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(Courtesy Brown Finger)

It was the afternoon after the afternoon after the infamous night before – the drunken Animal
Dinner – and still the hangovers lingered.

With Throbbing Ninja the lazy hare for the day, the wise word amidst the aching sculls on the
songthaew was that she would set the trail from the seat of her motorcycle, and would use decent
trails on relatively flat terrain, and it would probably be a long runner’s run, perhaps seven or eight
k. But what the F did we know, fools that we were to think we were able to think at all, let alone
wisely . . .

There had been a bit of a storm earlier in the afternoon and the hare brief – given by Throbbing
Johnson’s infinitely worse half and totally screwed up co-hare – was full of Marvinesque doom and
gloom. “Not sure the paper will be any good now; not sure the checks will still be there, but hey,
you know how it is, all my fault, it’s always me, never her fault, blame me why don’t you, you always
do . . .”

So we set off in totally depressed spirits and without our valuable sniff, Snail Trail, who had decided
to conveniently forget her running shoes so that she could sit in the car and sleep off more of her
alcohol-induced, Animal Dinner malady. And so we headed off understaffed and took ages to find
the trail, which went straight up a very steep incline. This is not what we had anticipated; and the
upward slopes just kept on hitting us in the face, literally for at least one of us.

The ever-whining Chuck Wao – no improvement from Saturday’s hash, still with a grumpy hangover
the size of his massive ego – thankfully went the wrong way down the first V check, and I thankfully
took the right one with a non-drinking-paying Anything following close behind. What the F, I was
thinking, even this notoriously hardened party girl still had a hangover and was taking a break from
the beer? Does that sound right? even vaguely so?

I had it in my thick head that the trail would follow the contours of the hills that formed a kind of
half a toilet bowl around the A site, and thankfully, this time my normally shitty sense of direction
did not let me down. I managed to get the next several checks around the dirty rim right and ended
up quite a long way out in front. But then my luck ran out. As the trail slid down to a road, the
grinning hare was there to meet us on her bike, directing traffic, laughing like a gay hyena on heat
as she pointed the way of the trail – straight back up the steep slopes of the hill. It was then that I
missed a V check, which was made out of sticks (sticks in the Fing forest ??????) and came back
and found it when I noticed that there wasn’t any more paper – the hare hadn’t papered the trail
at V checks – and then went back to check the same way again because I hadn’t gone 100m in that
direction. Needless to say, the relentlessly chugging duo, Crazy Image and Chucky Doo (moaning,
moaning, moaning, groaning, groaning, groaning . . .) caught me up and took the right trail after I
had eventually found the check-back on the other one.

And so it came to pass that we three FRBs came off the hill together, happy, holding hands, waiting
for each other like good little fairy hashing companions – no wait, that’s not right, it can’t have been,
Chucky Doo and Gravy Graven fairies? No, that’s right – that’s not right at all. I remember now, we
came out of the forest into a waterlogged industrial cement enclosure – if that is not too grand a
description – racing each other, pushing and shoving, vying like maddened dogs for the lead. The
paper trail had gone completely, leaving us to frantically search in all directions. But there was only
one conceivable way out, but still we couldn’t find the trail, still we were bustling and pushing, until

one of us finally found the on in; and in true non-competitive FRB fashion, we will lie, cheat and
scratch eyes out to say it was I who found it and not the other lying, cheating, eye-scratching, racist
bastards! So just who found it may never truly be known . . . but I think it was me Ah, yes, that’s
more like it!

So in the end, it wasn’t a long run, about 3.5k, and it definitely wasn’t flat, and if the hare did set it
entirely from the seat of her motorbike, then she is some kind of champion off-road rider . . . oh, and
somehow, Tulips and Frozen Sausage managed to take about an hour and five to complete the trail.
What the F were they doing out there? humping stray dogs for F sake??????

And the circle was kind of cool, in a completely disorganised, uninhibited-by-tradition-and-a –
permanent-GM type of cool, where the hare loosely ran the circle – and I do mean loosely – with
everybody joining in the chaotic fun and frolics. We were so relaxed that the Snail Skid family shared
intimate details of their intimate life together that involved some sort of Brown Finger activity,
which Snail Trail demonstrated on a now smiling and girly-giggling Chuck Wao – what the F . . . And
guess what, CW didn’t say a good circle is a short circle once, and at one point quietly whispered in
my ear that he was actually enjoying himself and might even be a little pissed! What the F . . .? If it
wasn’t for the very astute Graven Image, who realised we were drinking far too many beers for his
highly secured hash cash wallet to bear, we might have been there all night.

