A biggish crowd was waiting in front of the Caravelle for the start of The Saigon Hash Eighteenth Birthday Run. It quickly became apparent that the two buses weren’t going to be enough and Mrs Nghia, the official SH3 Bus lady, rounded up a couple of taxis post-haste.

On arrival at the run site just off the Tri An Dam Road, Hare Two Dicks gave a remarkably lucid description of the run, with co-Hare Paddy Fag backing him up with a quick tutorial on Hashing for the assembled throng. The Hares promised a well-laid, scenic and fairly long run. Having being lulled into a false sense of security, the pack set off in search of paper without the slightest suspicion that disaster was looming. Poor bastards.

The pack hadn’t traveled much more than a hundred metres before hitting the first check. Doggy Style explained that the Hares wanted to keep the pack together at the start of the run. [Hint to the Hares: at the start of the run, the pack is already together. - Ed.]

The run continued flawlessly - or almost so - for most of the run. The trail was well-marked and there were plenty of checks to keep every one together. The Hares were quite cunning in general, with lots of unpredictable changes in direction that caught several of the more experienced Hashers out (including your Scribe). Adding to the fun were the numerous hills, something that we don’t get much of on typical Saigon Hash runs.

My mobile phone rang. It was Sheep Sub: "Help, we’re lost and we don’t know where we are or where to go and we can’t find the walkers and I fell down and skinned my knee and my hair is a mess and ...". I quickly passed the phone on to Two Dicks who, after Sheep Sub finished her rant, took off back along the trail with Paddy Fag to rescue the lost lambs. This vital mission succeeded although not without a few hitches.

It was around about the nine kilometre mark that the smiles began to fade from the faces of the hounds. We were still in a valley with no end to the run in sight. We still had a ways to go just to reach the base of the ridge where the beer was waiting for us. Girding our collective loins, gathering our last remaining energy, the pack finally reached the road at the top. Another couple of hundred metres and we were at the finish.

No bus. No beer. Doggy Style, in a burst of intellect, screwed up his beetle brows and said, "Hmmm... That's odd. The bus isn’t here." A veritable fountain of perspicacity. "Maybe it’s at the place where we had the circle that last time we were here." With that, the more energetic/thirstier members of the pack set off up the road in search of beer. It was just another kilometer up the road before we reached the bus, with ice blocks, ice chests and beer laid out.

We sent one of the buses back to fetch the poor souls unable to travel the final stretch unaided. The walkers arrived minutes afterwards along with the heroic Two Dicks with his errant charges. [Never mind that it was he who told them earlier in the run, "Wait here and the walkers will catch up to you." - Ed.]

The superb organization of this run continued when His Obesity Paddy Fag, our revered GM, attempted to start the Hash Circle while the assorted hounds were still engaged in what looked like a feeding frenzy over the t-shirts. After a few minutes, some semblance of order appeared and the circle started. Pencil Dick called up the Hares for their just desserts, but thanks to rather generous run and walk reports from Dave and Ellen and short memories on the part of the Hash Circle they got off very lightly. Two Dicks filled in for our absent RA and introduced roughly thirty virgins and visitors to the Saigon Hash. Awards went to General Erection (for his work above and beyond the call of duty in organizing sleaze tours for visiting Hashers or something - nobody seemed too sure) and Two Dicks (75 runs). The Seppos were punished for something to do with the US election, although all present agreed that Peckerhead would make a fine replacement for Bush. The Vietnamese male Hashers were called up for not deporting the rest of the Poms along with Gary Glitter. As usual, the rest of the circle misted out in a blur of Zorok, but we eventually bundled ourselves into the buses for the trip home.

Ahhhh... but the Hares hadn’t finished with us yet. It seems that none of them knew where the On-On was because they were too slack to organize it themselves, instead prevailing on the absent Mighty Quinn to do it for them. Naturally, none of them had the address. Fortunately, a quick call to MQ sorted that one out. [Woofter, come back! All is forgiven! - Ed.]

A great dinner was followed by a presentation to Miss Trang, the representative for Operation Smile. Between Hash Cash and the generosity of those who attended the Hash, we raised over 14 million dong for a very deserving charity.

On On!
Pencil Dick
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