Another Lost Souls WriteUp

^CHECKBACK  RUN #1199 24th June, 2000
Hare: Ed Rubesch
Co-Hares: Brian Pope, Randell Burke, Dave Parks
Runsite: Downtown

You want to know what a good run is? Let me tell you. It's a run that "I can get to in 15 minutes in the air conditioned comfort of the sky" train. It's a run that continues on the skytrain for two whole stops before - get ready for it - dumping us out onto the street - unprotected, mind you - in the pouring rain. I was about to reconsider this. Running through the Sois north of Sukhumvit? The haunts of the august cabal of the highly venerated (loosely termed the old farts). Of course I could not reconsider because we were admonished by the hare - yes, admonished, something not often done on the Bangkok Hash I must say considering the widely known resistance on the part of hasher to this activity on the part of the hares. And what was this admonishment? We had to find things and different places throughout the run. A treasure hunt? Like what? Easter eggs? A hoe (or maybe two on Soi Cowboy, but I get ahead of myself!). AND, AND, mind you, our hare says, if we don't return with ALL of the said objects (whatever they are) we're to pay for dinner. 500 baht!!!! Well, Ed, since you put it that way, I will, with gusto, depart this shelter of the Phrom Phong skytrain station and begin the search for said articles.

Off we went up Soi 35 or something. I saw chalk once. And I saw a melting blob of flour. Well, it looked as if it could have been flour. It could have been bat guano too. It was hard to tell and I was not going to act like some TV cop and taste it to be sure. If flour can look bedraggled, this flour did. It looked about as bedraggled as the.pack itself. Naturally, with so few marking left, the pack was promptly lost, though how one can get lost within a block of Sukhumvit is quite beyond me. But there's the Bug standing there in the middle of the street holding up traffic, yelling out 'Which way is Sukhumvit?!!!??' The drivers, of course, are not about to honk or get out of their cars before this apparition. No they're writing memos to their MPs about stricter controls on immigration. It's one thing to have elephants in the streets, but a bellowing Bug is, well, quite simply the last straw. It might, however, be dangerous to annoy him by honking the horn. So they wait until some other hasher gets the Bug out of the line of fire by saying, 'It's down that way!', as we all head towards Soi 33 and the Post-Impressionists.

Suddenly, with no marks at all, after waving to all the bored bargirls who swore it was the first time they'd ever seen Snowy out of suit. In fact, they didn't recognize him at first until other hashers stopped to explain that while the highlv venerated (you remember them) were busy showing off their athletic prowess right now, they might be back later in the evening, never fear, it's just more aberrant behaviour that typifies the fareng here.

The upshot of all this? We were back on Sukhumvit again and heading down the stairs to the Londoner pub. How this was discovered and by whom, I have no idea. I was, as usual, at the back of the pack, keeping Bushman on track and out of the bars ('There's a Sunday hasher who works at this one. In there is someone I know. I'll just be a moment. Yeah, right, Bushman.) We had a half pint of the Londoner's home brew. No, no. Not shared. A half pint each! For some, this home brew was just too much! It didn't have the tasty additives of a Singha Gold, for example. Which meant there were several half pints left. For the fabled dipsomaniac who shall remain nameless (you know who you are - all of you), this proved to be entirely too much temptation which resulted in lingering (or malingering) by the bar instead of getting one's little tag ('If found lying in the street please return this body to the Londoner Pub!' or words to that effect) and taking off to look for the trail again.

Off we went, over to Narcissus. (The Bug: 'Is this a gay bar?') and from there over to Jungle Jim's on Cowboy, rumoured to be the next stop by Bardick (and if anyone would know, I suppose Bardick would). Sure enough it was.

Only this time, there was beer left on the table but malingering was still occurring with some of the other software products for sale at the bar. Now, the dipsomaniacs were joined by the priapists in holding back in the completion of their rounds. The former guzzling the beer left behind by the more athletic and the latter nuzzling bargirls in the deeper recesses of. . . well, no need to go there. On ON

By this time, the pack had gotten much much smaller. Usually when there are lots of checks the pack stays together. In this case, it seemed, there were many who were, in a manner of speaking, standing on the check! Not done, lads, not done!

Through the back streets again, across Asoke and down Soi 13. Someone says, 'I understand the next stop is Frank's bar. 'Frank's bar?' says the Bug, 'Where's that?' About 50 yards away, just around the corner on Sukhumvit. 'Well. then, what are we standing around here for?' 'Looking for paper, chalk, flour. You know, hashing!' Off Rod heads for his first look at Frank's famous Tivoli bar. Now we have a tag from the Londoner, a card from Jungle Jim's and the Tivoli. What's next?

Someone says, 'You have to get a plastic cup from Cheap Charlie's.' So, after a couple of beers and some popcorn, we head down to Cheap Charlie's where Brian Pope appears to be acting as host on this occasion. We wander/stroll/roll/weave our way back to Check Inn 99 and our favourite midget at the door. A Munchkin gone bad. He waves us in through the front. We get to the door and a hostess says, 'You go out the back!' Ah, servants entrance! The midget points the way around Soi 5 and behind. Why he didn't do that as we were coming up, I have no idea. There's something perverse afoot.

Behind in the alley, past the blaring music of some old BeeGees song (how this is going to attract tourists into a buying frenzy, I'm not really sure. He must be one of those Harvard MBA grads with some experimental theory on marketing), and in amongst the gathered crowd of hashers, some already wearing their brand new black T-shirts emblazoned with 1199. Wow, beers stops, babe stops AND a T-shirt. Where will all this largesse end?

Hash music, by this time, reeling, managed to get the Harvard entrepreneur to turn the BeeGees down so that our GM could be heard. After the obligatory, hares, visitors and returners in the circle, what does our illustrious GM do? He looks a gift horse in the mouth (was it Trojan?) and calls Ed into the circle for handing out a shirt with logos from Check Inn 99, from Jeep, but not, NOT from the Bangkok Hash. He stopped short of asking for a recall. Meanwhile, Noreiga was still having his shower, as usual. Well, not so usual actually. He was instructing the girls from the balcony above to pour buckets of water down on him. The circle started into 'My Sister Belinda'. However, the girls up on the balcony did not get the hint and poured only water. A golden opportunity (as it were) missed.

>From there we retired inside to find that the largesse was not yet over. No, the meal too was on the house! Gobs and gobs of potato salad (for those weight watchers among us) as well as that leafy stuff. Ham, mustard, bread, and I don't know what else. My particular sin was, at that moment, gluttony. Indeed, it seemed to me that, throughout this afternoon, the assembled hashers had, I think, probably committed all of the seven deadly sins. And it wasn't even 8 o'clock yet.

Yes, what a day. What a run! And the night was young (notwithstanding the fact that I was not, and felt it!).