Hashes

I started Hashing in 1984 with the Nassau Hash, Bahamas and followed that with the Freetown Hash, Sierra Leone in early 1988, where the highlight was ‘That Dam Run’, a run from the Dam down to the coast and No 2 Beach. I then hashed with the Seoul Hash, where the annual bash was a black tie event but with shorts and trainers, and the main entertainment two ZZ Top look alikes serenading the all male committee as they danced in tights and tutus with red roses between their teeth, hmmm.

I introduced So Young to hashing with the Accra Hash in 1989/90 and again when we returned to Accra in 1994. We set some runs and hosted a couple of bashes at our house. We then joined the embryonic St Petersburg Hash upon moving to Russia in 1995, where I started a Hash Sheet and coined the phrase: ‘The St Petersburg Hash - the only thing in Russia you don’t have to queue for!‘.

From St Petersburg, we moved to Singapore where we joined the Lion City Hash running each Friday evening. This is a fairly large hash with a pack nearing a hundred on occasions. It is also surprising how much bush and shiggy can be found in a relatively built up island. We were on the Committee that organised the 1997 Annual Bash, ‘A Day at the Races’. We also ran the Vientiane Bush Hash during a trip to Laos in 1998.

In 2000 shortly after the Hobart InterHash we moved on again, this time to Vietnam where we joined the Saigon Hash running in some great countryside around the city, and also with Hash weekends including a weekend at Phan Thiet on the coast north east of Saigon. The Saigon Hash attended the Indochina Mekong 2000 Hash in Phnom Penh in November 2000, the same weekend as the annual water festival when the flow of water down the Ton Le Sap river from the Ton Le Sap lake to the Mekong reverses direction and starts to refill the lake.

After Saigon we joined the Madrid Hash, where I managed a spell as Religious Adviser as well as being the Hash Dray for a couple of years. It was here I authored the Hash song ‘Living Next Door to Foggy (Who the **** is Foggy?)’. During our time in Madrid we managed to run at the Cardiff 2004 InterHash and I made two long weekend forays to Chiang Mai in Thailand for the 2006 InterHash and Vientiane in Laos for the 2005 IndoChina Mekong InterHash.

Having run the 2008 Perth InterHash and made several visits to Spain to run in Mijas, Madrid and Javea, we are now back in Singapore and running with Lion City again.