VTH3 run #591

SUNDAY, 25 AUGUST 2013
Long Son island – “old man of Long Son” rocks

There was room enough to swing a cat on the bus this week, for a change – at least partly owing to the temporary defection of our team of “Vung Tau Raiders” to help older brothers and sisters of Saigon Hash celebrate their 1200th run and 23rd birthday.  More about that later!

The bus pulled up at the familiar “pump house” on the far side of Long Son island, next to the lake.  A run brief by “duty Hare and everything else combined” Falcon, and it was On On! across the fields, goat tracks and fences to the “old man of Long Son” rocks (a stone statue depicting “Ong Tran”, the first settler of Long Son).

Around the sawmill and then gradually up, up to the top of the island’s third mountain and yet another change of scenery to delight the senses – particularly as it had turned into such a lovely day after an early torrential downpour.

Then the long trek back to the pump house by the lake for “Hash business” and some delicious Russian bread, pork and salami courtesy of Mountain Goat, washed down by (mostly) amber nectar courtesy of our generous sponsor San Miguel.

It was at this point that Duty Hare Falcon transmogrified (look it up!) into Duty Ringmaster and donned “the silly hat that lives in the blue bucket all week and only comes up for air on Sundays…”.

The trail was rated 8 out of 10 by Darryl, who was clearly trying to impress his “tour group of virgins” (Hash virgins, that is…).  And sure enough, Clive, Helen and Cuc were next in line for recognition and the usual welcome.

And then it was time to give Robert a new name (let’s face it, calling someone “Romanian Robert” gets boring after a while).  But eschewing the obvious work-related choices of “Paint Job” or “Paint Ball”, he will henceforth be known as Mowgli (the feral child from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book stories who was raised by a pack of wolves and possessed extraordinary hunting and tracking skills).  Well, they got the “feral child” part right…

The usual band of sinners were punished for the usual sins - including Blinton for his extended leave of absence (and he’s lucky he wasn’t running with Saigon Hash this week or he’d have been severely “iced” for Down Down’ing with his right hand!).  In VTH3, we don’t care which hand you use because most of us are ambidexterous (OK, I lie – so what?);  and we don’t ice anyone
because we can’t afford to buy dirty great chunks of frozen water and transport them around all the mountains!

Next week’s run on Big Mountain also rated a mention at the Circle – which brings us back full circle (groan…) to our opening paragraph about “the Vung Tau Raiders”.  Truth to tell, the “raiding party” that helped SH3 celebrate their 1200 runs and 23rd birthday drank so much of their beer that they’ve decided to return the compliment by visiting us next Sunday and drinking all our
beer!

So the challenge has been made – the gloves are off and the gauntlet has been thrown well and truly into the circle (double groan!).  So join us next Sunday as we take our brothers and sisters from Saigon Hash for some sightseeing around the mountains (Big Mountain, that is…) and then
help them drink our beer!

More details in the www.vungtauhash.com “Next Run” box today, and Hashflyer_592 midweek.

VTH3 #591 photo gallery>>>