Location: Phuket - Thailand
Today we lifted our slightly heavy heads off our surprisingly comfortable pillows (surprisingly comfy for a 350 Baht double twin room in the forever expensive heart of Phuket) after only arriving in this striving little sex-parlour of a town/city/metropolis and immediately going out on the lash with our new found friends, Harri and Russell.
Whilst up in the north (around about Vietnam and Cambodia) we arranged to meet up with these two amazing peeps so that they could introduce us to PAWS (Phuket Animal Welfare Society) and help us give away some of the cash that you lot have so lovingly, selflessly and generously given us to spend on nice and deserving things like tribal or orphaned kids and poor folks who need a little helping hand in helping themselves.
Well today we decided to help our little four-legged-furry-friends. Woof-woof’s and meow-meows. Dogs and cats to those who never studied the farmyard of 'Old MacDonald'.
To the night before the morning after, almost immediately after greeting these two great folks and kissing both on the cheek in a posh and French manner for some unbeknownst reason, we headed off, naturally, to the pub.
A world series of alcoholic-filled delights were feasted upon with great enthusiasm and a very warming natural flow of conversation, jokes, bad words and some facts and figures for the serious bits flowed throughout the evening.
Harri described herself via emails and text messages as a Billy Idol look-a-like, but turned out to be a girl. This confused Lindsay somewhat, as surely only boys can be called Harri - naming someone of one sex by a name more commonly used by the opposite sex is a preposterous idea. But it turns out that Harri(et) was genetically born a female. We’d never spoken to Russell – who turns out to be Harri’s boyfriend. So, like him, we’re glad Harri’s a lady.
Rather responsibly, Harri and Russell left our company at about midnight in order to meet us at 10am the following morning. Rather irresponsibly though, they left us in the presence of their mate (and now ours too) Neil.
Rather irresponsibly, we took Neil up on his suggestion to carry on drinking and to leave the now closing bar we were sitting in, and head to some others.
Neil’s a great and typical Geordie lad. Funny, polite, charming, always engaging in topical conversation, a master at handling blood/alcohol levels and… a great believer in pleasures of the sexual nature. The Scots and the Geordies always get along like houses in roaring flames wherever and whenever we meet.
First stop was the Pink Lady pub. You’d think the name would have given it all away really, but we were entranced by the great words of enthusiasm and encouragement of our PJ and Duncany friend and so, we followed him in like rats prancing behind the Pied Piper.
That’s odd. “There’s no one here Neil” we said together in chorus. “Why aye man! It’s awe aboot upstairs!” he merrily sang to us as we followed him to the back of a deserted bar with nothing but incredibly comfy looking sofas and spread out chairs.
26 stairs (maybe more, maybe less… who cares?) upwards and we entered another lovely room with luxurious sofas and bed-like settees. “Hmmmmm, Neil, there seems to be no one here too. Well, except for the incredibly overstaffed bar workers”.
“Why aye man. Normally This place is a lot better but they’re right mingers the night!” came a, what we thought to be odd, reply. Our Gazza boy was rather sad about something and we couldn’t grasp what had upset our normally-buzzing-with-freshness-and-funness bud.
We ordered a small bottle of beer each. The word small plays an integral part in a moan we’re about to display in a second and, as we began to realise where we were and what the bar-staff were, we did the natural and mature thing.
We giggled like 12 year old twin brothers who had just found their Dad’s porn stash and were observing the wonderful and scary marvels of a persons insides. We couldn’t help it. Every time we looked over to the bar, 8 girls would be staring all wide eyed and flirty like at us, giving little girly waves and giggles. Lindsay thought he was “in there” and he was, but even after his 3 month “stretch” he, much to the surprise and praise of Lee, would never resort to paying for the guilty pleasures of life. Or at least, pay for these pleasures in the presence of his older brother.
200 Baht was the bill for each of us. 200 Baht! That’s over £3 each for a tiny bottle of bloody Heineken Beer. And, to cut a long story short, we left the very friendly staffed establishment and headed off to a “normal” bar with cheaper nectar.
Anyhoo, 8:45am was the time we awoke. That’s approximately 4 hours and 45 minutes after we fell asleep. Whoops!
Glary eyed and frankly, looking and feeling rather sh*tty, we washed our potential hangovers away with a cold shower each, headed down stairs to have some inclusive breakfast and then, at 10:05 we were picked up by the aforementioned two. Somehow we always, always, manage to be late for everything.
