...and we should do our best to support them as much as possible. I recall back in the early days of the Chiang Mai Hash House Harriers that it can be very difficult to get a HHH kennel / group started and maintained in the early days. People generally don't even know what it is and because of the first word in the name, some people erroneously believe that it has something to do with hashish, which it doesn't at all.
When the Khanom people decided that they wanted their own HHH we were very supportive of them and even went along to teach them the ropes a bit as well as participate in their early events to try to encourage the locals to join in.
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I have been to Khanom several times and have wonderful memories of it. However, almost all people visiting Thailand and even most of the people that live here never go there because it is quite far away from popular tourism places and doesn't even have an international airport anywhere nearby. It is located between Nakon Si Thammarat and Surat Thani, which are important cities as far as Thai commerce is concerned but honestly, if you are visiting this country the only reason why you would be in either of these places is to get on a boat to head over to Koh Samui, Koh Phang Ngan, or Koh Tao.
It is a truly wonderful place that is one of the few beach areas in this entire country that hasn't been completely spoiled by either industry or tourism. So keep that in mind if you are ever thinking of visiting here and even more so, if you are a Hasher.
When they first started up their kennel it was easy for us to support them because Chiang Mai is one of the most populated cities in the entire country and they fly everywhere, including to both Nakkon and Surat Thani , so we went to their inaugural event 20 strong or so. For this event we intend to bring everyone with us and make it as huge as possible
We've got plenty of time to prepare for this so we are very hopeful to get a bunch of people down there to make this a big event. They only have around 15 regular participants and this makes it very difficult for a startup because normally one or two people end up doing all the work making the trails. While this can be fun, I know from experience that if you are constantly making the trails, which can take days, it gets old after a while.
Khanom is a great place for this though because other than the beach areas, there is so much nature here that while mostly consisting of farms, the people there are extremely friendly and nobody really cares if you are on their land provided you don't do something terrible like leave garbage or steal fruit. We, of course never do these things and try to let the people who do own the land know that we always leave a place cleaner than when we found it. I think this is an acceptable trade-off don't you? We run on their land and take about 10 kg or trash away with us that is just all over the ground. Not trying to throw shade on any farmers, but they don't seem all that concerned about where they put their trash.
So if you are going to be in the area in October, keep in mind that you do NOT need to be a Hash House Harrier member to participate in this event. Also, you will get introduced to one of the hidden gems of Thailand by expert guides that live there. As I have mentioned many times before, when you join up with "The Hash" you gain access to a global network of awesome and very helpful people. It will seriously change your life!
On On!
