With great rain comes great water hazards

One of the really neat parts about Chiang Mai and more specifically the Chiang Mai Hash House Harriers is that we have a ton of nature here in this part of the country and despite being one of the largest and most populated cities in the nation, we have tons of mostly unspoiled nature all over the place. I think that a lot of this is because of the historical nature of this city that was once a military stronghold of the country but the natural wonders have been protected for a very long time and even though the land is very beautiful and would probably sell really well if people were allowed to develop on it, they are NOT allowed to do so and that is a good thing.

Also, because this area is more elevated than much of the rest of the country we get cooler temperatures most of the year than the rest of the country. Don't get the wrong impression though, it is still very hot and humid here outside of 2 months of the year. We also have a ton of waterfalls and rivers here and when it rains like crazy such as it did in the past week, we end up with a bunch of water in the rivers. When we plan our runs we like to have water nearby but it is considered taboo to make a trail that forces runners to all get their feet wet.

But of course if there is a water feature on a run, at least one of the members is going to do something like this. His Hash name is "Skidmark" and he is one hell of a joker. It wasn't necessary to go through the creek but he did it anyway for some laughs and a wonderful photo.

One downside of the rivers and creeks here is that there is a lot of opportunity for pollution here because of rampart farming with pesticides as well as general runoff from other pollutants that is very common up here. Therefore, it probably isn't a great idea to go swimming in a lot of these things if you see them. It's ok for us though because all of us have pickled internal organs from years of beer consumption.

Here is the overhead view of the recent run

You can see from this bird's eye view that we are quite close to civilization yet the area we are in had a ton of nature as well. This is something that Chiang Mai does correctly that I think most of the other parts of the country do terribly wrong. I am not 100% sure about land development but I think there is a law of sorts that houses cannot be built right along most rivers. Why this is done I can't say for sure but the same is true for mountains and the mountainous areas, so I've heard, are considered to be the property of the King of Thailand and the only person that can build on it is him or his family. Nobody would ever mess with this rule because there are strict rules in this country for causing any offense to the Royals that can land you in jail for 15 years for merely suggesting something about them such as using their land or worse, stealing it.

The land is all lush and green right now because we have been having a lot of rain lately but there is much much more to come. We haven't even officially entered the rainy season but once we do many of these "water features" could end up so filled with water to the point where they could be dangerous. Don't worry though, we never put our members at risk because we are all old and relatively breakable so we don't put anyone at risk.

Come join us if you want, we are still doing 3 runs every week, rain or shine!