Rehashing Nash Hash at Araku - as it unfolds

Day 1 - 23rd Jan, '10: Sun n Sands at Vizag

Savoring in, the view from the hotel room, overlooking the beach, the pier, the speed boats from the luxury of a perched up, A/c room at Rishikonda Beach Resort at Vizag.

Run1: In true mismanagement style, the rego happened an hour late and it did take a while before the 150+ (no one knows the actual numbers) got into yellow tees. The run was laid by the Hyderabad hashers. It was a bloody run, right over some hills we could see from our resort. The trail was thorny, rocky, slippery and marked somewhat. Shreya and I stuck to the runners trail. After we had survived the first 7k or so, the trail ended at the shore. We ran towards the distant lights of the resort, in fading twilight, along the shore. Check this trail hugging the shore-line. It was awesome!

Well, if you thought the run was mismanaged, you should have seen the circle!! Can the hashers be civilized to queue-up? Yes, they do anything for Beer. So there was, this never-ending line in front of this one Beer keg! The circle was a quick one - the Malaysians were iced (they were a bunch), the hares were given down downs over the announcement of the 5am (yes, 5am) start the next morning. The theme for the pardee was 'the 60s'. People didn't party much back then, I suppose. There wasn't much of a party.

Day2 - On On to Araku...but first the 'rail check'

Rail Check - Sunday, 4am!

Wake-up call, so we could get packed to leave by 5:20, to catch the train to Araku at 6:50. Ok, so on on we went in 'booses' to the station.

We march into the railway platform like kids on a school excursion - in a single line, in pairs, in uniform, with no luggage/money, packed lunch in hand and in total nonchalance. But hey, make no mistake, we weren't kids (atleast kids have some brains) we are Hashers who don't.

Well, the plan was for the AP tourism guys to save two unreserved compartments for us. That didn’t happen and the hashers settled down (albeit noisily) in the reserved compartments. The problem was it was not reserved for us. So, when the guys with the reservations came in, there was high drama – some were elbowed, others were reasoned with, most were ‘adjusted’. All was well, till there was a railway announcement for all people without tickets to move out of that Kirandul passenger. Ha ha ha, and we stormed out of the train, making a lot of noise. The song and dance continued outside the station too, till we waited for the booses to take us to Borra caves.

Borra Caves & Run 2:

We strolled into through the Borra caves – stuffy with all the limestone, stalactites, stalagmites and the bleaching powder (to keep away the bats). After spending an hour or so in the caves, we were ready for the run, which started at 11.
The trail took us up and down the hills of Araku. The runners looped some extra, while the walkers ambled along. We climbed hills, some steep ones, crossed little streams, walked on field bunds, through a 300mt railway tunnel, along across a railway bridge, a water stop, before we climbed and climbed a never-ending uphill trail taking us to the Ananthagiri hill resort for lunch and the sacred juice.

It was a tough one for Shreya I would think – the walkers also stuck to most of the runners’ trail. She did have a lot of Tamil MH3 hashers for company. It must have been an 8k for the walkers, I took 2hrs for the 12.5k!!

The circle was very entertaining – first Hyderabad hashers Venki Charade, Obelix & Chicken shit took turns with the horn. But the honors should go to the Malaysian hasher with his ‘Engineer song’ that went “Ah-hum titty-bum titty-bum titty-bum”. Shreya was iced & given a down down with the “She’s alright” song.

A 30km drive took us all weary hashers to our Haritha hotels at Araku for some much-needed rest. We were ready to rock at dinner time – the Mr. & Miss. Nash Hash titles, the Hash skits and the party.

Day 3 – The Ball breaker
The ball breaker is a very long run in tough hash trails usually in the range of about 20kms. Jugy & Navin wanted to do a 35k as a part of the training for the Auroville marathon next month, and I decided to join them. So we ran a 15k in the valley on the road towards Orrisa border and then did the Ball breaker. The BB was about 15k or so, taking a good 2.5hrs up and down steep hills. We completed another 3.5k and back to finish our quota of 37k for the day. It sure was good time-on-feet training, nearly 5.5hrs (1:45+2:30+0:57) at the end of which I had begun to cramp.
Pick a spot in a map, land there, pick a direction and run. While we ran the first 15, I saw this hill with a patch of bare earth and wondered how it would be to run up that. In less than a couple of hours, we were actually doing just that on the ball breaker. At the end of the ordeal, I had 2 bruises, one wet and muddy right shoe to show off as trophies!!

And while I was busy with all the mileage, Mrs. Phatphatia was baptized “loan shark” at the circle (her 5th hash run). It was a Hyderabadi cusine with biryani, dahi vada, puliyogare, gongura chutney, etc, etc.

The tribal dance show replaced the Dance hash and the party, we hit the sack early after a continental dinner. We missed the recovery runs to catch the early flight out of Vizag. On On