Great job the Screwed Ninja team. And thank F that I found out that Anything was drinking after all
– she had brought a leftover bottle of Thai whisky from Friday’s festivities; I just couldn’t have lived
with the frightening thought of a sober and sane Anything , doesn’t work, does it?

And the hangovers from the animal Dinner go on and on and on . . .

I’ve been on a few of Bend Over’s runs, and he has always succeeded in setting good runs. The bar was high, but this was a truly great run – great job Bend Over!

Another great turn out for the Happy Hash and the hare arrived for the briefest of hare briefs before we were set loose. Within moments we hit a circle check, and memories came flooding back about where we were – I remember Alice setting a run there with a ridiculously long check that took us ages. This check was quicker to find and Humperdick lead the way tooting his horn. Chuck Wao was excitable early and he and Brown Finger quickly took off at the front.

It wasn’t long before Brown Finger got away at the front (he was the only one willing to run uphill). We arrived at the top to find a check kicked out, but only silence echoing our calls through the hills. We scattered, and eventually it was called (I think by Itchy), the otherside of a canyon from where I was. Angry Inch was somewhere further along the trail from me, and Chuckie and HRA were just behind. I gambled on cutting across further down, while CW and HRA trudged back to the check. Fortunately it paid off and I ran into Brown Finger who was sheepishly (and quietly) checking a circle back down in the valley – I landed on trail just ahead of him and took off after Angry Inch.

I got away and was doing well until I hit a circle with at least 6 trails on offer. After looking at 3 of them, I heard the usual FRBs calling from another option. Bugger! I slowly lost the back of the FRB pack, and Poo was the last to cruise away. I’d had enough and decided to walk back as surely I wouldn’t see the pack again – luckily the trails were great, so I was happy enjoying the scenery… The cunning hare had another trick up his sleeve though and I caught up at a circle that had the FRBs all over the place – with Chuckie reluctantly pointing down a valley as the only option left. Poo and BF took it on while CW guarded the circle. I spied an almost invisible trail that gradually grew and when I saw the beautiful pink paper it was awesome!

Brown Finger of course chased me down the hill and pushed me on faster than I’d intended. At the next circle, I guilted BF into checking the wrong way, and lucked out all the way in to the beer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an attractive On-In!

The circle went on, but it was one of those circles that seemed to flow – it might have been a long one, but it was entertaining and came to an end just as the beer was running out. All in all a great, great hash! What made it better was CW’s bitterness at not ‘winning’ 😉

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(Courtesy of Brown Finger!)

The more I get to know Dr Byte, the more I appreciate what a fine and friendly guy he is, an excellent hashing companion – unless of course he is the hare.

It seems that in the BMY handbook of how to set the perfect trail, there is just one overriding philosophy: to find ever more devious and extreme ways in which to utterly annihilate any FRB who would dare to pit his inferior wits against the self proclaimed most intelligent hasher on the entire planet – and probably on many others as well – and to hell with the consequences for anyone else foolish enough to follow the FRBs along his trail. He has a whole chapter dedicated to a sub-philosophy, which defines such suffering folk as unavoidable collateral damage in a total war against the arch enemy. He is indeed the evil Moriarty of the hashing world; his preferred weapons of FRB destruction are complexity, distance and elevation, backed up with an inexhaustible arsenal of subterfuge.

So perhaps anyone reading this carefully worded diatribe will appreciate why I woke up this morning feeling a little anxious. And I was still feeling that way when we arrived at Moriarty’s usual A site in the Huay Tung Thao area, the one where he doesn’t have to pay the 20 baht entry fee every time he goes scouting, and where Mount Doom rises terrifyingly up to the heavens in a series of acutely ascending ridges. So the mind games had already begun; he had us all thinking that we would be heading straight up the mountain to some lofty point where we would come straight back down again, probably using a parachute, preferably in a body bag. But round one to the hare, he set us off in completely the opposite direction (perpendicular Moriarty?).

We found nice, flat, fun and happy trails, down which one could confidently send one’s granny and kids, family hashing trails in fact, fit for a family hash. We gaily skipped over the road and down wide open trails that were an absolute pleasure to traverse. We ate up a few Ks on these well used trails and I was beginning to feel that the dastardly hare was losing his edge, and we were simply going to frolic around the same area for a couple more Ks before heading back to the A, hopefully for a special BMY BBQ.

