It's Saturday and time for another of VV's fabulous "French Connection" runs with the Pattaya Jungle Monkey H3. A motley group of about 40 hashers have arrived at the A site, thanks to a collection of baht buses, and private vehicles, as Johnny tra la la and his Disco Bus is not available due to a previous commitment.
The GM calls for a group photo and then welcomes all virgins and visitors. Now the hares address the circle in their limited English, and inform us about today's run which consists of 3 sections, 8klm then 7klm and 3klm to finish it off. Having both hands free, I'm able to add up the distances on my fingers but realize I can only go to 10 so ET steps in and assists me with the rest. 18 fucking kilometers is the total I arrive at. Bloody sadistic hares.
The run begins and we've only gone about 200 metres before we encounter cattle and our first shiggy. What else have the French boys got in store for us today?
The pack works its way past the cattle, through the swamp and on to the edge of a disused quarry, where the thoughtful hares have provided a rope to assist with the abseiling down the 20metre drop into the quarry.
It was here that ET and myself decided it was way too dangerous for old farts like ourselves and that discretion is the better part of valour, so we continued on around the rim of the quarry and used the access road to get down into the quarry. By the time we had done that and got to the centre of the quarry, the pack had disappeared and we weren't to see them or hear them again until we arrived at the 2nd drink stop, much later in the day.
ET and I then followed the trail which took us down into a creek bed, then out of the creek, through some cassava, back into the creek again, then into another adjoining creek, out into a pineapple field, back into the creek, along the creek, out of the creek, more cassava, back into the creek, along the creek until finally we leave the creek, for what was to be the last time, and then we start to climb. The trail takes us around fields, through some more fields, with a few well disguised loops thrown in, until we finally arrive at the 1st drink stop in just on 2hrs 30mins.
I must mention here about the consideration shown by the hares in having us run the gauntlet past the wild angry bush bees, all within sight of the drink stop. I tried my best to bypass them without incident but failed miserably as they attacked me incessantly.
Having availed ourselves of a myriad of nourishment, namely bananas, watermelon, chocolate, crisps and a can of coke and bottled water, we then decided to accept the hares offer of a ride on the beer truck to the next drink stop, thereby forgoing the next 7klm section of the run. We arrived at the designated area for the drink stop just in time to see the FRB's approaching.
After consumption of the necessary and vital life saving fluids, it was ON ON for the last 3klm of the run. The pack of FRB's took off, with us old farts bringing up the rear.
It was on this section that ET decided, not to be outdone by my brush with some wild bees in the previous section of the run, that he would also antagonize a swarm of the aforementioned wild bees and he also ultimately paid the price. A little further on and as I was having trouble controlling my laughter about ET's bee episode, I lost my footing and did my own very good impression of a swan dive. I didn't see the funny side but ET sure did.
Not long after, we arrived at the C site to find most of the pack enjoying themselves, while a few had decided to take a dip in the nearby man made lake and thereby contaminate the local village's water supply.
All in all, a good, long, hard run that you come to expect when VV is involved.
A big thank you must go to the 4 hares, Dirty Pussy, Indiana John, Casanova and of course, VV.
On On
Dizzy
