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Rating: 7.0/10 (1 vote cast)
It’s outstation time! Cool Balls had been warming up to this epic for weeks! First up it’s at Khun Yuam – about 20km north of Mae Sariang… 20km MY FUCKING ASS!!! Close to 100km along steep winding roads more like it. Once everyone had signed up he offered us half a dozen different ways to get there – the quickest of which was about 5 hours – short of hiring a helicopter of course!
Hashers straggled into the resort throughout the afternoon, weary from their rides / drives etc. We drank our way through Friday evening, with a restful day on Saturday, UNTIL 3pm when we gathered for the hash. I’d noticed Cool Balls and Redundant Semen slip away for around 4 hours in the morning, which was ominous… It was more ominous when Cool Balls appeared to lose the start of his run – emphasized as it took us 700m to find the first bits of paper.
Shortly after Chuckie and I split at the first V check – he was right, I was wrong. Where I say ‘first’ V check, actually it was the ONLY V check. And it seemed there were only 2 more circle checks to go as well – in 9.5km… YES 9.5km with 3 checks!
The trail led us down to a river, with a nice concrete bridge over it – apparently the only bridge the hares could find! I caught up with CW as he was turning back from a water crossing – I persuaded him otherwise and he joined the rest of the crazy hashers for a dip – not much that can be done on an A->B run! If you go back to the start, there’ll be nobody there…
We gamboled our way through some rice fields, with HRA and Anything somewhere up front. Chuckie vocalised his displeasure in typical style as we jogged on to a snake and leach infested corn field. A circle check had us all confused and 30 odd hashers dispersed through the field following what appeared to be trail, but which then trickled out. Finally Skiddy found the trail, the other side of the river, and we all dutifully waded through it. Lucky Skiddy had his camera to capture the moment. We then waded along the river to where the cars were waiting at a “B” stop.
After a beer, it was HRA that rustled up some hashers to go out on a 2nd leg – Humperdick showing fine form, with Unplugged, Snail Trail, Anything, Big Top, Cumalot, HRA, BmY, Skiddy braving the inevitable hill. Sure enough, he sent us back over the river (over a bridge this time), and straight to the foot of mount doom. There were no more checks, it was just a straight up climb. Probably one of the steepest hills Thailand has to offer, and every step sapped my energy to the point of collapse near the top. Fortunately, what goes up, must come down, and the downhill was a great running trail. I opened up, tracking Humpers, but only catching him when he screwed up at an invisible check – the cunning hares had again found a way to bring us back together, without using checks.
Through the rice fields and we were surely on our way home… I was so weary, I’d forgotten we were the wrong side of the river. Here it was narrower, faster, the current strong on my weary legs. Humps nearly fell too, so I stalled with HRA to pluck the ladies out as they surely got swept away – or rather, I stayed to watch HRA pluck the ladies out as none of us really had any energy left. Unplugged and Anything would have found a shorter route back to Chiang Mai had HRA not rescued them.
An epic 9.5km run. It had everything – water, ricefields, trail, climbing, descending through some truly spectacular countryside. If it wasn’t for the hash we would never experience it, so as the pain subsided, we appreciated the efforts of the hares more.
