P2H3 - Run #835 Chinese New Year Run

Date: 04/02/2008, nr Takmao  RUN STATS

Hares: Blackout, Insider 

Run Report: Rubbed Raw

This was the end of the Year of the Pig and the start of the Year of the Rat (or is that a mouse?). How better to celebrate than to Hash Chinese Style courtesy of our Chinese cultural Attache Insider. A free T-shirt awaited the lucky hashers attending this hash, and not sponsored by the Secretary for once! The hash pack had many new virgins (of younger and female variety which pleased many of the male runners!) this week, oh and many children (will that censor the songs - no chance!).

Another Hash rarity was the marking of both the walk and the run, though the choice of red for the run (for obvious reasons) did strain the older member’s eyes, especially Fester who complained in his usual vociferous style, to pick out the nearly invisible marks. The Norwegian Family Robinson led out the walk, with great enthusiasm. Runners were spotted in the distance by the Hash Trash Scribe with the odd FRB (they’re all odd) spotted wandering aimless and lost, Herring Choker and Runs Well, clearly off trail again! Mr Tinkle enjoyed sprinting past Rubbed Raw (exiled again to the walk) for once in his hashing career as the walk and run met on occasion. Fester was seen up the rear, as it were, of the many new female virgins on the trail, was this any coincidence I wonder? By the state of Wide Angle’s shirt we presume the first half was a muddy one!

An excellent addition to the Chinese Hash is the addition of Gambai drinking at every Hold Point. Chinese Rice wine was dealt out in small cups to any infringement like being a Front Walking Bastard! by the eager hares. This should happen every week, why didn’t we think of that for the Robbie Burns Hash (a nice single malt would have gone down very well! and possibly up again after the Burns Supper the night before!)

The half way point had more Gambai’s after which Rubbed Raw, could stand it no more and joined the injured Flip Flop in a fast walk (a blatant attempt to escape the children!) following the runners. The return run/walk was shorter, and even included a nicely laid gravel surface for the sprinters in the group to get their running spikes into! Blah Blah on Hash Horn duty did a sterling job with decidedly more melody than the usual Hash Muse!

The circle was not held back in its songs by the presence of younger ears (when does it ever!) but we had the pleasure of even more Chinese culture. Red envelopes were handed out to regular sinners, and with trepidation opened, no anthrax was luckily contained, but even worse, instructions to drink, choose or Bonus! The lucky Bronco Buster won the Bonus and pulled three further ‘happy lucky’ hashers into the circle for their down down. The circle in fine voice kindly requested the Aniversaroids Flip Flop (310 runs) and Blah Blah (50 runs) to ‘get a life’.

On On!!

P2H3 - Run #824 Bokor Outstation Hangover Run

Date: 25/11/2007

Hares: Dog on Heat, Rubbed Raw, Wide Angle (walk)

Walk/Run Report: Wide Angle / Rubbed Raw

Sunday morning brought with it a gentle stroll for the walkers (colossal hangovers notwithstanding) up to the Wat and back. Another chance for photography, particularly as once there we met not a monk but a monkey; once again Danger Mouse had to be refrained from interfering with the fauna, the fauna in question was happy to refrain from interfering with Squints Westwards in return!

The hares of the run set off on mountain bike in an attempt to stay ahead of the eager (far too eager with messages expressly given to Blah Blah by the Hare to delay by 30 mins ignored!) and not seemingly hungover enough hash pack. The Run like the walk headed towards the Bokor Pagoda, and with their basically being only one road there and back, that’s what they returned on too!! The frantic hare, Rubbed Raw, threw is mountain bike around in a vain attempt to stay ahead of the pack whilst setting the rest of the run, after the run caught the hares at the pagoda. A cunning diversion around the reservoir seemed to do the trick, and the hungover hashers returned refeshed after a good sprint home.

All were so subdued by the previous night’s revelry that there seemed to be no sins to punish and so no circle was convened. Shame!! Derision of duty Mr G.M. What is the world coming to?!

There was rumour of a waterfall mini-hash on the way back down the mountain but reports are sketchy as some cowardly laggards got bored and turned back halfway for the shade and comfort of the G.M.’s truck. The bike hash ride down was much more fun beating all four wheel vehicles down, despite Leaking Duck’s attempt to run one of them off the road down a ravine - he is competive that duck! Mr Tinkle gets best effort award for falling three times of his motorbike on the way down!

P2H3 - Run #839 Bokor Outstation Run

Date: 24/11/2007

Hares: Blah Blah, Blackout, STD (walk)

Run Distance: ~6km (but very hilly!)

