Tag Archives: dogs

Sangkhlaburi, Thailand

Gone to the Dogs

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After ferociously posting, catching up on all my travels, once again the silence (i.e. lack of posting) has begun… I figured I should tell you all why exactly.  See, I’ve literally gone to the dogs!

I’m in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand near the border with Burma (Myanmar) volunteering at the Baan Unrak Animal Sanctuary.  I may have mentioned before that my ultimate goal in life is to start an animal sanctuary of my own, and well, in order to get there I first have to actually see what its really like…

Most days are good, just the basics: feed, water, play, change blankets/mats, laundry, give meds, play more, walk the dogs with paralyzed back legs in the doggie “wheel chair”, more play, night feed, rest.  There are approximately 40 plus dogs and puppies, most are regular dogs, several are 3-legged and 3 other precious dogs are only able to use their front legs.  Well, Gizmo technically CAN use his back legs, he just chooses not to:)

Dogs rule the streets here (which I adore) but on occasion or rather more than ever necessary that means hit and runs.  While many people love their animals and actually take care of their dogs and other pets, far many more don’t.  Animals are purposely poisoned, cuts and gashes are ignored leading to very serious maggot infestations (we had to put one down because it was literally infested with THOUSANDS of maggots from his mouth to his tail, which was acutally missing, nothing more than a hole filled with squirming maggots) while others are simply abandoned or starved.  Vet care is free (donations are welcome) yet some people simply prefer to choose a grisly life for them instead of seeking help.

But, while there is that heartbreaking side to volunteering here, there are so many joys to it too.  They bring such an unconditional and pure love to my heart that is hard to match.  Unfortunately, the nature of caring for any life (human or animal) includes having to deal with every aspect of it, the good and the bad.  We help where we can, do what we can, but of course not all can be saved. Just the nature of the beast.

So you see, it’s not just for any random reason I’ve been M.I.A. on my blog, I’ve just been busy loving and caring for dogs:)  I do of course plan to catch up on about 5 other posts I have in mind, but the other excuse I have for not posting is I’ve been dealing with a super crazy virus on my tablet that kept rerouting me to a website called adfoc.us (do NOT click that!!) and some other thing called mobo market kept trying to download on my computer.  But after 4 factory resets, I think it’s finally gone:)

On to The Death Railway

Back to Thailand

 

Europe, Greece

Santorini

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I have a song working in my head that once completed will be published about Santorini, but well, for now it’s plain text:)

What a beautifully unique place!  Santorini as we know it today is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea that was formed by a large volcanic eruption that destroyed the previous civilization living there.  Now, it is the largest island of a circular archipelago that has remnants of a volcanic caldera.  The island isn’t your typical flat land island.  It is a mountain jutting from the sea with what looks like snow on top.  Upon closer inspection the “snow” are the little towns sprinkled along the top of the mountain.

Sunrise on Santorini
Santorini at Sunrise_2
Travel to Santorini
Snow??

Because of it’s volcanic history (pun intended) the land of Santorini is rich and fertile and very diverse!  Black lava rock, red clay and white pumice stone are visible around just about every corner etched into the land.  Homes in fact used to be built out of cooled black lava rock, which made them somewhat invisible to travelers coming by sea.  A clever way to be invisible to your enemy in my opinion.  However, in the 1930’s  the government made it law that each structure had to be painted white because it keeps the homes cooler and saves on energy.

View of the Land
Wealthy People’s Land
Diverse Terrain

While the Island itself is not all THAT attractive, the towns are absolutely adorable!!!  The rest of the island is rugged, rocky and not terribly interesting.  However due to the fertile nature of the volcanic rock, a large variety of produce are grown there.  The most popular of course, is wine:)  Part of the tour we took included a winery tour where we were able to sample the various wines and even purchased several to take back with us.  Growing grapes on Santorini is a bit trickier than one would think however.  Due to the ferocious winds Santorini is plagued by quite often, vines are not able to grow upright as in a normal vineyard.  Instead, people train the vines to grow in circular nests or baskets on the ground so they aren’t damaged by the winds!

Santorini Wine
Vineyard

Along with the hard winds, Santorini rarely gets any rain.  Water is a HUGE commodity and isn’t to be wasted at all.  The lack of rain is why their wines also have such a distinctive taste (the grapes are very concentrated due to lack of water).  The lack of rain has even inspired how the buildings are built.  One will notice 2 kinds of ceilings on buildings in Santorini: a flat roof and a circular or arched roof.  The flat ones are designed to collect rainwater that then gets funneled to an underground cistern, while the arched/circular roofs are the best design for buildings to withstand earthquakes… Yes, they have earthquakes too on top of the lack of rain and violent winds and there is still that volcanic caldron to think about… Sounds like a rough life to me, what with having to battle nature in so many different ways!

Roof to Collect Water
Oia Church
Oia main “road”
Oia and the Sea
Looking into the Caldera
Free Tibet!

While wine, capers and olives are among the favorite products of Santorini, their favorite and most revered animal is the donkey.  They love their donkeys!!  Several statues of the honored donkey can be found in every town, and several times over.  They are working donkeys of course but are well taken care of and once they are of retirement age, they even have a proper retirement home for them to live out their lives.  Too cute, I love it!!  One of the ways to get back down from the town to sea was via a donkey ride:) I was absolutely on board to do that, however our tour guide made a mention that the donkey’s aren’t really a fan of it, so I decided to spare the donkey a trip down the rugged terrain (sigh).  Dogs are also very popular on the island and seem to run the place.  It reminded me of dogs in Costa Rica- how they do what they want during the day, but have a place and home to go to at night.

