Category Archives: Blog

22nd November – CSH3 – Turkish Delight

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Turkey, Turkey, Turkey… 12k down the canal road, we were in the quarry past the temple. Plenty of good running to be found around here – what would Turkish have in store for us??? For the hare brief he randomly picked Horny Monkey to give it ‘because he speaks better English’… When asked where the Ononon was, it seemed nobody knew and I was starting to wonder if we would go running and drinking at all!

Finally we were off and when we found the first paper, quickly we ran into a false trail. Back the other obvious way and on to a circle check. Sloppy was leading the way and got the prime pick, checking left. Horny was right on my tail as I went straight – why didn’t he try right? After 150m or so the call came. A female voice, so it wasn’t Sloppy… It must have been right. I looped around behind a house, but silence from everywhere… Damnit… I kept going, and finally arced back to that circle. It had been left, and I guess Sloppy was a silent running Turk. Ack. Turkey was there changing the circle to an OnIn, so I guess we would be back there sooner or later.

10 minutes or so into the run, I set off in pursuit and it seemed an eternity before I started reeling in hashers. I past some ladies and then found Just Cumming on his own in the woods. It was really fun running, good trails. At one point I did take a closer look at the paper to see if I was still on fresh paper, but it seemed fresh enough. Finally I was back to the wall and with a slightly confusing check the arrows were pointing back towards the A. It seemed short, but believable until a host of hashers came storming back towards me… WTF? Confusion reigned. Apparently we were not on trail – the paper was from a Bunny Hash run, not from today. I don’t know why they thought that, so kept going. I nearly ran OnIn, but got back to the first circle, which was now and OnIn, and spotted trail leading to it from where I’d checked in the first place. Sloppy wanted to go back, I decided to go backwards…

I then went backwards around his excellent run. Peace, quiet, solitude. Nice! Then a distant cry. Getting louder. Getting closer. Square Rooter appeared at a check. I gave him some inside information and then confused everyone else by running backwards past them.

If the goal of haring is to confuse people, then Turkey you succeeded! Nice job.

Thursday 20th November – Pigshit – CH4

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Without a car it took some efforts to make it to the hash, racing a motorbike into to town after work to catch the songthaew. Almost my first experience on the sardine can songthaew – with Brownfinger and Pigshit hanging off the back, for the most part we were too busy focusing on breathing regularly for conversation. With a few inches view past Brownies ass, I was trying to figure out which way we were going, where we were going in fact. Impossible… I stumbled out of the back completely disoriented, next to an unfamiliar shelter.

With plenty of time, Piggy gave his hare brief – he was so organised he finished it well before we were supposed to be running, but what the hell, he set us off anyway. Around the corner on a trail, and finally I figured out where we were. Up a steep hill that my car has struggled on before, so no surprise I watched as Brownfinger stretched out ahead. I was feeling lazy, maybe I’d save something for the end?

We broke off to the right, and twisted and turned. Where the hell were we? We kept going left, but the trail was heading right? Why didn’t I recognise anything? Surely these weren’t virgin trails… We were in some farmers plantation climbing steeply up, and then running steeply down. The pack was kept together with some good checks that had us all over the place. He’d warned us about barbed wire – sure it was worse than the motorbike scene from The Great Escape – no way to jump over, just scramble through it – he’d marked it all? perhaps he’d missed a bit. Brownie squealed from up ahead. I was in a daze, braindead from end of semester?

We got to the latest single player barbed wire houdini effort. Single file led to a pile up. Brownie, Graven and Junglicious were clear free ahead while the rest of us scrambled through. When we got clear we turned left. From there on the trail was straightforward. Looking at the track I’m amazed we were only half way through!!! The front 3 were clean away and had no intention of kicking out checks (to be fair you could see the paper after a couple of steps)… I picked off a couple of runners and was running / walking along with Poo and Knockout. When we headed back towards the trail that we’d set out on I was horrified that we might end up going back over another frigging hill to get back. Fortunately the hare went out and corrected the trail and the first check was replaced with “On In”.

Piggy was dutifully punished for his misdeeds. By the time we got to the on on he was still achieving tasks like ‘standing’ and ‘swaying’. Nice job sir!

13th November – CH4 – Graven Image

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Graven and Brown Finger… again!! Are they the only hares in town? In Maejo… again!! What the hell – I’d had a great day at work, and managed to get out to the runsite in time for the run… When the songthaews arrived we had a huge pack – 3 songthaew’s full!!! Lots of visitors, so a thorough (ish) hare brief – to be honest I wasn’t listening… We were set off and Humps and I ran off at the front.

