It's hard to believe that we have come this far. Sometimes I look at these numbers with awe and pride knowing that our local Hash has been around as long as it has. Think about it... there are only 52 weeks in a year and we normally only meet up once per week!
This week's Hash took out out to the "airplane graveyard" which is a bit of a misnomer since there is only one sizable airplane on the site. That doesn't mean it isn't cool to look at though.
"Strangely Anal" was our main Hare today and he was advised (poorly) by "Graven Image." The resulting run was one of extreme confusion that begs the question of what exactly they were trying to accomplish in the trail they set. The path is meant to be somewhat difficult to discover, but in many instances the trail wasn't even marked at all or the path had been wiped out by irrigation systems.
for those of us that had been here before, we were already very aware of the fact that at some point or another, we definitely would be crossing the rickity bamboo bridge that strikes fear into a few of our more vertigo-prone members. The path was extremely off road at points and this, combined with a real lack of markings as to where the path was meant to go, irritated some of our more competitive members such as "Pigshit."
I think startled a great deal of the community in this quiet little mostly farming community because they likely are not accustomed to seeing any foreigners out here at all let alone 40 of them at the same time. Technically, we were trespassing (as we tend to... sorry) and when we got back to the "camp" someone had alerted the local authorities who unfortunately tried to pose as police officers and extort money from us. They were a little surprised when a few of our members, one who has lived in Thailand for 40 years, were completely fluent in Thai and we ended up apologizing for trespassing, but honestly we hadn't broken or damaged anything.
At the end of it all the pretend police officers had smiles on their faces when they left and we offered them a beer and surprisingly, one of them took it. All's well that ends well I suppose but this is one of the problems that Hashes around the world face: We can't possibly ask EVERYONE for permission to be in these jungle areas and once we point out that we actually run with trash bags in order to clean up the countryside, they tend to lose their aggressive (and kind of unwarranted) attitude.
For those of you that have not yet joined us: Take a look at that wide array of participants. "Sin Bin" is only 9 years old and is one of the fastest of our group with his seemingly unlimited energy banks and "Liberace" (back towards camera) is nearly 80 years old. Every single one of these people made it all the way through the run.
It could be you joining us on our runs with beers next time. We do them many times a week. As a matter of fact there is another one later this week. Come join us on Thursday for the Valentine's Day Happy Hash (it's actually on the 13th but tradition is tradition!) Full details can be found at our official website
On On!