There's nothing quite like an enormous Hash get-together

Before Covid went and ruined everything in the world, there were events hosted all around the world that went by various names but mostly they are referred to as "Inter Hashes" meaning that they are carefully-planned, massive events that hundreds of people from all around the world gather to participate in.

These events were HUGE and you would meet people from all around the world. It just goes to show that there is tremendous interest in the Hash House Harriers because when we hosted an International Has a few years back we had to limit the number of attendees to 600, which quickly sold out.

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These multi-day events involve a ton of logistics and in order to transport all the people that were attending we had to book basically every minivan that the city of Chiang Mai had to offer. We also stockpiled thousands of cans of beer because the worst thing that could possibly happen would be to ever run out of beer at these things.

As exciting as it is for us during a normal week when we have 20-50 people on trail, having 500 people on a trail is truly a majestic experience.

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While for the most part the various Hash House Harriers kennels or groups around the world go whatever they want, the Inter-Hash section of things actually have a council that is based out of the unofficial headquarters of Kuala Lumpur. This is because this event is considered to be sacred in a way, and we can't just have every individual chapter deciding that they want to host the event every year because then it wouldn't be as special.

Qualifying to host the Inter-Hash is kind of like the Olympics or World Cup in that only one location (sometimes 2) per year can be the official location for the International Hashing event. When you receive that honor, you better not screw it up and we managed to not screw it up by over-preparing for it.

By the time the 5-day event was over, we had something like a garage worth of beer left over which was kind of amusing but at the same time, its not like we weren't going to drink it.

We have been selected twice for the honor of hosting the Inter and I was not yet in Chiang Mai for the first one. For the second one though, I just have to say "wow." It was such an amazing time and we met tons of people from all around the world. There is nothing quite like getting together with 500 people that share the same love for something that you do. I still keep in touch with a great many of the people that I met that day and they came from all over the world. One guy was actually visiting from a research station in Antarctica and well, he won the award for the person that had to work the hardest in order to get here.

This passion for Hashing is something that I have never experienced in any other activity in my life. It really brings people together and this is why I always encourage people to do their best to try to get involved if there is a Hash House Harriers in their region.

While it has questionable up-to-date-ness to it, a really good place to start if you are searching for a Hash in your area is to go to World Hash Links and see what you can sort out from there. You might be surprised. There is a very good chance there is a Hash near you!