I am very familiar with this area, having set many, many runs from that runsite, and scouted the area to death – which perhaps gives me an unfair advantage? First check, and chances are it is going to be left, I went left, and there was powder “onon!”, until there was quickly a V check that pointed the wrong way… “Damn! – False Call! Check Back!”. They’d made the same mistake that Big Top made on 8th December 2013 – the trails there are too close together for that. Back to the check and people were completely confused – Follow me! and finally Gorf called on from the correct junction. Knowing about the V-check meant the next check was easy, and I was off nailing a few checks with Chuckie getting one wrong behind me.

Up the hill, and now I could rule out quite a few choices at the checks – there is just no way of getting back reasonably if you go another way. I got away at the front, and my “checking” calls were from the next check along. I got to the trail at the bottom of the hill… Going left takes you straight back towards the “A”… too soon, unless they add another loop. I turned right – and no trail (I guess 120m isn’t far enough?), I went back and tried left… 120m and nothing. The overgrown trail? nope, it’s still overgrown… By now everyone was caught up, so I cut across to the parallel trail, and partway there Adorable called from the right (where I’d checked first). A gamble, and with CW following we intercepted the trail moments ahead of Adorable.

A false trail off to the right, and I should have been splashed for racism, as I shot off back on the right trail. Another circle. When Big Top set the same run, it caused us problems – turning left takes you back too quickly, so the temptation was to go straight on down. CW and I did, and eventually I heard Piggy calling on from over to the left. DAMN! 2 choices, go back, or possibly do a long cut around… Another 50m and I was back on trail. It was the same run… I jogged back on trail until Gorf and Piggy came running towards me, then I turned around and rejoined them. So now Gorf was chasing my ass and geez that guy can run, even late into the hash he’s looking in great shape.

Fortunately at that point, the route back was pretty clear to me… It was nice being able to keep pace with Gorf, and call him back when he was going off trail. Through the quarry, back to the main road, and there was Graven, still laying trail… Turn left, back along the road. Gorf was distracted by a false trail, and I slipped past him! OnIn! Woohoo! It was a great trail the first time, and a great trail again today, but the credit really belongs with Big Top!

8th November – CSH3 – Graven Image

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Graven teamed up with Brownie for the start of a GI Maejo epic… 12 months ago, Graven and I set a couple of runs on the same day, out at Maejo, so having spent time with Gravey out there, I was curious what he had in mind. 12 months ago, we set one run that turned out to be pretty good, and one that was pretty crap – turned out Gravey modelled this run on the crappier one!

With 10 minutes to run time, I was starting to worry – at the runsite with the boys, and finally Belly Dancer showed up… No sign of the hares or other hashers… Finally with minutes to spare, 3 songthaews showed up along with a bunch of cars… Times like this, hashcashing is a challenge! I managed to get things organised and ready for the hare brief. It wasn’t brief… While the hare brief is designed to reduce confusion when out on trail – this one didn’t…. If you want to do the whole trail, do it, but if you want to do a bit less, then follow the guy in the blue shirt, and if you want to do a lot less follow the other guy… When should we follow them? I happened to be following Brownie at one point, what did that mean? It was all so confusing!

Finally we were released and with a host of elite hashers, it was hard going to get to the first check. 50 ish hashers headed off into the jungle Familiar trail, we quickly got onto the trail up to the ridge line. A couple of decent checks took us away for a bit, but it was clear pretty early on where we were headed – particularly given the warnings in the harebrief. It was a run I’d done before in reverse. We got to a wimp rambo split, and after a brief sojourn on the rambo route, I cut across to where I knew the trail was headed. With the hares out in force trying to keep us going in the right direction, I joined up with Bart Plug and Cum A Lot, and finally we caught up with Gorf, who was alone and completely befuddled by a sneaky check.

The trail literally fell away off the side of a mountain – straight down off the side of the hill, with hashers hanging on to trees. Fortunately we made it down alive, to the side of the lake for a short OnIn back to the beer. With so many runners the Beer Monster had to do a quick beer run, but we managed to get through the circle. Fun, but tough! There must be a good run there, but I’m not sure we found it 12 months back, or this time!

1st November – CSH3 – Scaly Gladiator

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Trouble on the hare line, Chucky? Panicking, Mr Mainwaring? Worried the virgin hares were not going to turn up? That’s all right, old chap. You just bugger off to Chiang Rai and leave good old overworked Doctor Byte to sort it out. Oh, and you too, GM, Mr Poo, sir, and the rest of you absent Committee arseholes. Not to worry, eh? Dr Byte will do your jobs too.

