The (relatively) quiet forests and gardens of Godavari are best at this season -- flowers, little undergrowth and few leeches. We were specially blessed with badly needed peace on this run due to three causes.

1. Mouth Organ, who had originally threatened to help set the run, went off to the airport to meet his brother. This is NOT an acceptable excuse, but we appreciated the lower noise level.

2. Grumblewald finally shut up. (See below.)

3. Towed, Tadpole and Duckbill were off trekking in Langtang. We missed Duckbill.

The run consisted of creative variations on a Fox original. We went left from the gate and up the road to check 1 by the Nau Dhara Temple. Keeled Over headed east on the usual route, while the rest continued up the road. A little help from Emily finally got Rotter onto paper which took us behind the temple, through the Department of (no) Mines property, and the back of the plant distillation works. A loop through some scrub brought us to the road and check 2 at the gate of the distillation property.

In proper hash fashion, to the mutts' dismay, the hares took the trail through a few fences to get us to holding check 3 behind the herbarium. They then took us on the traditional trail up to the ICIMOD experimental farm and check 4. Again they followed the route through the farm to the trail leading to Kani Gaon, and almost reached the village. We appreciated the cancellation of that part of the run. Instead we looped left to check 5. Paper continued downhill, past the Tibetan Monasteryand right to Panch Dhara temple. We continued left past the pond and across the stream, through several interesting picnics. Holding check 6 found is in the Botanical Gardens. The more dedicated runners followed paper uphill to check 7, before dropping back to the garden's back entrance, and uphill to the chariots. The more intelligent simply followed the walkers' paper through the garden.

The circle formed under a tree and various down-downs were handed out:

• New Shoes: Herbert
• Disrespect: Reidar
• Hash Crash: Chris, Emily
• Picture Manipulation: Rotter (Note Bog Trotter's T-shirt in the run 1269 report.)
• Trumped up Charges: Rani and Couching Potato who also had her hash name reconfirmed

The day's main culprit, and receiver of the coveted HASHIT, is Mr. Grumblewald. He had to drink from an ordinary mug because Bendy Toes has not returned the trophy. BT will pay for his sins once his digestive system is good enough to handle five down-downs in a row.

Back to Grumblewald. Hash Intelligence (?) had learned, and amazingly remembered, that today is the Grumblewald 34th wedding anniversary. Grumblewald forgot. Silence. Head scratching. Checking of the date. Calculations of son Mike's age. Grumblewald downed the beer, not even checking to see what brand it was, and slinked off to the local plant nursery to buy a potted plant. He owes a BIG FAVOUR, to be paid in setting 10 hashes, to the Hash Management for saving his domestic life.

Postscript from Keeled Over

An unwashed band of hungry hashers joined Mr and Mrs Grumblewald at the Godavari Resort to celebrate the auspicious occasion of their thirty-fourth wedding anniversary. Grumble's sheepish expression wore off as he downed a few more beers. The peppered steaks and strawberry cake were delicious. The only slightly jarring note came when Grumble generously said he'd pick up the tab and a few of the more motley hashers expressed their regrets that they hadn't chosen more expensive dishes from the menu! A good time was had by all.

Keeled

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