UK trip

" Have cards, will travel", the journey of backpacking was completed, and the experience was different from that of a typical commercial tour. Guided by books of lonely planet, and tourist information centers, we set up our own itinerary, visited places of our interest,and had really enjoyed the trip totally free from a tour guide's commercial persuasion.

With good planning, internet and credit card facility, we managed to cover our journey in UK in 20 days including the participation of Interhash 2004 in Cardiff with cost effectiveness. On the whole, with a little bit of luck, the trip was very smooth and went well with plans.

16th July - 19th July	London, England	4 nights
20th July - 21th July	Bath, England	2 nights
22nd July - 25th July	Cardiff, Wales	4 nights
26th July	Dublin, Republic of Ireland	1 night
27th July - 28th July	Belfast, Ireland	2 night
29th July - 30th July	Inverness, Scotland	2 nights
31st July	St Andrew, Scotland	1 night
1st August	Edinburgh, Scotland	1 night
2nd August	Newcastle, England	1 night
3rd August - 4th August	back to KL	12 hrs flight + 7hrs added time in plane

Hashing is a beautiful activity which gives you an excuse to travel. In Melaka, one runs in the rubber or oil palm plantations, soaks oneself in muddy streams, up the hills, down the drains, to the kampungs, in the pig , chicken, goat and cow farms, goes to places where adults are unlikely to go under normal circumstances. Likewise, internationally, a traveller would be very unlikely to visit Cardiff , capital of Wales for a duration of 4 days as it is most likely overshadowed by London. In other words, a traveller would probably stay more days in London, but in our case, we had stayed four nights in Cardiff.

A day before coming to Cardif, we were a bit worried about our accommodation in Cardiff because we searched through the internet , we could only secure the first night, ( 22nd July ) in the International Youth Hostel, Roath Garden Road, Cardiff. The rest of the days were fully booked in all other hostels as well. With 5000 plus hashers flocking to Cardiff, the situation was not very optimistic. We had no choice, but to come early to Cardiff so that we had enough time to search for alternative solution, maybe we had to upgrade our need, e.g. a more expensive hotel. A hostel does not have the luxury of a hotel, but it does have the basic facility, clean toilets, hot water baths , and kitchens for own cooking. This is particularly good as one could break the monotony of the outside food served in restaurants and fast food outlets.

We arrived Cardiff at mid day, that was good because it would give us enough time to search for subsequent accommodation. We identified the place of action, the Millennium Stadium, which was near the bus station. It was drizzling, and the temperature was unbelievably cold in the so called flaming July. Sing Sung and I guarded all the backpacks, and Garfield and Drug buster went ahead to find accommodation for the following days.

The lady's luck was with them. After going round for two streets, they came back with the bookings of three nights at the Cardiff Backpackers Hostel which was 10 to 15 mins walk from the Stadium. Ironically there was no vacancy for the first night, but that was OK as we already booked into the International youth Hostel which was 10 km away, the bus fare was 1 Sterling pound each. Later on, I asked the Backpackers Hostel why they said they were fully booked in the internet, and the answer was that they only gave a certain percent to the internet booking and the best way was still by phone. Oh --- !

There was a case of disaster when a group of Malaysian hashers booked camping grounds for the event, thinking the joy of fun in the flaming July, but were shown grounds with four pegs on only. That was it, you had to provide your own camping gears. Alama, under this cold damp condition, in the end they had to pay excessively to check into hotels. They left the second day.

The Interhash consisted first day of registration, three nights of grand parties and two days of running.

The registration started in the morning and ended in the afternoon in the city hall. The crowd was there, people meeting people, and Perth and Bali hashers competed quite aggressively in bidding the next interhash, giving out a lot of goodies to prospective voters. There was a band performing outside the city hall creating a happy and pleasant atmosphere.

The first night was always the best, you caught up with old friends and food and drinks were plenty, though the long queue really killed some people bacause the organisers were inexperienced and opened up too few outlets. However, the situations improved from second night onwards. We met GM Balan and Biggles, N K S and Partner, Sue Todd and David, Susan, and Eskimo's friend who came to send regards to all Melaka H3 members. The stage performance was excellent as the performers were the best from all corners of the world of hash house harriers.

As far as the runs were concerned, there were 23 trails for you to pick ranging from The BallBreakers, 13.6 miles of hilly run to Old Farts and Survivors, 2.5 miles flat road run. There were eighty eight 60 seaters buses picking you up from the Museum Avenue to the run sites respectively.

Drug Buster and I chose the No: 10 run, a trail set up in the Wentwood forest area. It was a 5.3 miles hilly run which was comfortable as it was not hazardous. The trail ran along a hill about a 1000 ft high and at the peak overlooking the beautiful South Wales Coast, the Severn Estuary, and the two suspension bridges, one old and one new. The run was set up by Taunton H3, and went through the pines forest and bushes with the stinking plants which could make your legs itch and burning. There was a half way stop for fluids replenishment. The hash circle was formed after the run and it was quite a mild one without much damages.

Verdict: The run was good and there were logging tracks actually undulating with a comfortable pace. The hares were very responsible as they escorted and swept the runners ensuring no lost soul. They even designed shortcut trails to save the exhaustive souls but few took the offer, as they wouldn't want to miss the high point spectacular views.

We did not run the second day as we had to plan our trip to Dublin, i.e. purchased air ticket, rehearsed the road to bus station to take us to the airport. That was quite exhaustive as it took us half a day to do it, and we spent the other half of the day visiting the castle and city of Cardiff.

For information: Interhash 2006 will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Congratulations to Chiang Mai HHH.

A kind note received from Jon Harmer ( Reverend Pink, RA ), organiser of Interhash 2004, Cardiff, on Sat, 7 August 2004, Thanks!

Hi T.T. Kang

Just a quickly to say it was great to see you on our run at Interhash (Run 10)

It was great that you made the big effort to come to our little country & hope to see you in 2006.

Hope you enjoyed your stay & had a great time in Dublin.

On On

Jon Harmer (Reverend Pink, RA)

( To return, please click " Back " at the top, left corner of each photo menu page )