Well you needn’t have concerned yourselves – not that I expect you did – the irrepressible Dr B had it all in hand (ooh, erh). Having disappeared up their own arseholes for a month or so, the Scandinavian Virgins – Scaly Gladiator and his dad (time for a Hash name?) – finally came good (ooh, erh), and called Dr B to arrange a scouting day, for he had also agreed to act as their “Hash Consultant”. How many flaming jobs do you want, DB?

Well, the story goes that the first thing the Virgins wanted was a beer. So, four large Leo’s later, off they went, Hash Consultant in tow. And presumably, a great many more bottles later and the run was finally set, emerging like a ghost ship from the thick bank of alcohol fog that had formed in the collective half-mind. In fact they must have been so pissed that at some point they forgot just how far they had wandered away from the A site, and when they finally returned to it the run was set at not much shorter than 10k. Jeeeeeesus! How many beers did that take?

Anyhow, the Virgins had the Hash Consultant do the hare brief – burble, burble, hic, hic, something about round checks and sticks painted white. Nothing about how long the run was going to be. Visitors from Guam and Austin Texas looked anxious, but I did my bit to reassure them by telling them that the experienced Dr Byte wouldn’t let the Virgins fuck things up too badly . . .

So we were off. Well, I say that, but then I must say we were almost back at the A again before the run had really begun. In fact we had only run about half a k around the lake when we almost tripped over the songthaew. Surely not. Not this short. We could have gone back but we soldiered on and soon found more trail. And then the run really got going. And it was indeed a runners run, with very elaborate, devious checks, which the Hash Consultant had no doubt been significantly involved in setting. In fact they were so cunning, I found myself out in front then right at the back so many times I lost count. Does Nothing said I passed him five times during the run, but it felt more like ten to me. The trails were pretty good for the area around Mae Joe golf course, and bye and large we came in pretty close together – which was pretty good given the distance – although Miss Piggy was seen running in from a different direction with a knowing look on her face.

And then to the circle, run by DB as acting GM, of course. Time to splash the Virgin hares. But wait, the Virgins insisted on splashing the Hash Consultant instead. “It was all his fault.” And of course we all agreed it must have been his fault. After all he was in charge of everything – GM, Hash Cash, Hare Raiser, Beer Monster, Haberdasher, On Sec, Hash Consultant . . . A damned good circle: DB in excellent comedic form; songs and games from Guam and Austin; wings for me (yeah!) and Tasty Buns for being “the fastest,” which did not go down at all well with the Gravy Monster.

All in all it was a great day’s hashing – a long, well-marked, well-checked run followed by a short witty circle. An excellent Virgin attempt by Scaly Gladiator and his very amiable father, supported by that self-styled Hash Consultant, who will no doubt stand for election as Hash God as soon as the opportunity arises.
I

(Brown Finger)

25th October – CSH3 – Superman

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The Super family combined to create a new hash adventure. A familiar starting point by the waterfall cafe behind Wat Doi Kham. Once most of us had found the hash signs to get there, I figured we’d have a bit of climbing to do – it’s a great trail, but most of the runs I’ve been on there seem to follow the same route. Would the veteran hasher find something new for us? In short no… but the whole story became more interesting!

After the hare brief we were set off back down the road, around the corner and along the side of the water. There was a brief period of confusion looking for paper by a weir. Brownie pointed across the weir and up a hill, encouraging me to look for paper where there was none. Damnit, finally they called on on – why was nobody else looking for paper while I was on a wild goose chase??? What the hell, I had the higher ground, we had to be going up sooner or later, so I carried on up the ridge, with the occasional call from down the gully to my left. I finally heard Chuckie call “Check Back”, and figured they were heading off to the left – I just had to find a way to get over there… There wasn’t one, but the nice trail I was on quickly joined the main trail, and unsurprisingly there was paper marking the way. Too short to go back, so I figured I’d do the trail in reverse.

I ran up to the waterfall, found the scramble across along the edge of the hill, and started back down. Surely I would meet the pack sooner or later? Half an hour in, and I’m running backwards on trail – where were the FRBs? Finally I saw Shagless leading the way! Maybe he’d done Sups’ clever short cut? A long way further and finally there was Junglicious running towards me, followed by the pack of FRBs. We exchanged pleasantries, and I carried on backwards. Next was Turkish, desperate to know how far behind he was… Then there was a gap to Mr. Poo and the ladies. By now I was already down on the flat lands at the bottom of the hill… – How could I only be halfway through this???

