Georgetown

Georgetown is the hi-tech capital of SE Asia. There are factories lining the road into town from the airport. The population has exploded in the last 20 years and there are high rise apartments everywhere. Its much larger than I expected; around 1 million people. My hotel is in the funky old part of town. The room is spartan but the bed is comfortable, the AC cranks and the water is hot. The street its on is not heavily trafficed so its fairly quiet. Not a bad deal for $20/nite.
There was a pre lube run last nite(Thurs) that started at the Chinese Creamatorium. A creepy building, it looks like a Chinese temple in front and Auschwitz in back, complete with smokestacks! It is surrounded by a Chinese graveyard overgrown with vegetation almost completely obscuring most of the graves. The complete opposite of our well mancured cemetaries. Trail goes up thru the cemetary, crossing some graves as it went, up to the base of a large, jungle covered hill.Up we went. And up and up and up. Damn this shit is getting steep! Up along a ridgeline the trail climbed thru root covered boulders the size of a house. Its very beautiful and the vegetation is not too thick. I eventually lose contact with the FRBs in front and am overtaken by the DFLs. Near the top the sweeper catches up to me. I asked if I was really DFL and what happened to all those people behind me who never passed me? He replies that they turned around and went back down to the beer. So its a secret turkey/eagle split with the locals turning back for beer and leaving the visitors to bust their asses going up, then down the steep hill. Fuckers. Trail is laid in printed squares of paper stuck to leaves. The sweeper`s job is to remove them as the pack passes. Finally near the top there is an improved trail. The descent is much easier and we reach the end(beginning) at sunset to find a large pack enjoying cold Tiger beer. Beer is fairly expensive here so the hash charges for the beer and the water. The beermeister, Tiger Sam, spends the whole hash selling beer from the back of a cargo truck.A hasher asks if I saw a tiger on trail and pissed myself.I looked down and my shorts are soaked with sweat. A hot meal is set up and the local food is delicious. Unfortunately the travel and heat have killed my appetite and I can barely eat 1/2 a plate.Circle finally convenes with the RA calling people out to sit on the ice as their down down song is sung.After about 20 minutes of this circle breaks with out Swing Low!? A hulking Hammersly hasher named Enos swears he met me somewhere. I asked are you sure you`re not mistaking me for MR Magoo? He says no Magoo is much fatter than you. He enquires about SMB. She is quite the popular harriette! He brings me up to speed on the ongoing soap opera that inter-hash must be.
The Penang Hash is a real polyglot outfit, much like the city itself. There are Indians. Chinese, Malaysian, Aussies,various European ex-pats all chatting away. English is the lengua franca however. I mentioned Why Not? and everyone here loves her. I will see her tonite at the Red Dress Run. After making lots of new friends I bum a ride back to the hotel with Axe Hole and just Beer. After a nightcap at a local Chinese Kareoke bar watching Italy get beat by my Slovakian homeboys I finally sleep in a bed.