“So, let me get this straight” said the Indian security guard with a look of – what was it? – benevolent bemusement upon his face at the sight of the sweat-dripping, caked-in-mud, heaving mess of a crazy man standing before him.

“Your name is Alex. You’re from Canada, but you live in South Korea. Yesterday you came to Kuala Lumpur to start your winter holiday. This afternoon you met a group of strange men you’ve never seen before and proceeded to come with them 45 minutes to the outskirts of town. Then you all ran through the jungle, at which point you lost everyone. You have no food, water, cell phone, keys, money, way to contact anybody and your bag with everything in it is in the back of some guy’s truck somewhere in the vicinity of this mountain, you hope, but you’re not sure exactly where.”

Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

Thankfully, he saw fit to skip the parts where I had managed to let a group of mostly pot-bellied, middle-aged Malaysians run away from me, got off on the wrong trail, and, stricken with the fear, began to seriously contemplate spending the night alone in the jungle while I laboured breathing that bordered on hyperventilation…

Just another Monday evening with the Kuala Lumpur Mother Hash. “On-on” indeed.

Hash House Harriers History

The story of the Hash House Harriers – a “running club with a drinking problem” (or perhaps “drinking club with a running problem” is more apt, depending on which chapter you’re hashing with) dates back to 1938, with its origins stretching all the way back to mid-19th century Britain. There, the popular running games “Paper Chase” and “Hare and Hounds” took root. While “Paper Chase” was predominantly a children’s game that involved following a set trail over cross-country terrain, “Hare and Hounds” groups were aimed towards adults and stressed fitness and race preparation. As the name indicates, the spirit of the club came from hunting, as hunters often used dogs to help chase down rabbits.

Participants of the Lima Hash House Harriers crossing a log bridge in Lunahuaná.

Several “Hare and Hounds” groups already existed in the Federated Malay States (modern-day Malaysia) by the mid-1930’s, in cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Johor Baru, Georgetown and Malacca. Then, in 1938, several British civil servants and businessmen in Kuala Lumpur created an offshoot group that combined “Paper Chase” with “Hare and Hounds,” one that placed decidedly less emphasis on the physical fitness aspects of the activity and more on the social side.

The brainchild of A.S. Gispert, Cecil Lee, Frederick “Horse” Thomson, Ronald “Torch” Bennett, John Woodrow and H.M. Doig, the club took its name from the local Selangor Club Chambers, where the members lived, socialized and ate. Affectionately derided as the “Hash House” for its bland and uninspired cuisine, the new group was called the “Hash House Harriers.”

By 15 August 1941 the group had completed 117 runs, but operations were suspended while the Japanese occupied the Federated Malay States during WWII. The next run was not to take place until August 1946, by which time political tensions had created an atmosphere that made the runs increasingly more difficult to conduct. In fact, in 1950 the Kuala Lumpur city authorities declared that all groups must formally register and have a charter, which was drawn up in typical good humour and embodied the soul of the HHH:

To promote physical fitness amongst its members

To get rid of weekend hangovers

To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it with beer

To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel

The first branch club opened in 1947 in Bordighera, Italy (close to Milan), but lax record keeping and an official folding in the early 1960’s led many to believe that the second hash (known as the “Father Hash”) began in Singapore. By 1965 there were 10 clubs mostly around South-East Asia, and by the mid-70’s there were almost 50 clubs across 14 countries. Multiplying like rabbits over the ensuing decades, today there are upwards of 2000 active clubs running in nearly every country on earth – there are even two chartered clubs in Antarctica.

The first Red Dress Hash in South America, held in Chaclacayo, near Lima, Peru.

The typical trail is anywhere from 7-12 km in length, but as with all hash clubs this is just an approximation as everything varies from group to group. Marked with paper, chalk, flour, sawdust, spray paint etc., runs can take place across an array of terrains and in any weather conditions, from downpours in urban city streets to jungles, mountains, rice paddies and everything in between. While some trails are set “live,” with a “hare” heading off 10-15 minutes ahead of the pack to set the course, others are set “dead” well ahead of time. Several “checkpoints” along the way snake off in all directions, with a handful of false trails leading runners astray and one true trail continuing along the correct path. The idea is to give the “hare” in live runs a chance to stay ahead, to give stragglers in the back an opportunity to catch up and, of course, to give inexperienced runners a chance to get completely lost.

