House Harriers 2

“The Most Bizarre Thing I’ve ever seen”

This is a direct quote made by an English visitor, perhaps even a virgin, I’m not certain, as she stared disbelievingly at the scene before her last Saturday at Pura Munggu near Kintamani. The Hash Circle was being formed in pouring rain and swirling mist by saturated, mud-caked HHH2 members up to their ankles in brown slop, quaffing back beers and singing an eccentric song with oddly antiquated lyrics about people described as “blue”, “bastards through and through” and their being unable to attain heaven “in a long, long way”. “Good Lord”, she muttered shaking her head as a man apparently named “Wooden Eye” employed some colourful imagery and language in the service of eliciting opinions of the day’s run from the gathered rowdies. That this was all playing out against a backdrop of a massive caldera, an expansive lake and an unknowably ancient village 500 mts below in a downpour of biblical proportions, must have only added to the incomprehensibility of this confounding scenario.

Who could blame the poor woman? The Hash is definitely not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee (not that I’m accusing her of either, ahem) at the best of times let alone in a context of volcanos, Jurassic looking forests and cold, fog shrouded, forebodingly Tolkeinesque mountains. What must have been going through her mind? My money is on something along the lines of “Who are these whack jobs?” or perhaps even simply “What the fuck?” I would venture to say this is not a scene to be witnessed out of a Twickenham or Tourquay window every day of the week.

“They should have told us how difficult the course was going to be’’ also escaped the lady’s lips at one point and I can certainly understand this sentiment as well. Mt. Abang and environs are not exactly the grassy undulations of Dorset or Devon through which one might undertake a gentle ramble after church or tea with the Vicar of a Sunday, bone and inlaid silver handled cane in hand. I’m not taking the piss here, she seemed every bit a very pleasant person indeed. However, Worm and Inflatable Bedmate had wrought a stiffly challenging one for us on this the occasion of Grand Master Night Jar’s 77th Birthday Run. Not too many holds were barred on this outing; lots of serious upping and downing, wrestling with thick vegetation in muddy and rainy conditions, and if you happened to stray from the pack you were officially on your own in the middle of friggin’ nowhere.

Personally, this is what I liked about it, though. One had the sense that things were a tad isolated up there on Mt. Boonie in the mist shrouded tall woods, and that that it was quite the ways from the nearest electric light and internal combustion motor, from time to time. True, I was also occasionally too busy trying to extract oxygen from the atmosphere than to notice if there was any technology within stumbling distance, but it was great feeling more or less alone in the wilderness for a change, in Bali. When people, cows and tiny settlements did appear they came literally out of thin air. So it was all a bit of rough and tumble fun playing the rugged mountain man until it decided to piss down in earnest, which is when the novelty faded, the paper washed away, it got REALLY cold and I just wanted to be curled up with a good book and some chicken soup.

If you haven’t noticed, I had a slightly ambivalent attitude to the whole thing (no shit, Sherlock I hear you jeer, we hadn’t noticed at all). When I didn’t feel and look like, no doubt, a chattering, shivering drowned rat it was fantastically adventurous and a really stunningly beautiful run – Mother Nature at her finest but possibly in a bit of a surly mood, thanks Hares, no I mean it.

Getting back to the Lakeview Hotel was also something of a challenge. The windscreen constantly fogged up inside and out, traffic with blinding high beams ablaze bore down on us in the narrow winding jalan and an interestingly precipitous drop on at least one side beckoned. We survived against all odds and made it back to the relative comfort and sanity of the hotel and Night jar’s birthday bash. The Lakeview put up a terrific performance (they weren’t the only ones but I’ll get to that) food and drink-wise and I was tickled pink to find I could order several kinds of beer and a decent red in the wilds of Kintamani. The atmosphere in the spacious restaurant was conviviality itself with a bamboo kindling fire crackling in a generous fireplace, wooden bar at the far end. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a party or restaurant where I’ve known practically everybody in the room; certainly not one in such a unique location.

The Birthday Boy took the floor in front of the fire, Black Label in hand and let fly with as lengthy a litany of dirty ditties and bawdy tunes as has ever been given vent to at any Hash event. The man is indefatigable and is surely somehow related to Keith Richards, in the iron constitution department at least. He was still in full throated cry entertaining a hardy handful when my personal steam finally gave out at 2 pm and I retired to my intriguingly designed room with a glass pane between the bathroom and bedroom that could almost be closed off but not quite because of the warped wooden concertina windows - novel. The last thing I heard before passing out comprehensively was a shouted four letter word in Night Jar’s dulcet tones, a few rooms away.

Breakfast back at the rezzo was seriously tasty with Earl Grey tea even, and the English skills of the staff were strikingly good. Poached eggs on toast are a whole lot more interesting when you’re gazing at a fully-fledged, dyed in the wool volcano. What would happen if it went off? I secretly thought, well my toast wouldn’t go cold.

It was all good, I vigorously recommend the strawberry jam and sign me up for the next run in Kintamani.

Meanwhile see you for Waitangi Day next week set by two Poms and an Aussie, no less. Perhaps the common denominator here has to do with animal husbandry.

On on

J.B.
Bah
What was that?