Sawadee Ka from Thailand!

Now, the more astute of you will be thinking, "hang on, what are you doing in Thailand, Mongolia was your last stop..." and you'd be right, in a way. However, after being stood up in Cambodia by a Monk who failed to show up for a scheduled Monk Chat/Intro to Buddhism, we delved into some travel mags and saw an advert for a project right up our street...

After a whistle-stop return to the UK for four days, we flew from London to Abu Dhabi, then onto Bangkok, then to Krabi, and then got on two buses and two ferries to take us to Koh Lanta where we were to spend the next five weeks volunteering at Lanta Animal Welfare Centre - which is the first and only vet and sterilisation clinic on the Island. The centre exists to humanely control the stray dog and cat population following the post-Tsunami explosion of workers who brought un-neutered animals but then left them behind when they left. They bred and bred and became out of of control, with thousands of stray animals all over the island - which resulted in conflict between the animals and the local people. People were scared to go to the beach because of the packs of dogs that lived there!

On our first day we arrived late afternoon to be greeted by another couple of new volunteers who showed us round the centre and overwhelmed us with the amount of dogs, cats, jobs and volunteers to get to know.

We'd planned to spend our time living in the free accommodation at the centre, but after a couple of nights of attempted sleep, we soon discovered this would be very difficult. We decided to move down the road to a place called Chaw Ka Cher - a 4 star resort, with luxury rooms, large swimming pool and outside bathroom. Cost us each about £110 for a one month stay... happy days... and sleep!

Our first week went well, with lots to learn and getting to grips with the shift patterns and all the individual jobs. Everyone was very friendly and helpful, but like everything in life there's always a couple of bad apples which can upset the apple cart. Howeverm we didn't let them ruin what we quickly discovered we loved doing. We'll summarise the first week as follows:

- Getting to know the 28 dogs and over 30 cats (there are no bad apples, they were all great!)

- Hired our very own pink scooter from Bee (the woman to go to for all things scooter) which looked crap but did us well for the five weeks.

- Was introduced to Samsong which is a Thai delicacy, particularly for tourists. Basically a s*** cheap whiskey drink which goes very well with coke or Manao (lime) but results in a hellish hangover.

- Evenings spent drinking playing cards with our fellow volunteers - got on particularly well with Luke, Hayley and Nadine.

It took a while to get to know all the tasks and working styles of everyone, but for us it was brilliant and so rewarding to have such a physical/animal based job with hands on duties. Our first day off was spent chilling in our resort pool soaking up the rays - as its rainy season there was a LOT of rain but it never dampened our spirits!

The following four weeks went as follows:

- Really started to feel part of the community on Koh Lanta, got to know the laundry lady, got addicted to custard bread, had our regular Thai takeaway shack, also addicted to Peach Ice Tea and Manao lime drinks.

- Got very close to the animals, especially the dogs - but it wasn't all plain sailing. Over our time we were reminded of the fact that these were unpredictable animals by some memorable and tragic events. The first was when Carly was walking Crusty the dog back into the centre, who decided to chomp down on Daisy (a cat) who was hiding by the front door. Thankfully Daisy made a full recovery, but it meant changes needed to be made how and where the dogs were walked. Chile and Rufus the dogs slipped their harnesses on a walk and killed a pet rabbit by the stream we used to walk them too on a walk with a visitor, which was difficult for the volunteer in charge that day. On Uncle Phil's (a fellow volunteer who we grew very fond of) first day, he walked Sanchez (a notoriously difficult customer with a chequered past) who slipped his lead and went and killed a local builders dog - this was probably the most horrific experience we had on our trip, and clearly very distressing for Phil, the builder, Jon the Centre manager, and most of the staff. We decided following this that "problem dogs" needed to be walked with muzzles to make sure nothing like this happened again.

