As promised, here is Where's the Beef?'s report on his recent Excellent Adventure in South East Asia. What a great trip!
It all started with a suggestion from a fellow Hasher from Tokyo Ladies Hash House Harriers who now lives between Tokyo and Singapore. Sushi, aka Dead Fish, mentioned how great the 75th Anniversary Run of the Mother Hash in Kuala Lumpur on November 9th would be. I couldn't turn down the opportunity to attend.
First off was a pre-lube run with the Singapore Harriettes with yet another trail in the soon to be decommissioned Bukit Brown Chinese Cemetery. A nice dinner followed at the "Red Lantern," a regular Hash hangout for the Singaporean runners. The following night Sushi and I had to have a strategy meeting at BrewWerkz, a Singapore Microbrewery with a new branch in the Dempsey Hill section of Lion City. We did our best to empty their supply of IPA in between the very Chinese Malay dishes of garlic fries and buffalo wings. Luckily there was a branch of Jumbo Seafood around the corner and we did away with some chili crab.
I found my way up to KL and the Royal Selangor Club where buses awaited us to take us to the quarry that was to be the run site of the 75th. We had our choice of a walking trail, an 8km trail through "primary jungle" (whatever that means) and a runners' trail of 15km. I chose the appropriate trail but unfortunately did not make it back to the down down in time to enjoy some of the whole roasted pig that awaited. And with a 1000 hungry hashers there I was not surprised to miss out. Plenty of Tiger Beer helped to wash down the roast duck, dim sum and Indian curries that were still available.
After a recovery I made my way up to Penang and managed to hook-up with the Penang H3. And I'm not sure I was glad that I did. Their trail was 90 minutes of steamy agony in what must have been the definition of primary jungle. I did not run at all on trail. Just fought my way through dense underbrush up and down ravines. The local runners thought the trail easy. I was just happy to make it back to the circle. Which was quite enjoyable and they were a great group. Tiger Beer was again in plentiful supply and this time we enjoyed a catered dinner of Indian food. And I even managed to get a lift back to Historic Georgetown from a fellow hasher.
Not much else doing in Georgetown so I made my way up to Chiang Mai to see the tigers at Tiger Kingdom. Something I would recommend to anyone to add to their bucket list. It was certainly on mine. I also managed to fit in a run with the local Chiang Mai Hashers at a newly built resort about 90 minutes outside the city. The trail had some problems and several runners ran into us going the wrong way. Typical hashers. Unfortunately, one of these hashers, Pinky, from Australia as well as the Lion City H3, managed to get lost again while only a kilometer from the down down. Her poor husband had to go back out on trail and she didn't show up for another hour.
From Thailand I flew up to Hanoi and got one more Hash in with the Hanoi H3. It was another long bus ride out of the city with far too many hashers on the un-airconditioned vehicle. The solution on the way back was of course to bring as much beer as possible on the bus to keep everyone cool and happy. They did a great 10km trail through the Vietnamese countryside with rice paddies aplenty and more water buffaloes than you could shake a stick at. Which the local farmers were happy to do to keep them away from us. Or was it to keep us hashers away from the buffaloes?
In any case, from there I flew down to Singapore and thought long and hard about doing a St. Andrew's Day run with Lion City H3 but was a little concerned about making my flight out at 1130 pm and getting the airport in time following a hash. Next time...
Be warned! Where's the Beef? and In Your Dreams will be our hares in a couple of week's time - and he'll be applying some of the things he learnt on this trip....
On, on!
