Proving, as did last week’s Hares, that it is possible to use the same trails time after time yet still set an interesting run, Griot & Co managed to cover a lot of familiar territory with yet another combination of checks. It was also a case of almost as many mutts as hashers this week, with the Hares providing four and the Pack providing four – Griot bringing a couple of his monsters and Loverboy the usual two, countered by Lao Lover and his Lover bringing two of Balu’s cuddly little pups as well as Tesch (all in one taxi!) and last but by no means least, the balding Duckbill.

With the road now paved all the way to the school everyone had a comfortable ride there and it was a surprisingly large turnout, given the time of year. The Hares announced a number of checks whilst The Fox was spotted in the background explaining to Fast Forward exactly where his run was going to go. Griot also announced that he was operating the three blobs principle but seems to have got confused, as he put Xs at the end of his false trails anyway and most had more than three blobs of paper on them.

First paper was back along the road towards the ring road, with a caution that if you made it to the ring road then you’d gone too far. The direction in which to turn off was not specified so The Fox, trusting to his unerring instinct for the wrong trail (and also not wanting to go too far), misled Fast Forward, Towed and the Sherps off on the first trail heading north. The pack were seen heading on down the road and, given the eventual silence that materialised, the errant few decided they needed to rejoin the rest and headed back for the road.

The first check seemed to be down in the bottom of the valley below Sitapaila broadswards with the trail then heading straight up the hill on the other side to a back check a little way along the road. At this stage we (The Fox, Fast Forward and Towed) were still well behind the pack (goodness knows where the Sherps had got to – last seen still heading north!) and relying heavily on local guidance that eventually saw us eventually catch sight of the Pack down by the Manamati Khola and finally catch up with them at a Holding Check at a little temple just below the road.

From here we headed west along the road, via a rather convoluted check and eventually back north, dropping down some slippery trails to a rusty girder bridge across the river before climbing to a familiar Holding Check on the grass track near to the Ramkot On-In site. Although there were a couple of false trails off this check, one had already been discovered by the errant Fox and it was left to Towed to find the second, with the pack being guided off even further west. From here it was north across the road and then a gentle run back in to the On-In.

Walkers were already back by the time the first of the runners returned and pretty soon everyone was safely back to the beer. Returning GM Rotter had to decline the offer of running the circle on the basis that he was unable to shout. His foreswearing of alcohol was soon put to the test as the dray was rapidly emptied of softees, leaving the poor old fart with the choice of beer, beer or water. Towed drew the short straw as stand in GM and was soon suffering the kind of abuse that Rotter has learned from him over the years.
The Hares were eventually called in once Towed got things vaguely organised. There were surprisingly few comments on the qualities of the run and, from a starting price of 1.1, bids had soon reached a plausible 9.9.
The sole Virgin this week was the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Koizumi, who has come to Nepal to manage the peace and was brought, inevitably, by Moosette and Yoshi.

Other down-downs were awarded to:

And finally, in the absence of any other worthwhile candidates, the Hashit was awarded to Lazy Towed, nominated by Griot and seconded by The Fox, for being well behaved or something similar. Had the mug not already been filled with beer, it should certainly have gone to Keeled for his sins the previous week.

Thanks to Mrs Rotter for the hash catering which now seems to include the luxury of tuna dip every week (we should be able to afford this now with the Rs100 softs subscription, but if not I'll skin the softees for another Rs 50 - GM), and to the Hares for a dubiously different run.