Rides no:- 149 and 150   Date:- 23/24 February 2002Location:- Grand Hotel, Hua HinHare:- George 'Of the Jungle' MorganScribe:- Peter Carlisle SATURDAY RIDE/o:p Porn and I, were off on time on that awful drive down to Hua Hin for George of the Jungle’s Ride – would George be there on time for his own ride?  Read on!/o:p Why is the road to Petchburi so bad, it just never seems to improve no matter what they do to it, does it! Matters were made worse by it being a long holiday weekend – guess who forgot about it and almost didn’t leave with enough time to make it./o:p As we’re driving through Petchburi we suddenly spot Mr. & Mrs. Hash Cash (oh, Congratulations on winning that lovely, shiny, new car from the Bangkok Post – some people have all the luck, eh Richard) coming up along side us, and so after a bit of cat and mouse trying to keep up with him I suddenly notice my car is about to croak for lack of petrol – that was a close one, I’d have never heard the end of that one from Porn./o:p The usual suspects were gathered round in the car park oiling and tinkering with their vastly superior bikes to Porn’s and mine; one of these dates we’ll also have all those shiny bits that make the bike go faster – don’t they?/o:p The GM saunters up to me and tells me with a real look of worry on that Scouse face, “Linda & Frank are not here, can you do the RA’s job” – why quiet little me. Shades of the December Ride when I was again press-ganged in to being the RA and almost got stage fright; promised myself to a better job this time./o:p Well as the masses were ready for the off, who was absent, yes Good Old George, bless ‘im. So the GM gives us a few directions (which the FRB’s completely forget, they might be fast but thick…) and we’re off./o:p Having done at least 4 Hash Rides in HH (even Porn’s done 3 there), I’m well aware that it’s a great place to visit and have a ride, but it is an extremely limited place for the Hare to set a ride – you almost always go out on one of two ways, you always go up that bloody big hill at the start (turned out to be on the Sunday ride) and you always come back along the beach (except when Chewts & Struit set it that is – old Rockey always had us on the beach). So we meandered through the backstreets of old Hua Hin, almost miss the 1st U-turn check as some one had parked their BMW on it, and worked our way in to the countryside./o:p It didn’t take long to realize that either George was being a bit frugal with the shredded stuff or that he had invented a new concept in Hashing, “the Paper-less Hash”. Now I’m colour-blind, I do not hide that, and it can be a hassle from time to time (try buying a tie to match a shirt), so I quickly came to the conclusion that that bugger George was using dust-coloured paper and I must have been riding past huge clumps of it that only I couldn’t see – how else were the people riding in front of me finding the way?/o:pPlenty of checks old Georgey, kept us guessing for quite a while, and then we were out in the country for good, riding along a lovely dirt track up & down trail (had me dreaming for a while of that bloody good Hash the month before up in Khao Yai) – quite a few fallers just ahead of me, ‘don’t break when your in the sand folks!’./o:p Maybe I should say at this point that my overwhelming memory of this Hash was that it was Hot or should that be DAMNED F-----G HOT!!! Riders were struggling along, some complaining that they were out of water – this is the Hash, that’s supposed to happen, isn’t it (?) – until finally we collapse in to (an unofficial?) drink stop. Here I noticed the wife-swapping group on the Hash (that I forced to have a down down later) – the Chewts, the Crevel - lings & the Lavoies (from swinging Soi 53 folks in case you fancy a quick ménage-a-lot)./o:p Out of the water stop and the missus was away ahead of me. Bon (Cassella’s) and I end up in a group of two (there was no wife swapping John, honest), across the North-South Thailand main road and no longer can we see anyone, papers scarce until finally we come across a couple of virgin Hashers debating whether to go up the hill “but I don’t want to, lovey”. We take them in hand (enough innuendo’s for you folks?), set off down the hill until we find the paper for them, past that lovely lagoon (boy was I scared cycling past all those Thai Anglers busy casting their lines in, I had visions of their fishing line hook snagging me shades of that Ben Stiller movie), until finally we arrive at the official drink stop./o:p A quick slurp without dismounting and off we go again./o:p Immediately after the drink stop old Georgey Boy had put a check – bloody good one, with roads in about 3 directions, trails to the beach in 2 directions and either direction along side the railway lines – it was neither of them as it turns out to be a back-check past the drink stop in to a Wat and then along the beach (that beach again folks) back to the finish. As there was no obvious paper, the GM was seen ringing Georgey and asked him which way was – South along the beach to Malaysia or North back to Hua Hin – I’m only joking GM, honest. /o:p I would have enjoyed that ride along the beach except the lovely wife, Porn, got her first puncture in over 4 years of Hashing to disprove my theory that she glides along the trails like a witch, sorry I mean a hovercraft. Porn reckoned a ‘sharp Hoi’ caused the puncture, ooow eeer misses!/o:p We were the last to get back, just as it was going dark. The masses were moaning that there was no food, and then, just like Jesus, George turned up, armed with loads of the most delicious bread ever witnessed on the Hash (bake it yourself did you George?) and fishes – oh alright, it was Tuna Sandwiches, but they were bloody good!/o:p Loads of down downs by his GM-ness and this RA, etc, etc, etc./o:p Bloody good ride, Georgey!