Bali Hash House Harriers 2

Hash Trash Run #1364 Serangan Island

Cock Up at Cowshit Corral

Please do not misconstrue this title as being in any way critical of the Hares at last Sunday’s run at Serangan. The only reason I use the title at all is because of its pleasing onomatopoeia and because I couldn’t resist it. Also, Filthy Frog suggested something even worse featuring the letter “C” which, in the interests of delicacy, I could no sooner mention than dob him in for it or heave him under the bus. Have you seen him? Frankly, the bus would come off worse in such a scenario (which he would readily admit). In fact, the best thing about the whole unfortunate affair by far was the run, which after all is why we go to the Hash in the first place, isn’t it? Well…?

The hares labored away under the most trying circumcisions imaginable: heat, cowshit, rusty scalpels (har), capricious and petty Serangan functionaries exercising their piddling authority, cowshit, and still the run was as different as you’ll get, really interesting and a bloody good workout. It had ocean, beach, distant mountain views, other various bodies of water and lots of merciful green shade. Unfortunately, the order of the day was sheer bad luck, due to whatever ancient curse has been cast on this woebegone sand pile.

Let’s face it, the place is a bit of a cluster, a shamozzle, your basic mess in the first place especially on a Sunday when thousands of people in groups of two to twenty two blurt around on motorbikes, in cars, small trucks – they spend the whole day at it, on randomly criss – crossing dirt roads with no visible use whatsoever other than to blurt on. Obviously the other nervous and occasionally startled inhabitants, the cows, do quite a bit of blurting as well. You can see why the human blurters virtually never alight their blurtmobiles.

Where was I before the blurt section? Oh yeah, the Hares were unlucky enough to be told by a boom gate operator impersonating Lord Louis Mountbatten when he was Viceroy of India, that it was out of the question to allow the beer truck to the Hash site and that “special permission” would have to be granted for this at least fifteen years before he would even consider allowing such blasphemy. There are guys and gates like this all over this arid turd pit, we kept running into them when we managed to get ourselves comprehensively lost and drove around in circles looking for the new beer truck location after the run. There was no way they were going to extend the privilege of allowing us through their barriers into whatever closely guarded, wondrous and exclusive secret location was on the other side of the gates. What exactly is there, I wonder? (The smart money would be on more dirt tracks and cow shit.)

I just don’t get this whole set up. What’s the big deal? The big secret? Is there some sort of nuclear research facility somewhere on this bovine crap and dirt depository. Are they doing nuclear experiments on cows? Are they alien cows? Is this Area 51 for cows and goats? Maybe they’re being teleported to and from Tralfamador X3#*%@ in quadrant &$!^Centauri. That’s why you see a lot of cow pats but not that many cows, suspicious, huh? Hmm.

Ok, I’ll stop being a grumpy old fart now. Actually I won’t. I can’t stop being one if I am one, can I now?. We finally tracked down the beer truck parked on the side of the road going out to the Ngurah Rai Bypass. This thin strip of land, giving onto a fifteen foot drop into semi – mangrove-ish territory, hosted what seemed like the combined casts of “Ben Hur” and “The Ten Commandments” but was probably forty-odd babbling Hashers in beer fueled close confinement. The amber article was cold and plentiful and greedily gobbled down by the hot and thirsty mob that had braved the bush, scrub and limestone and dodged how-now-brown-cow pizzas in the sun – thirsty work in anybody’s language. Even a circle was attempted but between the non-stop traffic inches away from the outer periphery’s heels and the rowdy lager revelers you may as well have been farting at Cyclone Tracey. Still, it was great fun when you could make out a word or get one in edgewise.

All round it was a great day out and one of those Hashes when at the end of the day you think: “Well, that was a bit of a grind but a different kinda fun and the fun was kinda different.” You would think this because you would be half pissed and not know what you were thinking. Besides, what else were you gonna do?

On on,

J.B.

2017 / 2018 run fees

MEMBER DRINKERS: Rp80,000
MEMBER NON-DRINKERS: Rp40,000

INDONESIAN VISITORS: Rp80,000
NON-INDONESIAN VISITORS: Rp120,000

KIDS UNDER 15 YEARS OLD: Rp10,000

BAR OPEN: 5:00 PM
CIRCLE STARTS: 5:30 PM
BAR CLOSES: END OF CIRCLE

The Official Beer of Bali Hash House Harriers 2 is Bintang Beer

2017 / 2018 Mis-Management

Grand Master: Nightjar
Hash Master: Muddy Man
On Sec: Spook
Hare Raiser: Allez Allez
Beer Master: Cane Rat
Hash Boutique: Muddy Girl
Religious Advisor: Organ Grinder
Hash Cash:
Hash Beans: Juliana & Sophie
Hash Flash: Pussy Delivery
Hash Maps: Serial Offender

