Out past Tiger Kingdom to the Sunspot family compound, a sylvan setting and a new runsite for this hasher. Off we went with Bellydancer spurting on ahead, and on he went missing the first bit of paper! Out then along the road to a mooban with a circle check and maybe six possible ways to go. This was going to take some working out. I went straight ahead and explored a couple of avenues and the rest of the pack fanned out looking elsewhere but no joy. Nothing from nobody. ABB even bravely put glory before prudence and ventured onto the narrow, slippery pathway along the khlong. I began to have a niggling feeling that I may not have traveled far enough and backtracked and Oops! found the trail. Gotta be 200 meters that one. I backtracked again to make sure someone somewhere would hear my On! On! And sure enough there was ABB loitering on a corner so all was well again.
From here on there were some nice muddy trails. My shoes got nice and gunky. And heavy. Didn’t stop me from nailing a couple of checks. They call me the breeze. And I prefer Skynyrd’s version. Then came the false trail and I took it. Into the jungle I went a good 200 meters until I got to a teensy FT. Back and out and Mr Poo and Chuck Wao were motoring past and giggling because they didn’t even see paper here. On I followed.
To the RICE FIELDS! Here was a circle check that did not appear to give the pack many options. CW went right, I went left. No sign of paper but I gingerly explored along a few berms close to the edge of he paddy fields but found nothing and came back. CW meanwhile had had an encounter with an angry farmer, who probably had a rifle, possibly with a scope, and returned to the circle check. The pack was pretty much all together at this point. CW felt that his way past the farmer was the likeliest direction so I suggested him and me make a break for it before the farmer could react. What’s the worst that could happen? The farmer picks off Kwazi Moto?
Sometimes, however, an intrepid individual with uncommon valor steps forward to save the day. A faint call of On! On! could be heard in the distance so back around and through the bushes the perplexed group of hashers traipsed. And what sight for sore eyes greeted us 500 meters away in the middle of the paddy field? Only the figure of Mr Sticky Wicket. Did he really shout, “Forward, The Light Brigade, Half a League, Onward…”? We were going home. Still a lot of berm running though until we reached the road.
Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice and has 12 million hectares of farmable land under cultivation. The rice grown is jasmine rice, a classier rice for them that knows their rice, but it doesn’t give such a great yield. Could somebody, perhaps … Sunspot, get in touch with the Thai Ministry of Agriculture to suggest growing pilau rice instead in future, which I prefer anyway, and then we might get back a bit more land for hashing.
Anyhow, more danger ahead. Maybe a kilometer of busy blacktop before we forked right and came to an interesting check when I thought we must have been very close to the A bucket by now. Piggy and CW left me third dibs so I moseyed right along a dirt trail and lo and behold paper! Across the aqueduct. I did not enjoy this one bit but the views were nice. Some more road running got us home.
Somebody had the distance at 10.5K, so well done hares for putting in so much effort to make a memorable run.
(Courtesy of Cuckold)