RUN NO. 2090

DATE: 2 Sept 2008
SITE: Subok 378 (Water tower)
HARES: Madmarg & sister, Paula/Gordon
HENS: 35 CHICKS: 10
FRONT HORN: Anna BACK HORN: Naj

With good weather and plenty of time on hand, I arrived on site and decided to park down the bottom of the hill because Alison was bringing the 100+ this week and I only had the bin to carry up. Heather had arrived even earlier and reluctantly taken on the role of car park attendant, making sure cars didn’t block the way for the tent truck to go up. I spotted Alison and Cheryl and walked down the hill again to help lug the 100+ and softies up. She was busy telling Cheryl tales of her brave encounter with a sun bear in Lucky Gardens – which by the way, is where you will be walking this week, so keep your eyes peeled. One of her dogs decided to try it on, making the bear rear up and growl. Then it saw Alison and her second dog and fortunately thought better of it and ran off. Plenty of time to see the huge claws at close hand though.

It was soon time to head off up the slope past the water tower and along familiar trails. After taking a left hand fork, I was just settling into a very pleasant walk along lovely trails, when I managed to spike myself on a very sharp log that was jutting out into the track – not so pleasant after all! A bit further along I spotted a bit of old paper heading left, with the fresh paper going to the right. I was just thinking the hares had failed in their duties to pick up old paper, when the two tracks converged, so it mattered not. There was one tricky bank to slither down before crossing a stream to get to a nice waterfall. There were also a few other slippery bits to negotiate across other streams, plenty of logs and trips to avoid and of course, ups and downs, but nothing major. I can remember thinking how amazingly quiet it was, except for the occasional call of ‘on – on’ heard in the distance. The track came out onto a more open ridge which I knew to be fairly close to the out. The in and the out paper converged, and a ‘way out’ sign was spotted, making sure fellow hashers didn’t head back into the jungle. But apparently, a few hashers missed seeing the sign and turned the wrong way. They were called back and all were out safely before dark. I never even heard any checking, so the front runners must have been really speedy. I hear from a good source, our friendly JM, that she was the one to find all the checks – only 2 checks this week, but Carol was very pleased with herself that she managed to find them both. She was trying for the hat trick, but none to be had.

The shout up began with Nellie being welcomed back, and the hares given their well deserved down down. We had 3 first time guests – Claire from London, who has been in Brunei for 2 years, but has only just decided to try the hash; Eva, an artist, also from London, who has only been here for 2 weeks; and Lyn from Suffolk. There were a few vocal hashers at this point, so I hope I heard the names right. All 3 elected to drink water for their down down – what is the world coming to? Or is it just the new generation of Brits going soft?

Sarah was welcomed as a new member and Nancy was also given a down down for taking her duties as hashit holder seriously and taking her new friend, the hashit hen, all the way around the hash with her – well done you for great hashit spirit. Our JM gave a serious talk about how we should all be respectful of the religious ideals associated with the month of Ramadhan .ie. love thy neighbour. Everybody was asked to go and introduce themselves to a fellow hasher they didn’t know, which resulted in a raucous few minutes of ‘hash bonding’. There were a lot of announcements: Alice saying pay up by the end of September if you want your freebies for Founder’s Day and to think about signing up for the new committee; Sarah about the 350th Kid’s Hash this Sunday (29 years of hashing, the oldest Kid’s hash in the world); Claire (Pee Wee) giving instructions for the Hillathon; Ruth (Ah Struth) asking for somebody to take over Hash Words for 3 months; Alice saying to give advance notice if you want the tent. Greetings were passed on from Rosie Moten in Adelaide. No hashit was awarded this week because everybody was far too well behaved. And then it was time for lots of different pasta dishes and other delights - thank you hares for an excellent run and the yummy food.

The rain had squeezed us all together under the shelter of the tent, which certainly made for a very amicable shout up. The chin wags continued on into the night…

Next run: Lucky Gardens, Jln Muara
Keep an eye out for sun bears! Sun bear, Malay bear, honey bear, dog bear
Despite being the smallest of all the bears, the sun bear is probably the most aggressive, and will attack without provocation.
Body length: 120-150cm, Weight: female 27-50kg, male 27-65kg. They are the smallest species of bear.

Sun bears have short black/dark brown water-repellent fur, with a yellow crescent on their chest. They have strong paws with naked soles and long sickle-shaped claws. They have flexible snouts and very long tongues, which are an adaptation for extracting termites from nests. Relatively, they have the largest canines of all the bear species. Canine teeth are specialised for tearing meat, but sun bears are not particularly carnivorous. They may use their sharp canines as weapons or as tools for tearing at trees to get at insects. Sun bears feed on fruits, berries, insects, termites, eggs and small vertebrates. They will readily climb trees, using their long tongue to raid beehives of honey.

Sun bears live in south east Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Sun bears inhabit lowland tropical rainforests