Fat chance! The games had only just begun!

At a circle check beside the road, Moriarty had the FRBs checking down the road, further away from the A, while he sat on his motorbike whispering the real direction in Kwazi Moto’s eager ear. Kwazi headed off in the opposite direction with Itchy bitchy and found the true trail leading into the rapidly expanding housing estate, where poor old Chuck Wao took the wrong trail from a cross check, down the wrong side of a wall, only to find that the true trail led down the other side of the wall and came out on his side of the wall a short distance from the check back. Too late, he had already returned to the check . . .

And then we were led to another devious circle check that had us rummaging through a smelly rubbish tip, and then on to another devilish circle check that had so many possible trails from it that it took us many minutes to find the true trail, which was cunningly off to the right, some sixty or so meters back on the trail we had just come down. By now, we were truly ticking off the Ks, and some of the pack was starting to suffer from physical exhaustion, and as we headed back through the housing estate, the short cutting began in earnest. More ominously, Moriarty was leading us ever closer to Mount Doom. Surely the sadistic bastard was not going to end the run up there?

It was in the foothills that we FRBs started to come across checks that had been kicked out by short cutters, some of whom had decided to risk taking the trail that did indeed start to go up the mountain. But then, thankfully, the trail turned sharply right, and after some bushwhacking through torched undergrowth, Itchy found the trail along some good running trails that were heading back towards the A, without too much elevation change, but with some excellent checks that had the FRBs running all the wrong directions. By now we thought we had cleared the short cutters . . .

I guessed by then we had run a good six to seven Ks, and I was confident that we would now be heading straight for home along the wide trail that I recognized from Moriarty’s last run here, the one with the Pussy Blood. But then I came across the fiend himself, sitting on his motorbike at a V check. He began to whisper sinisterly in my ear that I should go left, the true trail was left, only a check back going right. You don’t really want to go right, do you – ah ha ha ha ha! That did it. I wasn’t about to trust the scheming, conniving bastard, so I followed my FRB nose and headed right, and sure enough the powder just kept on appearing right before my eyes – a miracle, or so I thought. So I headed along the familiar trail back to the A, past more checks that some other short cutters had kicked out, but only some checks and not others. What the f . . .?

Back at the A, Skid Mark, Bend Over et al were already there, Bend Over convinced that he hadn’t short cutted. But where were the other FRBs? Chuck Wao and Graven Image hadn’t been too far behind me at the V check where I had tangled minds with Moriarty. Sometime later they arrived at the A, walking down the trail together, hand in hand, whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ear hole. What a wonderful happy family picture they made, the two of them, happy on the Happy Hash.

But then it all turned ugly, with Chuck Wao and Graven pointing accusatory fingers at all and sundry for being short cutting bastards. What the f . . .? They looked mean and nasty, not like happy hashers at all. It turned out that Moriarty had somehow persuaded, hoodwinked, fooled the poor bastards into taking the left fork at the infamous V check and had led them up and down the mountain, via a precipitous waterfall, using inhumane skiddy checks and other such devastating weapons. Graven had well over 10 Ks on his gadget, a real ball buster by recent Chiang Mai standards.

Being personally accused of being a short cutting bastard and a liar was a little hard to take, but in the end it appeared that, although I had not left powdered trail, I had in fact ran through a check back at the infamous V check and found the trail again some few meters past it. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to find that I had missed out on all the fun up the mountain. Then again, I have to admit, my own preference for extra punishment is not everyone’s preferred perversion!

Finally, a little after dark, Moriarty and Bend Over arrived on their motor bikes, bringing in the two remaining lost souls who had, unlike everyone else except for the very brave and very angry Chuck Wao and Graven image, not managed to short cut their way back to the A.

And so ends the story of the hash that well and truly screwed all the FRBs and everybody else, except those who were wise enough to run only the first 10 or 20 meters down the trail and then return to the A to wait for the rest of the pack to return, some of us physically bloodied and others utterly bloody minded.

I loved the run, personally, but then apparently I am a short cutting bastard who deliberately chose not to do the most foul and devilish section of Moriarty’s dastardly trail.

And so, a successful mission for the hare. Here’s to the next time, evil one!

Graven’s epic 10k++ :-