At least that’s how it felt when I looked up from tying my shoe at a checkpoint to see that the runners that had seemed so close to me had vanished.

Back to my run

As the familiar calls of “on-on!” and the call of the blaring horn began to fade from up ahead, I put my trust, as I had been strongly advised, in “following the paper.” I followed this mantra admirably, but unfortunately no one saw fit to mention that several different hash groups existed in Kuala Lumpur and that one of them had recently conducted their own run through the very same jungle, with their course coming perilously close to ours at one junction.

Panda Hash House Harriers on a ‘run’ near Chengdu, China.

So as daylight descended and dusk drew near, I found myself “following the paper” as my eyes continued to fight to adjust to the diminishing light. After 5-10 minutes, the calls and the horn had dissipated entirely and I bent over to pick up one of the pieces of paper marking the trail I was on. It read “G7 Hash,” and I recognized the name and the symbol were completely different from the one I’d been following up to that point.

Shit.

As my breathing grew more rapid and shallow and my frantic cries of “on call!” elicited no response, three thoughts entered my head: just follow this trail, even if it is for another group it will lead you out eventually; that was an idiotic first thought, if this is just the beginning of the other trail instead of the end you might be headed back in to the jungle, so just sit down and wait for someone to find you; they weren’t joking with me when they said they’d lost two guests before.

I thought the kindly British expat, who worked for oil giant Petronas and had driven me out to the run, had been putting me on when he said that two runners who had decided to take on the Mother Hash had ended up spending more time in the jungle than they’d cared to. One was found at 3 am and was surprisingly calm about it, while the other came out at 7 or 8 am the next morning and was none-too-pleased. The serious look on his face while he recalled these stories put me off a little, but it didn’t really hit home that he was serious until I saw the assembled runners and their GPS devices, trail running shoes, high socks, bottles of water and other supplies that seemed more fit for a few days with Bear Grylls than a leisurely jog. No matter, I thought. Just stick with the group and you’ll be fine.

But even this was too much to ask apparently, and it was not without a significant sigh of relief that I stumbled out of the forest and onto the side of a steep hill just after 8 p.m., approximately 2 minutes before total darkness set in. So I’d gotten myself out…now all that was left to do was find everyone else.

It was then that I met the Indian security guard who, to his credit, saw through the highly improbable story and realized I actually needed some help (I’m guessing the look of utter defeat etched on my face combined with my ghastly appearance did the trick). So he called his Chinese manager – who of course spoke perfect, fluent English – and at that moment my brain finally began to function again as I remembered that several members had their mobile phone numbers listed on the group website. So he looked up the site on his smart phone, called the gentleman who had brought me, and approximately 45 seconds later he came around the corner to pick me up.

“What the hell did you go and do that for? We were just over there.”

The post-run circle, a staple of the social side of Hash House Harriers groups everywhere, was already well under way, and the reward for my harrowing experience was an immediate good-natured chiding of “Where the fuck have you been?!?!” and a few consecutive down-downs, where I had to finish a frosty adult beverage in one go or risk pouring the remaining contents of the cup onto my head. Other members were subsequently called up by their ridiculously lewd hash names – which are earned for notorious episodes or physical/personality traits (or sometimes simply after completing a set number of runs) – and recognized or chastised for a number of feats or offenses both real and (more likely) imagined in the same way, with more down-downs and drinking songs.

By the time I’d finally calmed down (and had taken a shower with cold water and shampoo, having decided to throw all of my clothes, socks and shoes into the jungle and do the next 25 days on the road with only a pair of flip-flops) it was time for the on-after, a huge cookout of incredible homemade Chinese food. And as people sat around, eating, talking, laughing and drinking, the only thing I could think about was just how alive I truly felt.

How to get involved in the Hash House Harriers

No idea how to start hashing? Nervous that you’re not fit enough? Not to worry. There’s information everywhere and clubs for everyone. Your best bet is a quick Google search, as websites, newsletters and magazines with hash news are in abundance. Many major international cities have at least one chapter, with many having several. There are men’s groups, women’s groups, coed groups, even runs for kids and families. Every Hash House Harriers club has their own style, with some focused more on running and others on the social aspect. Just look one up, or talk to someone, and jump right in.

Photos courtesy of Flickr, dani920; Auswandern Malaysia; and Wikimedia Commons, Jair Zuta La Rosa