#NextRunMap #BaliHash2 #WalkOnWaterRunOnBeer #HashPhotos #BHHH2 #BaliHashHouseHarriers2 #HashinginParadise #OnOn #HashHouseHarriers #runningclub #DrinkingClubWithARunningProblem #runningforbrews #runforbeer #beerfit #beermile #adventurerun #instarunning #instarunners #worldrunners #runnerslife

BHHH2 Hash Trash
Run #1361
Bali Bird Park 24-Feb

Too Too Plot Losing

Last week’s run from the cassowary, sorry, customary car park near the Bird Park (I was going to say cassowary car park but it wouldn’t have been that funny, wait, I did, it wasn’t) proceeded much as it started, really – a bit of an “up of the cock”, in bird language. About 60 of us listened attentively to a Hare enlightening us that it was about 60 mt distance to a right turn up the Jalan on which we were at that time situated, but nobody seemed to have their tape measures or folding rules on their persons and at least half of the nobodies ran past the intended turn on to the T junction at the end of the jalan to turn right.

The result was of course mass confusion with emissaries from each group, righties and T junctioneers running past each other and back to see if anybody was more informed than they or their group, in the other group. Nobody (again) was. The reason for this was that the right (by which I mean correct) turn contained NO paper until intrepid scouts finally stumbled on it almost at the end of the jalan. The other right (by which I mean incorrect) turn contained NO paper because no paper was ever laid in it. With me so far? Me neither. Just a note here: the fact that there was no paper laid on the T junction turn, by no means deterred at least half the Hashers that started from continuing up that fateful jalan in the hope they would “hook up with the paper”. It wasn’t until about mid-course that I happened on a lucky refugee from this group who proclaimed that there were “a shitload of people back there who are totally lost”.

None of this in any way was the Hares fault. As so often happens, they meticulously laid their paper, marked asphalt and cement with chalk or crayons, then it pissed down in a hugely troppo manner, (which even the locals underestimate in such endearing ways in, let’s say, the streets of Denpasar or Kuta), and much of their effort was obliterated. I for one never found the split. Maybe “found” is too strong a word here, I’m unsure it was there to begin with. I did find myself on the long and wasn’t in love with the idea of an advertised 11k run. Later I was told this was more like a 13 k muddy trudge.

Myself and two other guys, names will not be “bandied about” mainly because I didn’t know one of them and the other was Parashit (whoops), made an incisive, considered and completely accidentally correct decision to backtrack. Aided only by our intellects, unerring senses of direction and a phone with Google Maps, in the spirit of the pioneers and because there was paper to follow backwards, we found our way to the teak plantation we had previously passed through flanked by a massive white villa both of which blind Freddy could have made out wearing Polaroids.

I prevail upon you, dear reader, not to form the wrong impression. There was, or would have been absolutely nothing wrong with this run. In fact it was quite pretty, extremely green and mildly challenging in its own way. The river crossing was wet, both times, the mud was pleasurably slimy and there was the odd distant mountain vista, though obscured by clouds. Now there’s a great name for an early 70’s style prog rock album, maybe the sound track to a French art house movie. Somebody contact Pink Floyd. What? They Did? In 1972? Oh. No, I don’t remember much about the 70’s. I was there.

Ahem, back at birdland a shape vaguely resembling a circle was formed and opinions of the run were offered up “What run?”, “I’m lost… for words”, “I’m still lost”, “Too much paper and chalk” etc. Don’t listen to such rash facetiousness and naysayers, I counsel you. There was nothing wrong, as I said, with this run that couldn’t have been fixed by a nice, long dry season. The entertainment continued with the Grand Master’s appearance which was nothing short of legendary last week. The rampant political incorrectness he unleashed culminated in his telling a group to “shut the fuck up” – vintage Night Jar. The man, in his own words, is a ‘National Fucking Treasure’, which doesn’t mean he should or will be buried any time soon.

We’ll see you next week at Nusa Dua and don’t forget your cards for the toll road. They don’t take cash any more and it would be kind of embarrassing having to reverse back to the Benoa lights on the Bypass. Almost as embarrassing as missing the split on a Hash.

On On,

J.B. Hash Trash

BHHH2 Trash Run 1358 Pantai Mas, Temukus, Lovina

“Once in a Blue Moon”

“How old are you Grandma?” young NightJar said.

“I am 80 years old,” Mrs Jar replied “and you mark my words young lad, if you run the hash every week and drink as much piss as I have in my life you too will live to be 80 years old.”