- Falling in love with a lovely dog we nicknamed Crash who was run over by a car. Hayley, one of the volunteer vets, tried to pop his dislocated leg joint back in but the swelling was preventing the sockets connecting. Dear Old Crash made the 6 hour round trip to Krabi in the back of a pick-up truck driven by Luke and Fon, where sadly the vets in Krabi were also unable to help him (couldn't even give him a pain killer...) so he had to come back to the centre. Thankfully Crash was making great progress by the time he went home... GOD BLESS CRASH!

- This blog would never end if we name checked all of the dogs with interesting stories but its worth mentioning that its a common sight in Thailand to see dogs and cats with three limbs - given the lack of X-ray equipment in the country, its easier for vets to amputate rather than try to repair the limbs and pay a hefty bill. Having said this, the dogs and cats all cope very well with three limbs and it doesn't seem to bother them at all.

- After a paricularly heavy rain and thunder storm, Puyi, a senior member of the dog crew was bitten by a King Cobra! Cobras seek shelter during heavy rain, and this one made its way into Puyi's encolsure. Being the alfa-female, she went and confromnted the snake and asked it leave, an altercation ensued and she was bitten in the face, and sprayed all over with venom! AMAZINGLY, old Puyi pulled through, which is proof again that these semi-wild Island dogs are tough as nails.

- Carly winning a raffle prize, which was held in aid of the centre, which meant we got to celebrate our six year anniversary in style at Lindas Restaurant.

- Many, many visits to Kantiang to The Why Not Bar to see our favourite band (The Why Not Band) who played great covers of cool songs sang in broken English with a Thai chaser. Drinking lots of Samsong, dancing, watching the fire dancers, and celebrating halloween were all highlights of our time in Thailand.

- Discovering a litter of five puppies being dumped outside the centre, who everyone fell in love with of course.

- Helping in the vets surgery, where we once helped the vets inject a terrifyingly ferral cat... rabies anyone?

- The wild monkeys that would watch us while we were in the outside bathroom at our resort... it could have gone one of two ways, thankfully we're both still here.

- Carly having her money stolen from the safe by the cleaners (Carly forgot to close the safe...!) which ultimately resulted in a trip to the police station. Before this, the police body-searched all the staff at Chaw Ka Cher in front of us whilst we were severed cold water... needless to say the money wasn't found on the staff and for the remaining three weeks, we weren't the most popular guests... the feeling was more than mutual. (Luke & Hayley also had some money stolen which shows we weren't going mad)

- Experiencing the first mobile clinic on the island, where 61 animals were sterilised in three days - whoa.

- Taking Stripey (our favourite dog) for walks on the beach... we want to adopt Stripey... and then change her name.

- Staying up all night to re-construct the dated daily task board for volunteers, a long a laborious labour of love, which still lives on to this day.

- The dawn chorus of howling which accompanies the 5am morning prayer for the Muslims... there's almost nothing you can do to prevent them from singing along, just sit back and enjoy...

Our time in Thailand really opened our eyes to living in a totally different community. In particular, living in a Muslim concentrated community and the difference between cultures and beliefs surrounding the treatment of animals. There's a need for the centre to be there and eductate the locals that machetes, poisoning, shooting and running over the animals is not the way to control the population. Education is starting to have an impact though and many of the children are curious about the centre and some even watch the surgeries, saying they want to be vets which is fantastic.

We felt really proud to be part of the centre and grew attached to everything about it - Island life, working with animals, living very simply, great food, regular partying, living with friends (mostly) in a close-knit community and making an honest living from supporting a much-needed project. We're going to try and keep these values strong in our lives in the UK and remember what is important in life.

The end of Thailand symbolises the end of our epic trip, so we're definitley feeling sad and scared but incredibly lucky that we've had this adventure together - and we're still together to remember the good times! This will be the first of many trips, and possibly many blogs, as we want to visit as many different countries and cultures as possible in our lifetimes. We will close this off when we're back in the UK so until then...

xxx