This was by far the most bizarre thing I’ve experienced on this trip. It all started with the owner of our Airbnb recommending us on a “Hash run, which is a fun, family-friendly experience we could do on the weekend!” and spoiler alert, it wasn’t family-friendly. If I was told to explain the whole atmosphere in two words, it would be, ‘English university’. It consisted of many drunk (swearing) English men mainly coming for the free beer because, in Indonesia, beer is a lot more expensive and harder to come across. So don’t forget to bring your beer next time you visit Bali (thank me later). We arrived at the Hash group after an excruciating hour in the car and checked in.
Now, when someone says ‘Hash run’, you would normally suspect people to be running with determination with their colorful shorts and bare chests but as the leader shouted his battle cry, most people heroically, walked down the hill. Now don’t get me wrong, it was still a lot of fun but I was hoping for a more energetic experience, although being the big hypocrite that I am, I too walked the whole way. We started off walking down a normal village road then abruptly turning into a narrow road leading down into a dense jungle valley. As soon as we descended all of the slippery steps, the fresh smell of moist foliage filled my nose and I could hear many songbirds and buzzing insects. The path narrowed as we continued on alongside a terrifying drop that most definitely could have killed me. To put matters worse, I could hardly keep up with the grandma in front of me.
A few minutes passed and my brother and I decided to go up ahead because it would be ‘fun’ but little did we know this was the beginning of a disaster. We passed a few rice terraces and continued to walk into an even denser jungle, only to abruptly come to a halt a few minutes later. We couldn’t find the path! This might not have been so bad but no one was near us and we only had our water bottles and hats. Now, if you were thinking that this was the ‘disaster’ I was talking about, you would be wrong, because, after about a minute of stress and panic, we found the path and continued like nothing ever happened. Turns out, we just had to wade through the sewage pipe. nice. The real disaster occurred when we found ourselves on the long route alone and were not sure how much longer we had until it became dark (There are three routes on the hash run, short, medium, and long). Realizing it was too late to turn back, our only option was to keep trudging on…
Good news! It was all uphill from here. One thing, we met people! This may not sound like much but if you were walking in a jungle alone for hours on end this would be pretty monumental. The group we met consisted of a dad and his daughter. They were friendly (Thank god for that) and told us to follow them because it was getting dark. We had no other options so we did as we were told. A few more minutes passed and we found ourselves lost again in the jungle (I’m starting to think all jungles hate me) but not wanting to be stuck out in a jungle in the dark with poisonous snakes that could kill me, we decided to re-traced our steps onto the road. My gratitude for our saviors doubled as they managed to convince some locals to bring us back to the start. They told us to get on their motorcycles which I happily did seeing that I never rode one in my life. Luckily for us, the motorcyclists seemed to not have a death wish and rode carefully and eventually, we got back to the others. Hooray!
Sadly our fun ended here. When we got back a guy came up to us and said our parents were looking for us. I had completely forgotten about how late it was getting! I ran to where the man told us our parents would be and heard them calling my name. They were relieved we didn’t die and expressed their love with an hour-long lecture. After this things got weird. Our parents had to drink two pints of beer because of their bad parenting, and after they were done explaining themselves in front of the judges (two drunk guys who like to swear), we, along with other first-timers got baptized with…beer. You heard me right. Beer. But that’s a story for another day. For now, the lesson learned is: Never get lost in jungles or you might get an affectionate hour-long lecture from your parents.
[6/4 – 6/10, Bali]