Walk Report: Wide Angle

There are not words to express the experience of the Bokor road – we were all there, there’s no need to dwell on it, it has left physical and psychological scars on many (better to cycle up it! RR). Suffice to say that experience is enough to wipe the smile from anyone’s backside! After three hours of the Bokor Bounce we had the opportunity to prove that our limbs could still function and scrambled off among the eerily beautiful ruins of French Colonialism. The walkers were lead out by S.T.D. and Fester, the pack gamely hanging back so as not to intrude on their private party, or be deafened by Fester’s dulcet tones as he urged us ever onward, in fact the more he urged, the more we lagged, curious. We believe he could be heard back in the docks!

The usual discipline of the walking hash was abandoned as disparate groups picked the sites they wished to see and in which order, Tokyo Joe was last seen heading off alone into the jungle muttering something about a triangulation point – working on the Hash we suspect?! As far as the eye could see there were red shirts swarming across the broad green shoulders of Mt Bokor, runners and walkers reuniting on the edge of the world, in the casino, at the church and finally at the eski-free zone of the Down-Down.

Run Report: Rubbed Raw

Hills are not something the average PP Hasher encounters on a regular basis, so the pack set off with some trepidation. Hares Blah Blah and Blackout had evil grins on their face as they set off earlier in the day, with the opportunity to provide some pain to the runners. And that they did. The sound of Grand Old Duke of York (”they marched them up to the top of the hill, and they marched them down again!”) was ringing in many a hashers ear as the trail took the pack up the ankle breaking rocky trails, only to be sent down leg breaking steps, then up to whole body breaking precipaces at certain points! The many rock-ledge hold points, tempted many a struggling backmarker to throw certain FRBs of the said ledge in an attempt to slow them down!

Coming together eventually with the walkers, a sea of red could be seen, courtesy of the T-shirts provided by Stool Boy’s company ‘The Secretary’ on the cliff edge. More flounting of technology abuse rules, as the happy snappers took shots of the rare sight of a mountain on a P2H3 hash run! A last sprint ensued to the Bokor Casino where hashers were slightly disappointed not to be rewarded with a beer, but no matter, the scenery and exploring the eerie ruins kept the hashers amused for hours.

A last hammer down the ankle breaking path or leg breaking steps took the runners back to the accomodation where many warm Angkor beer down downs where ‘enjoyed’, “It tastes worse warm” was the resounding cry! A memorable circle, if I could remember it! All hashers then looked forward to the evening party festivities. Cold temperatures and cold beer on the Casino patio was promised, and not a can of Angkor to be seen! only Mekong whiskey!

A top hash in a fantastic location, everyone had a top day and night which will not be forgotten in a hurry by those brave enough to attempt that road! Well done Check Around for great organisation

P2H3 - Run #837 Kampot Outstation Walk

Date: 23/11/2007

Hare: Two Hands, Runs Well

Walk Report: Wide Angle

The last thing those of us who had the good fortune to be transported to Kampot by snail power, expected was to start the walking hash before we even reached our destination. The great Gispert was smiling on us however and our luck was in! We were given feet-on experience of the Cambodian road system as we were merrily decanted from our luxury tour bus to enable it to traverse a particularly fine bridge and some of the more interesting sections of the scenic lane that lead to Les Manguiers. So keen were some of the passengers to begin the weekend hashing activities that they couldn’t be persuaded back into the coach at its near-final resting place and eagerly set off between the paddies with no clear idea of where they were heading and without so much as a hint of a trail mark to guide them – in the finest p2h3 tradition!

Having spent a scant 6hrs aboard that sweet chariot, few felt the need for a refreshing stroll and those unfortunate members who had to make their own, less eventful, way south were, by now, suffering beer-separation anxiety. There was a general consensus of lassitude and the proposed moonlight hash was deferred until the following night (despite the best efforts of Stool Boy & Little Miss Muffet).

On Friday, following the finest display of boating prowess this side of the water festival, p2h3’s finest crammed (some still dripping – causing Danger Mouse to remark on the dampness of her shorts having spent the journey next to Flacido) into myriad trucks and were transported to the far reaches of Kampot. Whence, we wandered through some of the more interesting suburbs, past the high-security prison, complete with children and goats, and out into the surrounding agriculture. The countryside around the town is truly picturesque and afforded many photo-ops of the verdant paddies dotted with sugar and date palms (not to mention some of the best trail marks ever seen by p2h3 walkers, we’re unused to this).

Our path lead us past stilt houses, through the Cham village where Danger Mouse had to be dissuaded from shopping on the Hash - she was offered a particularly cute kitten. This delay meant that some of the walking stragglers caught up with the running stragglers in time to witness yet another shocking example of the “Insider job”, whereby the aforementioned took advantage of the rolling halfway, boarded her S.U.V and disappeared, with a well-practiced royal wave, among the fishermen’s cottages of Kampot Docks. Running Hash, yes, Walking Hash, all well and good, but THIS TRUCKING HASH MUST BE PUT TO A STOP!

All were safely reunited at the Down-Down in time to witness a spectacular sunset over the Kampot River and the distant Mt Bokor, not before some of the more heinous sins were duly punished, odd how there seem to be more when away from home…