“- But make the most of it,” she added “your 80^th birthday only comes once in a Blue Moon.”

And so it came to pass that when the very next Blue Moon came around, only a mere 74 years later, it was indeed Nightjar’s 80^th birthday.

And what a do it was. Like a load of thirsty termites everyone came out of the woodwork for the occasion, people we hadn’t seen for years, even people we thought were long dead (well they had looked pretty well dead the last time we had seen them).

At the Pantai Mas hotel in Lovina the hounds gathered and in typical Nightjar fashion everything was better organised than lunchtime at Bangli hospital, they even had Policemen to help us across the road – and to help us into our cars later on after a belly full of beer and bubbly.

4 pm came and we were off, scampering across the rice fields, the willy woofters trying to keep their shoes clean and the old farts gasping for breath. We headed South towards a steep hill. The short turned off along the flat while the front running bastards headed upwards like a herd of mountain goats searching for a good rut. They stumbled around for a while among trees and rocks in total confusion then, finding a rut was not offer on this auspicious day, they gave up, descended and rejoined the short.

Then it was on on to the beach. What sort of smartarse sets a run along a beach at low tide knowing the tide is coming in? It didn’t really matter, there was paper everywhere along with every other kind of garbage you have ever seen – the Suwung Tip had nothing on this beach. We waded through the sea and (of?) garbage and so it was back to the Pantai Mas Hotel.

We had scaled misty high mountains, crossed volcanic lakes, traversed treacherous windy mountain roads, crawled across broken glass (no, we didn’t do that!) to finally get to do one of the shortest hash runs ever in Lovina. Was it worth it? You betcha!!

This was no ordinary hash event, this was the 80^th Birthday Bash of the man who founded hashing in Bali, Victor ‘Nightjar’ Mason, a stellar event organised by the man himself and abley assisted, of course, by our very own ‘Inflatable Bedmate’ and Sumadi. People came from far and wide, some hashers had even made the long slog (3 hours) to Lovina on the Friday to make a long dirty weekend of it.

Our beloved Hash Master ‘Muddy Man’ began the proceedings with the obligatory Down Down for the Hares, we weren’t sure who they were and neither were they, but ‘Nightjar,’ ‘Inflatable Bedmate’ and ‘Worm’ did not deny their involvement.

Moving on to the Visitors and we had heaps of Visiting Hashers. It was nice to see some old familiar faces as the Returners entered the circle, Bali Hash luminaries such as ‘Tampon’ from Ubud, ‘Jorok’, who very kindly sponsored the food, Veteran Hashers ‘Handjob’, ‘Long & Strong’ and Hash 2 (TWO!) Hierarchy ‘Labia’ (welcome back Lippsy), ‘Wooden Eye’ and ‘Closet Queen’ graced the circle.

Also nice to see ‘Pounding Savaloy’ Nigel Ames and his lovely wife Jackie, the ‘Scallywags’ from Gili T coming to pay their respects to ‘Nightjar’.

If we thought a three hour car ride was a long way to go to get to the hash, we were joined by Hash Luminaries from all over the world, who had made the arduous trek to Bali specially for this grand occasion. We brought in ‘Garfield’, who had ‘come the furthest’, so to speak, all the way from Washington DC, so we put him on ice. Then we had ‘The Penguin’ coming from Bonnie Scotland who had brought some light rain with him, however luckily for him had found a dodgy looking pink umbrella somewhere. Representing Australia in our ‘Hashers who came the furthest’ category was the famous ‘Whoreator’ from the Sunshine Coast, who did his bit in the circle for Nightjar with a Down Down for the young 80 year old, who, for some reason, only he knows, kissed a very old hasher on the lips before his Down Down.

Then there was a very emotional moment when the Hash Masters of Bali’s Bolla and Colla Hash came into the circle to present ‘Nightjar’ with some gifts. Nice one guys, we all liked that kind gesture very much, with Hash Master ‘Closet Queen’ representing the other Bali Hash clubs.

It was time for ‘Organ Grinder’ to lead our religious observances. He gave us a quick history lesson on other past prestigious events that happened on this day and brought in the circle a bunch of Celts, I think that’s what he said! We purified those with Roman noses, celebrated the ‘Day the Music Died’ and we sang un-politically correct hash songs, assisted by Ubud Hash Mafia Boss ‘Blowjoe’, ‘The Penguin’, ‘Whoreator’, ‘Garfield’ and of course ‘Nightjar’ himself.

