In at the Deep End

Welcome back and thanks for reading! Though you're here for the photos, right? You'll be glad to hear that my aspirations as a writer have decreased. No more deep and meaningful soul searching (I was never very good at that anyway) and no history lessons... well, maybe just a few.

Two weeks after getting back from snowboarding in Colorado - another solo trip, but that's a different story - I had moved home, put my belongings in storage, said goodbye to my old job and practice, sold my beloved pimp car, found new tenants for my house and generally packed up my life into a rucksack. I had my one-way ticket to Thailand, a visa for Australia, no local currency and only the vaguest of plans (that bit hasn't changed).

Fortunately for me Singapore airport is one of the easiest and nicest airports for the dazed and confused traveler wanting a connection. My flight to Phuket, Thailand was smooth, and soon enough I found myself in the tropical sunshine of Monday morning waiting for a lift to my first destination.

After Central America in 2007 I came to the conclusion that volunteer tourism has a lot to offer - there's the veterinary experience for me, working with local people, and the feeling that maybe this holiday isn't entirely selfish - I'm still struggling to justify that one!

In Phuket, the place I was going to work was the Soi Dog Foundation. The Foundation runs a clinic dealing mainly with neutering street dogs, but also treating sick and injured animals, and feeding starving dogs all over the island. As well as the full time Thai staff (including 2 vets), there are usually a few Westerners volunteering. The charity was set up in 2003 and expanded to it's present size on the back of donations for tsunami relief. I had arranged to stay for a while, and was told that on my day of arrival I was to be thrown in at the deep end, sent off on a mobile clinic to Koh Lanta, an island to the southwest of Phuket.

Dog catching at a temple

After almost no sleep and a quick tour of the main Soi Dog clinic with it's bewildering array of permanently housed street dogs, hospital cases and pet strays, I folded myself into the back of a pick up and we headed to Koh Lanta with 2 dog catchers and one Thai vet, Dr Max.

Dr Max doing his thing

We arrived on Koh Lanta, eyelids drooping, and slept for hours after some great food. The next morning I understood the full set-up; a Westerner who lived on Lanta called Junie had taken it upon herself to establish Lanta Animal Welfare some 7 years ago, and the Soi Dog Foundation ran clinics every 6 months or so in conjunction with her. We stayed at her guesthouse, ate in her restaurant and drank her beer, and were looked after very well.

Stray dogs in the dog catching van

I got the measure of the veterinary procedures after setting up the first morning in the back of a dive centre. Along with Dr Max and myself, one other English vet called Katie was coming, and together we would neuter as many dogs and cats as the dog catchers could lay their hands on - or blow dart.

Dog catching on the beach

The operating started as soon as we got the first dogs in, and the first afternoon saw 20-something dogs and cats spayed or castrated. Dr Max's operating speed was amazingly quick; with no gas to keep an animal asleep once under anaesthetic, I was concerned a few of mine might wake up because I wasn't so fast - as it turned out sometimes dogs (not just mine) would start coming around but a top-up anaesthetic dose would usually sort them out.

Starting to operate

The rest of the week passed in a flash - a 7am breakfast on the beach at Junies restaurant, Time for Lime (and very tasty is was too!), followed by arrival at the clinic/dive shop at 8am and then work until 6pm. The nature of the dog catching usually made for a quiet morning with a few cats and owned-dogs to operate on, then once the dog catchers arrived around lunch with a van full of stray the real surgery would start. By Friday evening at 6.30pm, in failing light, I was closing up about my 15th op of the day, I was exhausted. Dinner at Time for Lime, a beer then bed at 9pm - what a life!

The view from Time for Lime

On Saturday after knocking out 20 quick spays/castrates in the morning, we were packed up and left by 1pm. I had promised to return - the guys where we were working at Blue Planet Divers had said they would teach me my PADI thing, and Junie was already lining up sick animals for me to see when I came back.

Too many spays can drive you crazy...

Back in Phuket, I had a day off before another early start heading to Khao Lak, up the coast from Phuket, on another mobile clinic. This time we ended up operating in a temple, with the Buddhist monks providing an effective dog catching service for us.

The temple setup

Handy blokes in orange robes

One night we were invited back for dinner to the house of a local who dog and cat we had neutered, so after equipping ourselves with some drink with made our way across fields full of water buffalo to a typical Thai house - the kind you don't see on the tourist adverts. After meeting the head of the family and paying the appropriate respects, we feasted on an array of food unavailable in most Thai restaurants. As the light dimmed so the numbers of beetles attracted to the fluorescent tube above us grew, until all of us and all of our food was literally crawling. Shortly after it started raining so we all moved inside, where the head of the family encouraged me to drink some Thai whiskey and attempted to marry me off to his daughter. Although that was a fate preferable to beetles, I breathed a sigh of relief when the dog catchers and Dr Max decided to leave to our accommodation in a local school house.

Friendly family dinner

After 3 days operating at the wat we were just starting to get busy, but it was time to pack up and head back to Phuket and the Soi Dog shelter. I was given another day off by Jon, the Englishman in charge of the charity, and vegetated with alternate hot showers and aircon for the rest of the night.

My willpower not being up to much, I have now promised to return to Koh Lanta in mid-April for another clinic run by Junie and a Thai vet from the mainland. In the meantime I'm off on a snorkelling trip to Koh Similan at the weekend, and then a week more at Soi Doigs afterwards. Then I need something to fill my time - maybe a trip to Burma?

Sorry, I promised I wouldn't write much..... but I think I now know how to post better photos.... here goes nothing!