Bali Hash House Harriers 2

“Another Day, Another Kuburan Cina”

Hot Damn, I was mighty impressed with the wide open spaces of the cemetery at Mengwi last Saturday, shoot! “Wide Open Spaces”, to quote The Dixie Chicks “room to make your big mistakes”. That sho’ is what ya want in a cemetry, yee ha. This one wasn’t just an exclusively Cina Kuburan as far as I could make out, it seemed to be more of an equal opportunity kuburan with raised concrete areas to bakar orang2, which is definitely not a Chinese habit. But we had a bit of a wander around and there was a noticeable Chinese presence / population in a corner just at the entrance. The resting places of Kang Muk Kwee, Auw Son Nio (which I suppose if it were a Scottish cemetery would have been translatable as “Our Son Neil’’), The Kim Nio (not just any old Kim Nio but THE Kim Nio) and confusingly, once again, Marga The Makam Ketut. I can see I’m gonna have to dip into some serious anthropological texts to get the bottom of these graves, so to speak. What’s a Makam? Are there Chinese Ketuts? Is “The” a name or a definite article? So many questions; also is it culturally preferable or acceptable to leave graves in such deplorably overgrown conditions? If not, you would think that the The family survivors could get together every so often and hire a weed whacker for the ancestors, especially for the more charming graves that take the bathroom tile approach to burial and memorial.

There seemed to be more hares involved in last week’s run than Chinese folk in the cemetery, but they did put more energy into the day’s outing generally than those interred there, was my impression. Stop me if I don’t mention all of them: Mud Flaps, Sex on the Desk, Serial Offender, Oxzy, Sex Mouth. I think that’s about it, I don’t think there were any Kangs, Ketuts or Neils involved. They did a pretty damn fine job of it, too. There was a bit of excitement though before we headed out, what with the sighting of a large black snake (that got larger in the telling) in the grass right behind the concrete retaining wall where Whitebait and Cane Rat were seated. Oh well, if it had been deadly poisonous and either of them had been bitten, we wouldn’t have had to move the remains too far. The hares described their long as being 2hrs.15mins and short 1hr. 15mins. Labia asked if there were any checks on the run and Bouncing Czech responded with a raised hand. Jangle Balls helpfully tried to bounce him on the spot to see if he still possessed that property. And we were off.

This run was never going to be anything other than padi, padi and more padi but it was a great run nevertheless. Blissfully overcast and cool in endless fields of green, green, green, after cruising past the Mengwi Stadium and High School. There were so many restful shades of green if you include the large trees, banana and palm fronds with an occasional dot of the bright red of offering bunga in their surrounding of darker green bushes. Soothing water trickled and clicked quietly everywhere, marvelous. Just one thing I will both never get used to, or seemingly, find a reliable explanation for: the preponderance of garbage in remote sections on the berms of the rice fields. How the Hell does it get out there? Nobody can tell me that water and air movements are responsible. It’s household trash most of it, but why on earth would people want to deliberately drag it way out into the padis, dump it, then wade through it in the course of their daily doings? I suspect this unsavory fact of the matter but never wanted to actually acknowledge it: There’s nothing else to do with the rubbish, maybe there is no Pak Sampah and no civic or Banjar garbage collection truck, system of disposal, dump; or if there is, not everybody can afford it or wants to pay for it. There’s a lot of other things to spend what precious little money they have on basics like food, health, education, transport etc. and of course religious observances. I’m not coming down on anybody here, you understand but, sheesh, it’s unpleasant to walk or jog through. And there’s more of it in this area of Mengwi now than there was last time we ran there, which alas, is an observation made more and more often these days.

So, enough seriousness on issues of concern. It is well known in, psychiatric, space exploration and literature circles that seriousness is injurious to health and issues of concern are mostly deadly. This is why Werner Von Braun , for example, conceived and designed the entire Gemini space program wearing a penguin costume, fact. James Joyce wrote “Finnegan’s Wake” in plastic moustache and glasses and Sigmund Freud was fond of rubber chicken throwing and dwarf tossing. Okay, I made up the bit about rubber chickens.

Back at the Mengwi Necropolis (where Clark Kent lives) a circle coagulated and was in full swing before you could say “piss up”. Night Jar stalked around vainly in search of Gallic people who wouldn’t stay drinking beer with a bunch of Anglos past 7 p.m. if threatened with Madame Guillotine. In fine fettle, N.J. delivered a lagu Indonesia he shockingly omitted from the previous week’s Independence Day Hash Celebrations. He upbraided those who wouldn’t call a spade a spade, unfortunately we didn’t even have a garden fork to practice proper addressing upon. (Never finish a sentence with a preposition, there is a sound grammatical reason for this: Hitler did it. Too late, I just did too, eeek.) Wooden Eye’s Welsh mate, Dave, who taxis kids to school in his other life, was christened “Boyo Bonker” by…that’s right, Wooden Eye; and a Seppo fella became known as “It Could Have Been Worse” because it could have.

Jangle Balls inspired by his surroundings gave us “Somewhere, Over The Beer Truck”, the lyrics to which this week by Royal Commission, Request and Requirement (Hash Master Labia has deemed) will be attached to this Hash Trash. So, cough, ahem, mi mi mi, here they are. Follow the bouncing balls.

On on,
J.B.

“Somewhere Over the Beer Tuck”
Somewhere over the beer truck
Hash souls fly
To where nobody gives a fuck
That great circle in the sky
Somewhere way north of Pejeng
My oh my
All the susu is fetching
And pleasing to the eye
Where anjing never bark at you
And hash dogs never leave a poo
Behind me
Where satay won’t give you the shits
And Harriets have massive tits
That’s where you’ll find me
Some hair in Harriets’ pants
Would be nice
Brazillians in Harriets’ pants
That would be paradise
Somewhere over volcanoes
It’s your buy
And the froth on the lager
Makes you break down and cry
Where all the runs never get old
And all the beer is Tuborg Gold
Gord Blimey
Where your ankle won’t get wrenched
And Night Jar never speaks in French
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the sawa
Way up high
Waterfalls are all lager
Rivers are Bali Hai
Somewhere beyond Penelokan
So I’m told
Kampong streets are not broken
Pigsties are made of gold
The garbage strewn across the hills
Is fresh one hundred dollar bills
Not slimy
The motorbikes give you a lift
And chainsaws play Beethoven’s Fifth
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere old Uncle Leong
Plays his horn
Leeky Dick writes a Hash song
That’s where I’ll be re-born