As the run was so far from home we recognized the hashers that had their fair share of road accidents (not fatal obviously) in the past on the way to runsites. Horny Herring had the most ‘hash scratches’ on his car, followed by ‘Handjob’, then the ‘Evil Knievel’ of ‘most hash falls off a motorbike’ ‘Long & Strong’ was brought in, followed closely by ‘Labia’ for falling off his Harley and ‘Wooden Eye’ for bike and car hash induced incidents.

Apart from trying to put ‘Horny Herring’s’ Husky on ice (where it’s more at home actually), ‘Discowanker’ called in the circle two policemen for a Down Down, to which they nervously obliged. A mass of phone cameras ensued. Visiting hours to see ‘Discowanker’ in Kerobakan will be announced shortly.

The circle closed to a rousing ‘Bar’s Open!’ with Beer, Champagne and Cocktails to wash down yummy food and tasty glutinous Birthday cake.

A big thank you to everyone who came all the way to Bali and indeed Lovina for the event.

Thank you Sumadi, we love you for looking after Victor so well and finally a huge thanks to all our lovely Sponsors. Bintang Beer (Thank you Fitri). Delicious ‘Bali Moon’ Cocktails and the spectacular singlets (Thank you Nick Blackbeard and Cliff Rees). Champagne from Hatten Wines (Thank you Pak Lila). The yummy food from Bali Bakery (thank you Ayung – ‘Jorok’ and ‘Ibu Jorok’) and ‘No Deposit’ who made the birthday cake.

See you at next week’s run!

On On to Punggul ….

Hash Trash BHHH2 Run #1354 Pura Ukur Ukuran Pejeng

And Lo, It Pisseth Down

for 40 Minutes and 40 Seconds on the Way to the Hash (or: Spook’s Birthday Special)

There is a different and dramatic license and tone taken in Biblical proverbs and parabolas (is that the right spelling?) when relating rain and flooding incidents, for example, in the Old Testicle (is that?). Time and tide are on a totally different and epic scale: What if a 45 year-old Noah, an insurance adjuster from Wollongong, who was a 900 year-old Sage and Shaman in the Good Book, had whipped out his brolly during a light shower and gone on his way whistling a happy tune rather than building a bloody great rudderless wooden boat and filling it with the contents of the Galillee County Zoo to float aimlessly to the top of Mt. Arafat, Araby, Arrowroot, Krakafat? What if Jesus (New Testicle) had gone for a pleasantly cool early evening stroll in the desert instead of staggering deliriously around in the sun without a hat muttering to himself and having hallucinations for a couple of months? Not the stuff of stirring tales or revelations in The Book of Nukes or something, no? No. That’s what I thought.

Yea verily I say unto thee, last Saturday on the way to the Hash it absolutely chucked it down, we were doing maybe 45k and creating water skiing-like plumes along The Most Venerable One I.B. Mantra Road. It didn’t really let up until we got to the Hash site. Fortunately, once it stopped it didn’t start again all through the Hash and the circle (it was prophesied, well, I did mention to Hardcase and Dynamo, my hosts on the ride up, that the deluge would abate as soon as we arrived. What a Seer I am. Please do not sneer, jeer or leer at the Seer. I have no peer, dear, no bloody fear).

And so it came to pass having gathered at Puri Ukur Ukur car park we set out on a pilgrimage across the paddys, thanking the Good Lord that we didn’t go in the opposite direction with the ridiculously perpendicular valley walls and the 500 step flagstone staircase, either or both of which at this slippery and slimy time of year would have heralded our passing on to eternal life at the right (or left) hand (foot?) of Jesus. I wouldn’t know where to stand or sit, really. So, just as well we didn’t go.

The rice paddys begat a dirt trail, the dirt trail begat some stone steps (not THE stone steps), those stone steps begat some other stone steps until finally, gord blimey, there we were all milling around once again scratching ourselves – digression alarm – barrp, barrp, barrp (do you remember that great Divinyl’s hit from the 80’s, “I Scratch Myself”, wait, no that was “I Touch Myself”). Anyway, just like last week with the X’s in the circle, if you have been following the story so far, we yep, scratched ourselves practically raw trying to figure out where the paper went, staring at a concrete weir arrangement that was semi – blocked with broken branches, bamboo, small tree trunks, small trees, cows etc. that had been washed down stream by the recent downpour and resulting flash flood.

Water from the overflowing stream was rushing down either side of the concrete canal banks making it impossible or extremely dangerous to walk on them. On the opposite side of the stream were more ascending flagstone steps, which many Hashers had decided to climb to see if paper had been laid on them. It hadn’t (more scratching). It took discussion, phone calls, rumination, poetry readings, Hare cursings, wailing, sack cloth and ashes wearing before we finally figured out that the paper must have been washed away on one side of the stream, thus there was little choice other than to double back to the site or take the opposite flagstones to the top, turn left and proceed parallel to the river valley to pick up the paper at some point that the Hares would have emerged from it to continue the trail. Geniuses, Really Stable Geniuses – and it only took us a few hours. Just kidding, we’re still at the river, scratching (har).

