BHHH2 Hash Trash Run #1351 Pura Dalem Bongkasa 16-Dec-17

Packing the Hash Bag of Caution (with extra under garment!)

As any good Hasher knows, the Hash is a metaphor for life itself. Thus at about 2 to 2.30 pm every Saturday we must leave the Lounge Room of Lethargy, pack the Hash Bag of Caution, climb aboard the Sirion of Insanity or indeed the Avanza Of Adventure and drive up the Bypass of Oblivion to the Hash Site of Uncertainty. Once there, we must descend to the River of Risk on treacherously slippery trails, we must grasp the Banana Tree of Balance, or even the Dieffenbachia of Desperation to ensure that we do not plummet into the Gorge of Doom. We ascend the Stone Staircase of Sheer Exhaustion, are barked at rudely by the Dogs of Indignity, sometimes fall bodily into the Rice Paddy of Ridicule, follow the Paper Trail of Absurdity past the Garbage Pile of Disgust until finally returning to the Beer Lorrie of Levity and the Circle of Inebriation.

Yes folks, the Hash is a life journey in microcosm. And to think it all started with a certain individual in 1936 in Kuala Lumpur, capitol of the then Federated States of Malaya, who went by the rousingly magnificent continental name of Alberto Estaban Ignacio Gispert, and that at least some of the letters in his name can be rearranged to spell “eat albino bats o pertest one”. Basically, he was an overweight Spanish bloke who wanted to jog off his Saturday hangovers (sounds familiar). No, that’s not right, he was born in London so he was an overweight English bloke with a Spanish name. No, I jest laughingly along humourous lines, ha ha. His very name is uttered with  reverent tones in international Hash circles and he was a fine upstanding patriot, who after founding the Hash, fought valiantly in WW2 Singapore for his country and his way to the bar.

Today, thanks to the estimable “G”, there are Hash Clubs in practically every country in the world, except for a few really fun ones like Syria, Somalia and Iraq where running or at least walking at a very brisk pace is something most people do on a daily (and nightly) mandatory or highly recommended basis, anyway.

And so to Bonkasa last Saturday which is pretty much covered by the first paragraph if you can remember it. For the life of me, I can’t. It’s one of my favorite runs if not the ultimate Hash run in Bali if you ask me, or for that matter, if you don’t. We started out this time, courtesy of Hare Closet Queen, with no mucking around whatsoever, straight past the Pura to the trail perched atop the river valley with its cinematic views of the swollen river roiling and rushing toward us in rainy season silt-like tones. The enlarged wet season greenery through which  we panted and puffed our way was breathtakingly overgrown with constant waterings from endless tropical downpours. Banana trees were twice as big as usual. Many ground ferns were dangling practically overhead, well, over mine anyway. I saw mushrooms the size of former governor of New York Chris Christie, but more well spoken, tree fungi the size of Boris Johnson. So I’m saying that things were pretty slippery.

This made scrambling up the muddy valley sides and narrow rock steps all the more precarious. I don’t know why, but I have a predilection to burp audibly or pass wind in these situations. Perhaps it’s the strain of it all, but I do feel for anyone unfortunate enough to be below and behind me when I let the latter blast away, and I  humbly aplologise. I usually try to mask the audio accompaniment by shouting something like “Aduh” or invoking the Saviour as if in reference to the effort of the climb. A lot of people do this. For example, (and to protect her identity I shall refer to her only as “The Queen of England”). You will notice that she is often accompanied by a large group of men with bagpipes.

The penultimate section of the run was through pleasant and clean villages with friendly dogs and children asking for money; they were very well trained dogs. No, but seriously folks the kampong2 in this area are pin-neat affluent looking affairs, if you offered a dog money it would probably stop barking at you and walk away in a huff. Maybe I’ll try this next week, nothing else works.

Back at the Wantilan of Wonder, the amber ambrosia seemed to flow like the-not-too-distant-from-there river and the circle lurched on  like a zombie extra from “The Night of the Living Beer Truck”. All 367 verses of “The Hairs on Dickie Die Do” were warbled through upturned glasses and 532 of “My Sister Belinda She Pissed out the Window”, not to mention “Greatest Limerick Hits of BHHH2”. If we’d had a Nepalese nose harp and a polka accordion,  we’d still be there. It was a lot more fun than it sounds, really.

We’ll try for a reprise next week.

On on,

J.B.