Chiang Mai Post Lube

So, Mount Hee, Bimbo and myself caught a ride up with a fellow hasher and his wife up to Chiang Mai for the Indochina post lube.
Brilliant, perhaps this will help offset my disgust at Indochina 2008 itself!
We arrived and Mount Hee and myself snagged a double bed room at a guest house for only 300 baht total. Hanging out our soaked clothes from the rain we got our hash gear on and headed over to the Number 1 Bar to catch the bus to the run start.
Well, one of the run starts. It turns out that both the standard Chiang Mai hash and the Chiang Mai H3 (original, male only) were hosting trails that day. Something about local hash politics... bleh.
Nevermind, I ponied up the remainder of my baht for the trail (700 baht for a trail? wtf?), ordered a beer and waited for the hash bus to arrive. Mount Hee did the same, then, with a miscommunication between the hash cash, ordered the largest beer at the bar, thinking it was free. It should be mentioned that as budgeted as I am (which is why the cost of hashing in Asia has been a horrible shock to me), Mount Hee is even worse. I will swing 100 baht to a meal (roughly 3 bucks) and Mount Hee is grimicing at anything over 70. It's actually a little frustrating because every half penny is getting counted and I can't be bothered with it.
Ok, on to trail.
The bus took us out into the jungles of Thailand, about a half hour trip from the center of Chiang Mai. It turned out to be a special trail because the land was owned by a man who does organic farming and he's never let the hash hold trail there before. Even better was that this was PURE jungle. Most of what we hashed through was more than likely not frequented by humans.
The hares, Liberace, Graven Image and Grease Gorilla put us through our paces with tricky checks and shredded paper dancing akimbo from tree branches, bamboo and bird nets!
Of course right off the bat trail took us across a stream and then up an embankment that must have been in the 60 degree plus range. Combined with the rain earlier that day it turned into a giant mudslide that required us hashers to pick and pull our way up by grabbing the bamboo stalks. Simply incredible and absolutely dirty!
Once we got up on the hill, trail started to follow barely discernable animal trails that were no wider than a couple inches in some places. Still using the trees and bamboo for support, we hashed our way deep into the jungle, finally taking a left and partially sliding down to the creek we had crossed before. Only this time we had lost paper and began trudging around in high grass with who knows what sliding around between our legs. Later that night Dog Shit asked if I saw the snakes... What snakes? Oh, you know, the dozens of snakes that were getting the hell out of the water whenever we went in... Nope, didn't see them...
Eventually, with the call of "On-On!" someone found trail and we sloshed our way out of the grassy fields (did I mention the briar vines entangling our legs yet?) up to a nearby road. That's when I heard a yell of "Holy shit!" behind me. Turning around, Mount Hee was yelling about the largest damn snake he had ever seen that just slid between his legs while walking down the same path that I had just walked! We all got up on the road and a short way down we found the beer stop.
After a quick brewsky, we split up-some of the hashers going on the walking trail and the rest (myself included) on the longer running trail. Liberace informed me that there was only about 1k difference between the two, but the walkers stayed on the road from here on out while us runners got more jungle.
More jungle it was! Just a little way down the road trail suddenly cut left and we were back in the bush and trees, slipping on mud and navigating our way between thorn bush A, thorn bush B and rocky drop off C. At least twice I had grabbed a tree for support, only to yelp in pain as my hand grabbed right onto the half inch long thorns of a vine creeping up the hidden side.
Then the bird nets, where Fag, Mount Hee and myself rescued a trapped sparrow (which probably was eaten by some local wildlife afterwards anyway. These nets were made of an incredibly thing black webbing that in all honesty was completely invisible in the jungle. Immediately after freeing the bird, I ducked the bird net only to run right into another one. Fortunately I wasn't tangled and backed out to catch up with the rest of the pack.
After another few minutes I was now out of the jungle and on the road, catching up with Laos hasher Condom and then Fag. Knowing we were close and not wanting to get stuck out in the rapidly approaching dark, Fag and I shortcut part of trail and slid into the On-In where beer and kebabs waited.
There was a lot of quibble about the early part of trail being poorly marked and how it was so thick in the bush, not using any proirly established trails (animals or otherwise), but after hashing in Atlanta, I felt that this trail did quite well. An impressive showing for the Men's Hash.
Circle was another deal though, with a very promising combination of ice and a frozen in ice pig's head. However, it went on forever. It was just too long and suffered from the same -same song- fate as most of Asia's other circles. Nevertheless, there was a break in the middle of circle for everyone to go get more food (where I took the opportunity to take a nap in the bus).
The evening ended with a group photo in our new shirts and an on-after at the Foxy Lady A Go Go, which is owned by Fag. First drink free.
Very cute, tiny girls, but I'm not paying to bring one home. I'm not sure where they've been and I'm sure they have been to a lot of places. With another 2-3 months left on my trip, I don't feel like dealing with fire penis. Fair enough, the next day was another post-lube with the Chiang Mai Bunny Hash.
After securing another place to stay for a few days (Mount Hee left that morning) I jogged over to the Number 1 bar and hopped on the bus for round two of hashing. This time the trip was in a completely different direction, about 45 minutes out and we landed at the home of a hasher named Bone-Her. Great house with a pool, guest house, pool table room and frog pond. It was on a huge plot of land and had roman-esque decorating everywhere. Having already paid the 250 baht for this trail (ok, this is a little better), I found out that if I wanted any food, it would be another 150 baht...
They also had shirts, but having now paid 400 for trail alone, I just didn't feel like ponying up another 250 baht. Besides, I'm running out of room in my bag.
Trail itself was pretty well done. The hares had marked everything exceedingly well, taking us up footpaths and animal paths in the hills behind Bone-Her's. However, this was an extremely well hashed area and the FRB's did a premiere job of solving every check on the first go, which left us middle folk quickly falling further back.
Then it happened, somewhere along the way one of the FRB's broke a check in the wrong direction. As Noriega, Lord Lucan and myself tried to figure it out we went all the way up a hill to a watt (thai monk monestary) where there was a statue of a huge buddha being built, and then down a road... All of a sudden we were alone, getting caught in a mix where the non-male hash had their trail the day prior. Trekking further and further down a road, following paper that turned out to not be the right trail, and eventually finding the prior day's On-In before back tracking and still getting no where. Eventually Lord Lucan decided to simply follow the road in a "generally accurate" direction and we followed to find paper about a half mile down the way.
Now back on trail we ran it in, discovering that in our confusion most of the pack had now passed us and after our arrival only about 5 or 6 other hashers had to come in.
Circle began as before, minus the pig's head. It was lively and a huge improvement, but still the same bloody song. Then we broke for food, some excellent soup and more of the kebabs from the prior night. Garlic bread too!
After eating, circle started up again with its various highs and lows. I guess the reason it went well was because they weren't afraid to pass it off to others. With about 40-50 hashers there it gave a great chance for everyone to get their various infractions in. Bonus.
At the end, we all returned to the Number 1 bar for another couple of beers before calling it a night. All in all, a good hash.
Next up, Pattaya Beach City, Thailand.