I’ve been hearing about the Hash House Harriers for ages. “Drinkers with a running problem” is how they describe themselves. All I knew about the Harriers was that they usually had weekly runs that wrapped up with a lot of beer swillin’.
There was a group in Turkey, but I never found the motivation to check it out. There was a group in Shanghai, but I was just too lazy to make the trek across the city. And what do you know? There’s a group here in Vientiane.
Now, just to clarify, running is no longer my thing. After my sister, Katy, and I ran the Anchorage Marathon in 1999, I decided to take two weeks off from running. And I never ran again.
So I wasn’t interested in the Hash as a running group; I was more interested in the social aspect. Linda, a pre-K teacher from the Netherlands goes nearly every week, so she sent out a blanket invitation shortly after we all arrived in August. I wanted to join, but the stress of moving, the blazing heat in Laos, and the workload at school all seemed like valid excuses to skip. Finally, on Monday, I decided to give it a whirl.
We all met at a Laos restaurant. I knew Linda and Whetu from school, and I quickly met a few of the regulars – about 20 in all. They referred to each other by their Hash names, which was a little weird at first. I mean, it’s always risky to introduce yourself to someone new, but you REALLY don’t know how to respond when you stick out your hand and say, “Hi, I’m Sharon!” and the guy says, “I’m Numb-Nuts.” Hmmm ….
We set off, following the marks on the path. A “hare” had set the route with chalk symbols, including false trails and dead ends. When walkers and runners came to a chalk X, we had to guess which way to go and look for chalk markings that indicated if we were on the right track. Fortunately the lead runners usually sorted out the route and then hollered back to the stragglers. The Hashers shouted out code words such as “RU?!” (Have you found the proper trail?) and “Checking!” (I’m still looking for the chalk marks.) and “On on!” (Yep, this is the right trail!) to help everyone stick together.
I kept up a brisk walk, chatting with the ladies, without worrying about where I was going. The trail took us into Lao villages, where kids played volleyball and shouted out “Hello!” to us. Neighbors gathered at the roadside to smile, wave and greet us with a friendly, “Sabaidee!”
The route eventually led back to the restaurant, where we stood outside in a circle for some silliness that smacked of university frat parties. Tony skipped the run but met us for dinner, so the two of us “Hash virgins” were invited to the center of the circle to introduce ourselves and down a beer. Finally, we all filed into the restaurant for dinner.
The whole concept of Hash House Harriers is just too complicated and bizarre for me to describe, but I found that the Wikipedia info pretty much matched my experience. Check it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers.
The verdict: Good times, good times! I’ll be back.