Russel’s mummy, gorgeous and one of the unbelievably nicest people in the world ever - Athena, runs the centre and puts in a lot of bloody hard work, sweat, passion, blood and soul in to helping some of the poor animals of Phuket.
You see, Thailand has a massive stray problem. Dogs are everywhere. Cats are too. Some of them K9s are just happy strays, probably going through life as modern day Lassies or Littlest Hoboes. Garfields or Top Cats for the pussies.
These little blighters may be having fun rummaging through rubbish and feeding on leftovers or hand outs from locals or tourists but, through no fault of their own, they know nothing of contraception and the likes. So, these horny little furry things are having litters all over the place. That means that the already big problem of thousands of strays is becoming even bigger.
On the other hand though, and again through no fault of their own, thousands of our four-legged-friends are being abused like you couldn’t imagine. Beaten, ill-fed, mistreated, abandoned to fend for themselves, torched, attacked with machetes or (sadly, if they’re not in any of the above categories) simply killed.
PAWS does a bloody good job with these animals. The strays (who can’t keep it in their pants) are sterilised/castrated in order to prevent the already big problem, getting further out of control.
All the animals, which are either picked up off the streets or collected at temples around the island (people also dump unwanted cats and dogs for the Monks to look after) by Athena, Russell or their amazing staff of five vets and assistants, are given a health check and sterilised. They also re-home and rehabilitate hundreds of doggies and cats.
If you have a dog or a cat or, if you don’t but want one or, don’t want one but still like them or, if you simply know someone who has a pet – please visit the PAWS website. The animals really need all the help they can get – there are no laws in Thailand protecting these creatures, the centre is completely run on donations and they need more to be able to keep doing what they’re doing. We don’t like to preach, but just this once, please, if you can, donate anything you can spare to help our furry friends by clicking on the below link:
We were shown around the clinic and got to play with a few of the puppies. Lindsay doesn’t really like cats so Lee played with them instead. Athena and Russell then took us out to their field clinic (a mobile centre which they use to go to temples and numerous other places) where we got to watch a number of dogs and cats being sterilized or castrated, checked over and fixed if broken.
It was amazing. The monks were helping, the vets and assistants were working non-stop and Athena talked us through everything that was making us cringe (it brings a tear to your eye seeing a dogs b*llock being cut off).
After a quick spot of lunch (which Athena paid for – she’s that lovely!) we headed back to the clinic and used 100 pounds of your donations to help PAWS continue their great work. It was meant to be £60 but Lindsay got carried away and gave more.
The £5 each that the following people donated was used to buy 10 bloody HUGE bags of dog food. Athena says “Thank you everybody” and the dogs say “woof, woof, woof”. The cats weren’t amused:
Jennifer Zoiti
Christian Carbines
Lisa/Michael Bell
Hannah Loaring
Charlene Wilson
Jaqueline Williamson (£10)
Joanne Sloan
Jo Slatem
Ketherine Ross
Jill Meldrum
Adam Keyte
George Johnston
Daniel Howells
Sophie Cooper
Trish Waters
Ronnie Vine
Dawn Taylor
Sarah Ryan
So, you lot, well bloody done. We’re sure the money the centre saves on dog munch over the next few weeks will go towards a couple of salmon for the cats.
We now desperately need more donations so that, whenever we come across or hear about another worthy cause, we can help them through you. So please, please, please, donate a fiver. It’s a piddly amount back home, but it goes a fecking long way everywhere else.
If you’ve donated already – thanks. You’re a star and God loves you more than those who haven’t. If you haven’t donated a pissy fiver, then stop freeloading off our critically acclaimed journals and click below. Oh, and just to go on a bit more, if you want to donate again… then you can. Special thanks to Sarah Kent who’s donated twice and Jacqueline Williamson who’s donated a staggering ten times. It’s not a competition but… Karma works in amazing circles. Give a little – get a little. Give a lot – get a lot.
Drum roll… well done to the current winner of our newly formed nice person of the year competition, Jacqueline Williamson who’s officially our leading donator – anyone up for the challenge?
Right. We’re off now to go and have a nice pleasant and quiet meal with Russell, Harri, Athena and a couple of her friends – who are apparently rather posh so we’re going to be on our best behavior YA!
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