We did stumble on the paper eventually and the rest of the run was cool, pleasant and scenic. At one point Mt. Agung appeared magically clear on the horizon with a wispy curlicue of smoke emerging from its crater. There’s one thing you can say about Organ Grinder as a Hare. Nothing is a secret, if there’s a split it’s a split that’s visible from Alpha Centauri. Every so often he reminds you in no uncertain terms that you’re on the long or short with the subtle nuance of a brick and tile bi-plane. Take note Hares, I beg of you.

Yea tho’ I walk through the valley of the shadow of Trump, I will not be discomfited by his rod and staff, which is probably about the size of an averagely level-headed shirt button. The circle was as wildly hilarious a piss up as you’d find in the back blocks of Pejeng on a Saturday night AND let’s not forget the whole thing, run included, was to celebrate Spook’s birthday. May 4 score and 10 years be a distant memory for him when he finally goes to that great beer truck in the sky.

On on,

J.B.       

BHHH2 HASH TRASH Run 1353 Pura Panti Prabu Sobangan 30-Dec-17

Is “Dumb” The First Word in “D.C. Comics”?

The “plot” of one of the movies I binge watched over the rainy Christmas/New Year season was this: Super Person, Bat Person, Wonder Person, Aqua Breath, The Flash and an electrocuted token black dude in a silver super suit whose name I didn’t catch, team up to to do battle with super-villain Steppenwolf. He had a huge hit in the 60’s with “Born To Be Wild”. Seriously, for complex plot reasons far beyond the Lay Person the guy in the silver super suit’s Super Name is never mentioned as far as I can tell. By the way, Lay Person is the super strength and Super Name I would choose. No no, not for THAT reason you dirty buggars. I’m just really good at laying down and “Flatulence Man” is already taken by The Duke of Edinburgh.

Anyhow, this whole movie, “Justice League” (based on D.C. Comics super heroes, not Marvel Comics super heroes, so there) kind of put me in mind of the Hash at Sobongan last Saturday because of the almost EXACT plot line: Super villain, let’s call him Steppenhare, hatches a dastardly plot to destroy all Hashers by sending them on a series of ridiculous and outrageous check backs for no perceivable reason other than to turn a pleasant 6k short into an evil 8k arduous trial, plus the fact that he was a hare and therefore an inherently bad guy. Very obviously good and very obviously evil stereotypes engage in a mighty, epic battle the outcome of which is of course our quietly heroic, strong, persistent, clean living, handsome, fragrant but humble Hashers prevail against all odds, consigning the Evil One and his minions to their doom, with our Super Resolve and by giving him a Hash name and a down down. The Hash name if you have not yet guessed was of course “Premature Ejaculator”. There’s a super costume I’d like to see.

But I jest in a laughable, hardy har manner. It was of course yet another great run and the Hares did a magnificent job. Yes, they were perhaps a little keen on too-clever, over ambitious check backs, especially the crosses in the circles, a previously unseen Hash hieroglyphic that had Hashers of all ages either muttering “W.T.F?” Or coming right out scratching a bodily region (head) and thinking it. I have to give the scenery an 8.5 out of 10 for this run. It was excellent, even the bit at the very beginning on the longest, steepest check back ever recorded by Hash Human, the river section was terrific. The terraced rice paddys in this area are also easel-worthy, cameras and phones materialized in the hands of more than one Euro-touro, Euro-visitor or Euro-virgin.

Being the last run of 2017 and the day before New Year’s Eve, it was a particularly celebratory occasion full of camaraderie which  was reflected in the abundant outreach and outpour of what can only be described as “beer jugs”. It was the circle that just kept giving, and the crowd that just kept drinking and like the virgin Hare and Piss Pourer that he apparently was, newly named P. Ejaculator showed a lack of restraint similar to the check backs on the run (did I mention them?) and re-filled my glass when I wasn’t even looking. Now THAT’S the kind of enthusiasm we like to see on BHHH2! (2!)

The lager flowed right into Social Drinking, broke its banks and formed tributaries of small gaggles of Euro-garglers and regular garglers dotted around under and around the big banyan opposite the wantilan. One of our very favourite comfort zones and times on the Hash. As Steely Dan so pithily put it, “Chinese music ‘neath the banyan tree, angular banjos sound good to me”. Just substitute Indonesian beer and 14.8%.

On on to 2018

All the hairy breast.