Venue : Ladang Sungei Berenang
Hare : Adam Armstrong
Co-Hare : Jimmy Leggett
Scribe : Yves Boudart
I started that run with a grumpy frown on my face
I was late, it was 16.42 and having accepted the scribbling task from my beloved wife Pascale who was passed the assignment like a hot potato by Magda under the suspicious reason that she was co-hare again… The hare Adam Armstrong being a good friend of mine, I nevertheless accepted delightedly the task! Even though my mother language is French, Sacrebleu (I hope the purists of the Shakespeare fan club will forgive my abuses of their favorite expression media).
Why the grumpy attitude… Flashback: the weather was hazy since early morning, and thus the weather stuffier than usual. When I started off, after having unsuccessfully tried to transfer the itinerary on my beloved Palm pilot and and lost a few minutes scribbling the lines on a chunk of paper, I realized that the indications where rather lame… How on earth was I going to get there? Fortunately, Raphael my italo-belgian friend has been apparently doing consultancy things in the most secluded rubber plantations on this side of earth, and he yelled a triumphant: NO PROBLEMO when I exposed him the situation. He is not that useless after all. Situation nevertheless got worse when I arrived at the entrance toll on the NS Highway, realsing that I had forgotten that bloody T&G card at home: 10 more minutes lost. On the pretty boring way towards Ladang Sungei Berenang, Hope hit me back when I overtook Ramlee and his fierce tigerish wagon: we were on the right track. Eventually, at the run site, a forsaken football field in the middle of nowhere, I met with a tribe of Belgo-Italo-Iranian friends of mine who needed my sponsorship to be part of the run. That explains why there is absolutely no mentions of the pre-run gathering and why also I did not see the “Honking” King given the start signal at 4.30.
However, my grumpy face started to smoothen a little from the beginning: the first set of terrain was a nursery for palm oil trees, which grooves seemed to have been hoed with an oil rig. So I waited for the my tribe of Irano-Belgo-Italian friends who started to apprehend the first obstacle asking me if they should have brought ropes for the sports event. We then ran down a gentle slope on a broad muddy road in the middle of the plantation until we reached a rather interesting geological formation. It could be seen as counter nature spawn of a muddy stream and steep arroyos in the midst of full grown (this detail is of importance!) palm oil trees. I again waited for the tribe of Italo-Irano-Belgians to help them in this new obstacle, while wondering of the woman nature: why where most of the hashing women surrounding me behaving in mud as if they were on expensive latest fashion Milanese high heels??? My waiting was fruitless because of the “Honking” King who led them through an infamously easy short cut on the road winding along the side the forest. I take to opportunity to phrase out loud: where had he spent the last 20 minutes???
We got out of the arroyos, came back on the side road for a while before penetrating again the palm trees for a while, swiftly followed by the acrid smell so characteristic of my armpits the morning following a heavy booze evening or a rubber tree plantation. Trail went up for a while, then down again in palm oil trees of respectable size (detail of equal importance as previous one) until I reached what was apparently the third check point. I do not know who broke it, because I was panting with a 2 feet long tongue, trying to catch my breath lost what seemed like ages ago. The trail pursued down a gently sandy bedded river. I noticed that some of the previously mentioned multicultural tribe decided to take their chance on a up-river short cut. Despite the fact that they were under my responsibility, I did not give a damn and pursued the papers, trying still to recover and keep up with my wife: I will accept a down down for this irresponsible act.
We got out of this sluggish stream in what I can only describe as a forgotten golf course: par 4 like gentle hills, unnaturally round depressions, and even a long forgotten cottage looking like a club house. The grass was just too long to be disqualified as fairway, but just… After this strange fantasy sight, we entered the only portion of jungle bash of the run. Let me put it bluntly, I have seen better jungle before.
We emerged from this tiny patch of primal (but now defiled by the dung of Alex’s dogs dungs) forest on a gentle upward sloping mud road that lead to the most incredible aberration I have been granted to see in one year of Hashing: here was my vision… The valley looked like a scar in a thick patch of middle sized (detail of importance) palm oil trees, showing the usual red soil. At one end stood an isolated mansion under construction that was facing a beautifully mountain shaped hill. There were poles and wires in some places going up hill, and with snow added to the picture, we could have been in a cute swiss ski resort… Fortunately, no snow canons were in sight, so this place is probably the fruit of a fully misanthropic mind, who doesn’t like middle sized palm oil trees surrounding his secluded house.
We then followed the road down hill for a while until I started to climb steeply for sometime. Long enough for me to realize that I was, for the first time in my life, surrounded by Yoda sized (first image that popped in my sick brains of these squat greenish and scaly cylinders, who where just no saying “long this slope still is”) palm oil trees. Reaching the top, we heard in the distance fellow hashers “are you-ing” in the distance and we thought for a while that we had catch up with the front of the pack. We were simply too optimistic, when deciding not to short cut, we followed papers on what I can only recall as my only experience of climbing vertical 20 meter high banana tree ladder. Botanical note # 124: young banana trees are too fragile to sustain a group of 40 hashers in a row.
We emerged all muddy, scarred and scared at the top of the cliff to realize that half the people had gently followed the winding road that had taken them to the same place without efforts, risks, and fun… Too bad for them!
Then came a rubber plantation again, with the most interesting features: chiseled stair cases joining levels of trees to ease the works of the workers I guess. I can also imagine their hurt feelings on Sunday morning after a night in the jungle, hoping to gently pat these delicate works of soily architecture, but to realize that generations of patient work had been eroded by a few minutes of trampling of a horde of thirsty hashers. In other words, these gentle stairs had turned out to toboggans by the time we passed them…
Run ended a few moments later on the other side of the football field, after a new slope in middle-middle sized palm oil trees.
A few beers and bretzels later, “Honking” King proved us that he could stand 45 minutes on the ice without more comments than a few fidgeting: what a proof of resilience!
The On-On took place in Kajang, on the road that was taking us back to the NS Highway. There was nothing really noteworthy about this On-On, expect the fact that Jimmy had showed his sign boards “Think Medal” again. I fruitlessly voted for the medal, for all the good fun this original run brought me that day. One last comment: I deeply appreciated the botanical lessons which tought me a lot about palm trees and their various sizes!
On-On Adam!
Yves BOUDART