Bali Hash House Harriers 2

“It's an ill-considerrred wind that blaws nay guid”

For full affect this should be pronounced as written in a broad Scottish accent, in fact just about anything humourously intended should, if you ask me. The subject of this week’s instalment goes equally without saying and is of course, farting. Wait, no it isn’t, it’s wind, as you will well know if you were anywhere between Sanur and Ubud or on the island of Bali last Saturday. Anybody as ancient and close to adult diaper-wearing as me, will remember that insufferably pretentious song from “Paint Your Wagon” (a 70’s musical Western that was unaccountably popular in its day), which could only have been written by a couple of homosexual Broadway musical composers and in fact, was: “They Call the Wind Mariah”. (It was somewhat prescient though if you ever saw Mariah Carey on ‘American Idol’). What a load of bullshit. Why would rugged, macho, Out-West pioneers give a pussy name, or any name, to the wind? Or the rain (“Tess”), or fire (“Joe”). I can just see a bunch of bean eatin’ cow persons sittin’ around the campfire announcin’ to their fellow bovine folk “Well, here comes Mariah” (blaaaaaatt). Or “I’m just gonna take a Tess over here” (splatter). “Them beans musta had chilli in ’em. Joe’s a-comin’ ” (spluuuuuurtt).

So where were we? Wind, that’s right, yes. Well they don’t call the wind any proper noun a-ways out here in Bali, not Wayan, not Agung, not Putu. They typically call it “wind” or “angin” if you want to get pedantic about it, you bastard. And there was plenty of it last Saturday so close to leaving-for-the-Hash time it was as if someone was trying to tell us something. From relatively normal conditions in Sanur, it went to gale force winds in the lounge room and Cyclone Tracey in the kamar mandi (where I happened to be seated) in less time than it takes to squeeze out a ‘silent but violent’. Holy guacamole! I haven’t vacated the throne with such alacrity since the unwelcome appearance of a carpet snake in the back yard thunderbox in North Queensland as a spritely lad, a couple of centuries ago.

Having already been sufficiently tangential in my “introduction”, I won’t subject you to the hideously painful progress we made on the way to Lungsiakan last Saturday: the futile short cuts and alternative routes, the snail’s pace crawl, I’m sure you suffered it out as well, fellow 2 Hashers, because of all the downed trees being frantically sawn up and moved off the roads. There does seem to be some weird Hash Law or Commandment in operation though that states: “It matters not that ye are horrifically and hopelessly delayed by sleet, snow, hale, (we must have borrowed some of it from the U.S. Postal Service), WIND, downed trees, upacara, truck or utterly inconsiderate and stupid parking, thou shalt always arrive at the hash, if late, 5 minutes either side of 4.30 pm”. And bugger me if we didn’t, yet again. Hey, hey, hey, get off me. That was just a figure of speech. Sheesh.

And so finally, to the run. Rumours abounded - you could see them abounding all over the place like kangarumours - about the possible length of the long; 17 k was mentioned in quaking tones, the hare wasn’t even back yet and the hares were (horrible, Hitchcockian screams)… Ocxzy and Bemo. So, basically we knew what to expect, and with that in mind most of us with half a brain, which is all of us, took the short. I did say “most of us” first. Some brave, misinformed or visually impaired souls did take the long and went inevitably missing well into the night, but we’ll return to this in the fullness of a fart, I mean time.

The run was extremely pretty and no one can say that these old hands don’t have an excellent eye for a damn fine course. It had all the hallmarks of a run close to Ubud, rice paddys stretching afar, towering indigo mountains, quaint streets and stone stairways lined by jaunty and colourful homestay buildings. It also had some of the hallmarks of Hurricane Alley in the U.S., these being startlingly large trees uprooted by the wind, smashed and splintered as if a giant two year old throwing a tantrum had torn them from the ground or kicked them over like plastic toys. Jupiter’s feces, it must have blown strongly up there, surprisingly stronger than the flatlands of Sanur etc. Or maybe it was because the ground is always wetter up the mountain and therefore easier for trees to be downed in an unusually strong wind. It was extremely slippery going and more than once I found myself arse up or down in the mud or wrestling with the undergrowth, nothing unusual, for me.

Some Hashers indeed gave up because of the slipperiness factor and headed back to the beer truck, not that I would ever mention any names being sworn to Hash secrecy as Sex on the Desk, Agent Orange and Mr. Bean well know. It was back at this very truck, gifted with Bali Hai insight, that I realized how few of us actually made it to the Hash last week. And that it was probably a good thing the Gods didn’t elect to fart on a hundred of us later in the day struggling through the jungle causing panicked avoidance or non- avoidance of crashing palm trees and not being in Kansas anymore, Toto. Another bonus was that the circle was smaller, less noisesome and everyone could hear the Grand Master decrying the “bollocks” Shanghai pronunciation of Gongxi Facai and Jangle Balls delivering Sinatra’s own “You Whore, You Whore” (from the Broadway musical of the same name) and “I Did It Sideways”. How fortuitous.

At about 8.45 Dykefinger, German Shepherd and two unfortunate virgins, who had fallen in with bad company, fell out of a local’s car that they had managed to flag down, and staggered gasping to the beer. That was one brave local, stopping for the likes of Dykefinger, at night, who looks like a frighteningly large Tibetan leprechaun at the best of times, adorned festively with vivid tattoos, Thai tribal hat, and beard and brandishing a staff even longer than himself.

We drifted off to The Fly Café where I drank an excellent Yellowtail Cab Sav and had to remind myself not to wax eloquent about wine or use words such as “hints”, peppery” and “chocolate” lest someone start delivering fatal blows with the nearest blunt object. I promise not to do it again (note to self: taste it and say it’s okay if it’s okay, other than that, nobody gives a shit, shut up about the wine.)

See you next week, also close to Ubud for Leek Day, I hope the wind won’t repeat itself, what a horrible thought.

On on

B.