It's Wednesday evening in Kuala Lumpur and the looming clouds promise yet another monsoon shower. But a group of runners seemingly oblivious of the impending rain assembles at the foothills of suburban Bukit Kiara. Milling about, they trade news, gossip and banter. Then at 6pm sharp, the pack - which has swelled to about 50 people - charges into the nearby jungle. For the next hour or so, its tranquillity is broken by intermittent shouts as runners spot the trail laid by the hare - the person charged with setting the run.
'Without fail, rain or shine, public holidays or Christmas, the runs go on as scheduled [every Wednesday],' says Joanna Yoong. A member of the Kuala Lumpur Hash House Harriettes, the housewife has been hashing for 25 years.
At the end of each run, the pack reassembles at a nearby restaurant for a hearty meal and drinks. To the Harriettes, this is what hashing is all about - people from diverse backgrounds coming together to run (or walk, if the knees aren't what they used to be) and enjoy each other's company.
A combination of running and orienteering, the sport is based on the British pursuit of hare and hounds, in which the 'hare' lays a paper trail for a pack of baying 'hounds', or pursuing runners. Imported to colonial Malaya, it has evolved into a more convivial version fuelled by much quaffing of cold beers.
Informal accounts trace its origins to 1938 when a group of British officials and expatriates in Kuala Lumpur began meeting on Monday evenings to work off the excesses of the weekend with a run - usually through rubber plantations and semi-forested tracts on the city fringes - and work up another thirst. They named their running group Hash House Harriers after their meeting place, the Selangor Club, then dubbed 'Hash House' for the quality of its food.
Today, there are more than 1,800 registered hash groups all over the world, including 170 in Malaysia, and members of Mother Hash - as the founding chapter is fondly called - still run every Monday. Its popularity has led to regional meetings, and runners like Patsy Yap make it a point to attend the biennial interhash, regarded as the mother of all international gatherings. Having taken part in previous interhashes in Chiang Mai and Goa, the 64-year-old triathlete made sure she didn't miss the most recent meeting in Perth, Australia.