Money? Poison? Nepal?

After a few weeks that positively flew by it only makes sense that time would have to slow down at some point, and so it did this past week. Between all the trouble with my bike, feeling sick part of the time, and a lot of hellos and goodbyes I found myself a bit stressed out and then it had to get even more sticky with some money problems. I went to change some money from Scotland (British Pounds) at the bank on Friday and was told by multiple banks that they don't accept that here because they don't recognize it as legitimate British Pounds. What with the language barrier they wouldn't accept my explanation that it is real and valid and the same, just from Scotland. Luckily I still had 200 dollars in travellers cheques which I changed, but that roughly equates to half the amount of money I just spent during the past four weeks and I've got another four weeks to go (shit). Not that it's an impossible amount to live on, it just means that I wouldn't be able to rent another bike once my lease on the Death Mobile runs out and I'd have to be a bit more frugal in general. However, when I told this to people back at the shelter one of the guys, Justin, offered to take some of my money with him on his visa run to Penang which is quite a bit larger than Koh Lanta and has a higher chance of changing my money. So he'll return this Thursday and until then I'm just being very conservative with my money but crossing my fingers all the same. Also this week I managed to break off half my toenail on two separate toes through entirely different events; needless to say it hasn't been my best week here.

Not to be a negative nancy but one other quite sad thing happened this week which brought to light some of the reasons a place like Lanta Animal Welfare is necessary: a poisoned dog was brought in. Around the beginning and end of high season (we're coming to the end) cases of dog poisoning become quite regular I've been told. People put pieces of poisoned chicken inside coconut shells which the dogs proceed to eat and die a rapid, but horribly painful, death. The poison makes the heart speed up until the whole system just shuts down. The owner of the dog brought in saw the dog eat the poisoned chicken and brought her in immediately; that's the only reason this dog stood a chance. And the volunteers watched helplessly as the seizing dog was held by the vets and its sobbing owner; the vets are deperately trying to make it vomit up the poison as well as hold its leg still enough to put an IV in and giving it injections to slow the heart rate. It was too much for me to watch the entire procedure, but after a tense night the vets were able to save the dog by putting her on fluids and flushing it out. What is really maddening about this case is that this wasn't just a stray dog wandering loose, not that it's alright to abuse those dogs either, but this is someone's family pet whose had her since she was a puppy and loves her dearly. Three other recorded dogs died that day from the same poison and they weren't the first and they won't be the last. I can vouch for every person here that we work our hardest everyday to make sure all our animals are well cared for and in clean environments, and then there are people out there purposely laying out poison just because they don't like the dogs. How can we educate these people when they consider the animals pests rather than pets?

Okay time for good things for the rest of this post. We have the sweetest puppy ever! Our full time vet, Dr. Tey, found a very young puppy wandering around by himself and brough him to the shelter. He had a collar on so we put up posters around the island and waited for someone to claim him but it's been a few days and no one has yet. While it would be really great for him to have a home and a family we're all secretly delighted that he's here because honestly he is the cutest puppy ever. Dr. Tey told us not to name him because he didn't want us thinking we could keep him, so naturally we named him Tey.

I really like both of the new volunteers. Both come from the UK. Tilly has a few horses so we talk about that a lot and we're planning on visiting the horse rescue tomorrow afternoon. We also plan on going snorkeling together in the next few weeks providing I have money. I also really like Sarah and am possibly thinking about considering going to Nepal with her for a few weeks. I don't know that I have money to do that because I'd have to change my flight back to California by about a week and also pay for a roundtrip from Bangkok to Nepal that costs I have no idea how much. BUT if I have I'm going to do it! I feel too boxed in with my flights all planned out - it's too rigid. I want to travel more and at my leisure. To be honest, after a month on Koh Lanta I sometimes feel like I've had enough of it and would like to just move around a bit but because I've got my flight booked out of Krabi, the nearest mainland, and all my flights home already planned out there's not much wiggle room. Unless I just blow off my Krabi flight and go to Nepal! Most of the people here are in some stage of their travels around South East Asia and that's what I'd really like to do - just travel about as I see fit. If not this trip then the next one, and I assure you there will be a next one.

This week is an exciting one in that I have TWO days off work, Friday and Saturday. I don't even know what to do with all that free time. Possibly Friday I'll go jungle trekking with Miriam who also has that day off. Friday I return my bike and by then I'll know if Justin was successful and if I have money or not to rent a different bike. Can I include a quick books update? I've finished my last book from home, Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger and have begun my raid of the shelter's book collection. I settled on Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert which seems fitting in the context of what I'm doing right now. Hard for me to believe I arrived here one month ago today. I still sometimes feel like I've just arrived but I'm realizing how well I know the island as compared to those first few days when the only frame of reference was before or after 7/11. Passover starts at the end of this week but I don't know that I'm really in a position to practice that while I'm here. Definitely can't get any matza on Koh Lanta. I hope all is well wherever you are and with any luck I'll be able to write again soon.