Next up I saw Sups, a brief discussion and I kept going, around the corner and well, there was the out trail… WTF had happened??? I’d run pretty much the whole trail (backwards) while the rest of the pack were just mingling around? Graven appeared in front of me – turns out he’d done a similar trick to me, but not found trail. We jogged back towards the A, and found Cougar and Humperdick stood by a cross check that hadn’t been there earlier. It dawned on me – Sups had set a false trail off to the right, and then gone back and changed it up to a cross check after. Turns out it had screwed everyone up – in some ways that is excellent haring? Most seemed to disagree and quite a few negative comments were passed. I just enjoy running trail, which I did, so I was happy.

CH4 – 23rd October – HRA

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I went out for 10k last night, so set off to the hash feeling a little sore, and hoping for a short HRA effort… Even before the hare brief it was clear it wasn’t going to be short as the hare moved from group to group saying he had no idea how far it was, just that it was long… Uhoh…

After a hare brief that makes Square Rooter seem like he has all his conversations on twitter, we were finally released. The hare brief, while detailed, only gave a small clue to the direction of the run. Fortunately we figured it out and followed Brownie as he scampered through a field. A quick water crossing and then we had a few small bridges to navigate until we got to a very overgrown disco shelter. Wow has nature taken over – we used to have circles there and park there, not any more..!

We knew where we were though, and we were on familiar trails that haven’t been hashed for several years. Rather than turning towards the mountains, every opportunity took us towards the village, and there were quite a few stretches on the road. At least it was flat. We kept turning away and further away – how far was this hash??! There was good rotation and the checks were great for keeping us together. I was trying to conserve energies, but managed to keep up with the true FRBs.

We ducked down towards Bone Hur’s area – again not been hashed for a while, but perfectly good. Finally we started turning towards the hills, and with the trail being so close to previous trails, I have to say the hare did an excellent job of keeping the trails apart. The right checks in the right places – it was well thought out. We came back very close to the out trail, and even though we’d been checking towards the back trail several times, we could never have screwed it up. Great job!

Finally we got back – I had 8.7km on my GPS – man I’m tired!

11th October – CSH3 – Sloppy Rod

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Sloppy teamed up with Chuckie to give us a mini-ballbreaker, starting from Huay Tung Thao. The hare brief was anything but brief, but in due time we were set loose. I jogged off with Humps to the first circle. 2 options, right up the hill, or straight along the bottom. I took the route over the hill knowing the two trails rejoined further on. 100m.. nothing, damnit! With a long run ahead, I was loathe to go back, but no one was calling… I kept on a bit further, but still nothing. Finally I heard Cougar calling from down to my right – there must be another trail there. By now I was already over the hill, so made my way down towards the call, and found trail with Cougar running towards me.

A V-check. Towards the army base, or not? I didn’t think we’d be going into the army base, so chose left – and hit the check back. OK, so we were going into the army base and I caught up with the pack at the road. Turning right was unlikely, so I headed for the dam, following Cougar who was running very well. It was a long way, but as we switched from paper to powder, perhaps we missed some trail, but we eventually got trail and jogged passed some soldiers.

The other side of the lake we started off on road that slowly changed to mud trail. Great running trails! We were headed towards Maerim… Shortly we got onto a trail that Sloppy used on 5th December 2011 for the male hash. The checks were pretty much straight on, so Piggy & Brownie led the way as the pack started to stretch out. A V-check caught them out and some how I found myself at the front with HRA. The trail took a sharp turn to the right, and there was the water stop. Strange – why no check? and there was a circle on the tree? So I headed on straight another 100m or so. Nothing, no sounds, no calls, no trail… (Had I gone another 20m around the corner I would have found trail again, but I turned back and found Mr. Poo and Cumlord sitting drinking water at the drink stop.

Damnit… I sped up and at the next check managed to reel in the front group. Taste My Buns was leading the way up heart break mountain a steep climb that was a killer after 5-6km already. No choice but to battle through it, and the front group of 5 were close together. We reached the top, and then found it wasn’t quite the top, and climbed a bit higher. As we turned to the left we had the view of HTT in the distance, and could just about make out the cars and the A-bucket. We started the descent and somehow HRA got away. For a while I was running with Piggy and Brownie slowly reeling in Tasty Buns, with HRA just ahead, and then all of a sudden HRA was gone. Did he switch on the turbo boost? He blasted through all the checks with us trying to figure out where his calls were coming from.

We were getting closer and the trails felt more familiar, although by that point, one waterfall looks like any other. A fly flew straight down my throat and I paused for a moment to gag. The front group disappeared, and as I jogged on past the ranger station, Graven suddenly appeared behind me. I’d not seen him all run, but in true Gravy style he was making his moves towards the end. But there wasn’t enough trail left for him, and we jogged in together.