Oia Dogs
Oia Dogs_2
Oia Dogs_3
Oia Donkey
Thera Donkey
Donkeys!
Donkeys!_2

We wandered around Thera after our tour of Oia and the winery and stopped for some lunch at Arcobaleno.  The food was delicious and the view was unbeatable as it was overlooking the center of the archipelago where the volcano remnants remain.  I had a beer filtered with volcanic rock called Volcan while my parents and sister had wine.  And of course, since I was in Greece I had to have a teeny bottle to Ouzo to finish off the meal:)  From there we did some more shopping for gifts and such, had a pedicure at the Dr. Fish Spa where they use cleaner fish to nibble off all the dead skin, then had one more drink and a wee dessert (baklava anyone?) before taking the tram back to the loading area for the small boats to take us back to the ship.

Oia and the Sea_2
Where does this go??
Drinking Ouzo
Nibbling Fish
Nibbling Fish_2
Tram Down

Oh, one last interesting story about Santorini: the poor houses.  Wealth was signified not by the kind of house you had (large or small) but rather by how much land you owned.  So those who weren’t wealthy, instead of having homes on land lived in homes carved out of the rock along the top edge of Santorini.  Looking at the pictures of Oia and Thera, you can see how many of the homes are practically on top of each other and built right on the edge of the land.  These were the homes for poor people.  Today of course, these homes are worth millions of dollars… Go figure!

Oia “Poor” houses
Oia and the Sea_3
Oia Church and the Sea
Oia and the Sea_5
Oia Church and the Sea_2
Oia and the Sea_7

Oh, Greeks also love their churches.  If memory serves, people in the town were allowed to build their own churches and name them in honor of a Saint (each church was in honor of a different Saint).  While the churches weren’t used every day or week, when the day came around to honor whatever Saint was associated with their church, the church owner would give it a face life, clean it up and invite the town to the church to celebrate the Saint.  Lovely:)

Volcano Caldera & Ship
Volcano Caldera
Oia “Poor” houses_2
Remnants of Venetian Castle
Oia “Poor” Houses_3
Oia “Poor” Houses_4
Oia “Poor” Houses_5
Oia “Poor” Houses_6

Last, last thing… There are actually ruins that were discovered on Santorini from the previous civilization (the one wiped out by the volcano eruption) and it has been compared to Pompeii… We didn’t have time to look into that further but it’s certainly a reason to go back:)

On to Katakolon

Back to Europe

Scotland

Necropolis & Heelers

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While there are lots of place to wander around and sight see in Glasgow (Buchanan Street for shopping, the Royal Exchange Square where the statue of the Duke of Wellington somehow always has a street traffic cone on his head, George Square which is the principal civic square and is named after King George III, the Clydesdale Amateur Rowing Club where we met Anna’s friends then went for drinks at West nearby, and the People’s Palace and Winter Garden which boasts the World’s largest terra-cotta fountain out back!) perhaps my favorite was the Necropolis…

I’ve always enjoyed a good cemetery, and this one was not disappointing!  It literally went on forever!!  One could seriously spend the entire day trying to see all the tombs and plots!!  I’m just kicking myself for not having brought my camera though!!  While not every tombstone was hugely impressive, there was one of a person who was obviously involved in theater that still sticks in my mind… His tombstone was so well decorated and huge!!  It literally looked like you were in the audience of a theater ready to watch a show!  The curtains were drawn, you could see the side balcony areas where the seats for the wealthy were located.  There were the classic faces of comedy and tragedy adorning the top, and a lovely and lively poem written across the curtain… Like I said, it was really impressive because even though I didn’t have my camera, I still remember those details today!

I was joined at the Necropolis by two of Anna’s friends, Davie and Markie.  Anna had to work that day so she gave me her phone and I ended up making plans with Markie to meet in town and go to the Necropolis.  Davie just happened to be joining, but it was just as well because though he has lived in Glasgow for a long while (he may actually have been born there) and he had been to the very lovely church nearby the Necropolis, he had never actually been to the Necropolis!!  Funny how we never take advantage of our surroundings where we live…  It’s the same with me too though, I’m not any better for when I was living in Costa Rica, even though I was literally across the street from the beach, I actually went to the beach maybe a dozen times a month!!  Terrible, I know!  But you all know what I’m talking about!!

Anyway, the rest of that particular day was spent wandering around Glasgow on foot.  We ended up walking past Davie’s house so he was dropped off there and Markie and I continued our tour.  We came across a little park where there was an older gentlemen and three blue heelers (aka Australian cattle dogs).  It was obviously a training session and it was by far one of the coolest things I’ve seen!!  You could tell immediately which of the three dogs was the most experienced and which was the least… They were all in a large field, the older man standing on one end, the three dogs laying side by side down a way from the old man.  Suddenly the man would shout out a command and a name and one of the dogs would shoot up on all fours, race around in a large circle, then come to a resting crouch in front of the man.  The same command was called with another of the dog’s name and off he/she went!  Finally the last would be called (the least experienced) and often times during his/her turn the command would have to be called several times or she would have to do it again, lol!!  It was just so amazing!!  With no leashes, lines, treats, gimmicks, etc, these three dogs were at absolute attention and focus!  It was obvious they enjoyed their tasks and I believe that the more experienced dogs were really the ones helping to train the less experienced dog!  It was just such a treat for me to watch these dogs in action!  I was in complete awe!!!  Needless to say those dogs and their training session were gaining quite the audience from people walking by!!

On to Loch Lomond (Conic Hill)

Back to Glasgow

Back to United Kingdom