BHHH2 Trash Run #1324 Gold Island Beach Club Serangan

Moon, Croon, June

Serangan is kind of a weird place. All I know about it is that a lot of its existence is more or less the remnants of Tommy Suharto’s grandiose plans in the late ‘90’s for casinos and resorts, resort casinos, casino hotels, blah, blah the nett result of which is now deserted areas of scrubby growth and not entirely exotic nor very tall trees criss-crossed by dirt paths liberally spattered with visible cow shit from invisible cows owned by invisible people. The Marina Bay Sands in Singapore it ain’t, nor ain’t it Straits Quays in Penang (two projects in Asia on reclaimed land on tropical islands that spring to mind) by very long shots indeed. In fact you couldn’t be blamed for saying that the whole enterprise is an abject and unsightly failure. Back in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s (when sabre toothed tigers prowled Kuta) Serangan used to be called and sometimes still is called “Turtle Island”. If turtles are responsible for those giant poop deposits all over the shop, I wouldn’t want to meet one in a dark alley, especially in Serangan, which is as I said, a weird place.

However, it is a pretty good venue for a Full Moon Run on Bali Hash House Harriers 2 (Two!) and last Saturday night we had just that. We took off at around 6pm from the Gold Island Beach Club and the sunset was spectacular. A swirling tangerine, orange and yellow mass shone brilliantly above. (As a meteorological condition it was fantastic, as “President” Trump’s hairdo, pathetic. Swirling orange and yellow masses belong in the sky not on a human head, if it is a human head, or in a tanning studio). Off paper, sorry. We hugged the beach for the first 10 minutes or so out of town and swung inland on a long jog by bodies of water to our left both refreshing and relaxing to be near. I was following Dancing Queen and daughter and to my credit, I think, actually caught up with them 3 times before I finally gave up the chase of two generations of the most ridiculously long legs I’ve ever seen on Scandanavians, or this side of Area 51.

At about 6.30 or so the sun did the disappearing trick and it very quickly got as dark as buggary. I can’t actually attest to how dark buggary is, but I bet it’s bloody dark. I was extremely thankful for Screaming Lord You Know What’s torch that he so serendipitously didn’t need and had loaned me (having of course left my own on top of a tool cabinet in the garage no more than three feet from the car). I would have been, yes, buggared without it. I suppose technically, it wasn’t really a Full Moon Run because the moon didn’t really show up during the run, as such. As a matter of fact it didn’t rear its gilded head until well after we got back to the Gold Island car park due to a bank of dark and hazy cloud on the horizon. When it did though it was fat, yellow-gold and glowing mysteriously like, you guessed it, the former host of “The Apprentice”, “Mister” Trump.

Remember this device all you budding Hash Trash writers: if you want to convey the suggestion of an insult to somebody, anybody really, but especially the aforementioned  “entity”, use inverted commas. Where was I? Drinking tall cans of Diablo beer on the beach on Serangan, which was a pleasant enough place to be of a Saturday night, and a pleasant enough brew to drink, and  being entertained by various individuals in the post-run circle. We owed all of this to the exertions of Beer Master and Hare Gizzard, for he’s a jolly good fellow. Night Jar lullabied us with a WW2 witty ditty in honour of D-Day, for he’s a jolly good Fellow as well, and Jangle Balls nod to the 50^th anniversary of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” (Hash version: “Loosening Their Bowels With Bad Timing”) four heaves a jolly “good” fe-hell-ow, and so say all of “us”. However, the event of the evening the “coupe de gras” (literally, the “cut the grass” or maybe “cheese”) was TA DAAAA: the Swedish National, Day I Love D.Q. “Nobody” is Perfect Dancing Queen is “Nobody” singlet – a perfect example of the use of inverted commas if I’ve ever seen one. His Swedish meatballs were also admirable, or we can leave his Swedish meatballs out of this if you like.

We all left appropriately tired, chock full of 5% strength dark lager and salt air, I s’pose you could say piss and wind. On on to none other than Mambal Swimming Pool next Saturday.

J.B.