It has been suggested that Belly Dancer hares runs with the sole intention of causing serious damage to the hashers. Today he organised the weather to make a tough run impossible! We set up off the steps to Doi Kham with some ambiguous instructions to look for paper on the right – we saw paper on the right and went straight past it all the way up the stairs to the temple. Remembering that hasher’s aren’t the cleverest bunch of people, we climbed off paper just discussing that the hare had been ‘kee nieow’ with the paper.
Dick the Boy Wonder was determined that the trail would begin when we got to the top and for some daft reason we believed him and followed Chuck Wao to a padlocked gate at the top. Finally we stopped listening to Dick the Boy, and headed back down to where we’d seen the paper – which happened to lead off into absolutely nowhere – no trail, just paper (occasionally) hanging off on the edge of a mountain. With the added rain the mountainside became treacherous and there was no shortage of candidates for the crash – I was covered in mud when I finally made it back.
We eventually got to a circle check – there were no trails leading off it, just a pile of paper in the middle of a jungle. Given that HRA couldn’t hear Chuck Wao over the rain when he was stood next to him, we decided to stick together choosing the route that headed towards a road we could see through the trees. That was a wrong call as we plummeted off the mountain and didn’t find paper. HRA, Little Wet One and I clambered back up the hill and found paper again that lead straight back down the hill (parallel to where we’d just descended) and to where Chuck Wao was stood waiting for us.
Another circle check and a dilemma – we gave it a bit of a look around, and gave up as the roads had already turned into rivers. The field was decimated down to 4 of us, and the rain was relentless – and as fortunately we knew where we were, we headed back – I’ve faced near death experiences enough on BD’s runs before. Fortunately everyone survived and also fortunately the circle was a good one. Hollow Legs had more phone calls during the circle than I’ve had in the past month and was justifiably punished for each of them. Truth be told I enjoyed scrambling around, risking my life on the edge of the hill, so good job Belly Dancer – the rain just thwarted your evil plans. The circle made up for it, and you have a run in the bag for next time – although not sure I want to endure it again!