A GREAT run… It has been a long time since I’ve done a longer hash run – I’ve set a few, but not had the chance to run them, so it was a lot of fun. Cheers hares! Here’s to more miniBBs

4th October – CSH3 – Belly Dancer

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Belly teamed with his favourite co-hare for a run near Ob Kham. Not the run site they’ve used before, but just around the corner… After hearing about the brutality of Monday, I guessed it would be a tamer affair, so checked in earlier in the week and was told it was ‘kid-friendly’, and encouraged to let Matty (Terror Byte) & Danny (8-Bit) out on the run for almost the first time.

We set off with my boys setting the early pace, until Brownie and I swept past into some horticultural centre. A couple of checks had the pack stuck together. Then there was a good check that had me way off course to the right, while the trail went up the hill to the left. I followed Stumbling Dyke up the hill as Terror Byte was already fading behind. Another circle check, and everyone milling around. Nobody wanting to check down a steep hill, and most going up. I followed Taste My Buns down, and sure enough we were on.

Definition – “Kid Friendly” – a run that is safe and fun for kids of all ages – in the hope they get motivated to continue hashing in the future!

The trail descended into a treacherous gully, I was sliding down clinging from tree to tree. I don’t think anyone survived without falling. It wasn’t long before I was bleeding from my middle finger. It wasn’t any definition of friendly that I know. Tasty Buns reassured me that it would be easier for the kids – they are closer to the ground right? Damnit… Nowhere I can go anyway – we’re in a single person gully, trying to stop falling more quickly down.

At the bottom Gorf and I hit the road, I went right, he went left. I could hear the screams and wails on the descent, hoping it wasn’t my boys. I was expecting the trail to go to the right, but sadly it went left. It was going to be up a steep mountain – I knew it had to go over the top to get into the valley the other side. We were 30 minutes in, heading up hill away from the A bucket. I turned back to find the kids. Not far back 8-Bit was walking along with Knockout. He was battered, bruised and bleeding, but in high spirits – perhaps because of Knock Out for company? Further back on the trail, there was Matty who’d picked up Snail Trail and Baaabe. There I was worried, and the boys were busy picking up older women?! Excellent Hashing Behaviour!

Probably more of a male hash than a Saturday hash – I can guess the other half of the trail, and in other circumstances it would have been a good one. OnOn.

2nd October – CH4 – Junglicious

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Junglicious stepped up at short notice to set the run, and she lured Jungle Chim up from Lamphun to help her – it was great to see him back, and hopefully he’ll join us for a few runs every now and then! At HTT, my expectation scale was all over the place – with no sign at the bridge, I was panicking that there wasn’t a run set yet – but when I found signs inside the gate, I was interested to see what they had in store.

The A-bucket, at the side of the lake immediately limited our out trail, and when we set off we were along the lake and over the dam wall. A couple of ‘non-checks’ slowed us down until we got to the first circle the other side of the lake. Knowing the trails well, I set off to the left, and Chuckie followed mumbling about how he would check another way sooner or later…. Not long after we were on trail – we found out later we weren’t supposed to be on that trail. Not long after and there was a circle check, and I followed the trail along the bottom of the mountain (yes I had inside information from Frozen Dick). I was on, and called “OnOn” about the same time CW did… Huh? Had we screwed up? CW was on, but I was definitely ON – it was the right distance, and there was no other way to get here…. I am off wondering if the pack was following me or CW…

Along the base of the mountain to the junction that I just love putting circle checks at. So many options, and NO CHECK! Huh? The trail went straight on, but a quick glance to the left had a bit of paper in the distance… – Did I have time to get there, and around the corner before the pack caught me? With Brown Finger and Pigshit on the hunt, I had no chance… Damn it! They sorted the false trail out without running it out, and caught me up before I got up to the road. We are in to serious hash running season now boys.

Then the checks were all turning left… wtf? We were heading straight back to the A! It can’t be this way, so I started looking off to the right, with no luck. It was straight back to the A. Chuckie called OnIn, and we regrouped to run in… 3km, 20 minutes… Something had gone badly wrong!!!

Browny, Piggy and Tasty were straight off out to do another lap. Chucky was feigning a hangover. I was consulting the hares and figuring out what we’d done wrong. It became clear we could drive around the lake, and still take on the rest of the run. Poo was up for it, and reluctantly Humperdick also came along. Then we had fun! 3 hounds working together. The trail went another 3k along the side of the lake, and back along the aqueduct (fuck it, I spell it aquaduct) system. The last check on our extra bit, there were 2 choices, and me and Poo were wrong – but as both trails rejoined we didn’t go back… On a technicality Humps was the only guy to do the whole trail, so he absolutely deserved the wings.

With hindsight the trail was a great set, but with hashers you have to expect them to fuck up!