Langkawi, Kedah, Malaysia
January 03, 2014
It’s been a while since my last update. I planned to pop something on every weekend when I get my day off from the Shelter but a very bad bout of Viral Fever saw me laid up in bed sleeping for most of last weekend.
So what’s been happening then? Not that much to be honest. The Shelter is taking up most of my time. 8 hours a day, 6 days a week in baking hot 30+ heat gives me very little energy come my day off and the weekday nights. I feel settled in here now though and into a routine of looking after the dogs mainly but also trying to spend some time with the cats that they desperately deserve and need. Last week I had a nice couple of meals round Dorothy and Jerome’s. A nice tasty serving of Lamb and roasties on Christmas Eve was nice, and it was also good to have the company as well at this time of year.
Christmas and New Year have felt very strange this year. Obviously being in a majority Muslim country means there is little evidence of any festivities going on and my Christmas day was spent doing my normal tasks in the shelter. On Christmas night though I was invited to have a meal with some of the other staff and volunteers here in the resort which was really nice. The food was very good and a few cheeky free bottles of Vino and cocktails put a wee grin on my face. Boxing day was a similar affair but with another meal at Dorothy and Jerome’s place again. I started to feel a bit strange that day, just generally achey and a bit of a headache and I just put it down to maybe a bit dehydration or heat stroke due to the work and the climate here, but I was wrong. I must have woken up 6-7 times during the night with full on muscle cramps and pains all over my body. Once I finally surfaced for the day I had a massive headache, a touch of the squirts, some bad pain behind my eyes and a feeling of disorientation to complement the bad muscle pains that were continuing all over my body. I popped along to the local Hospital as all the clinics were shut that day and after a few tests and checking my symptoms was told that I had some form of Viral Fever. I felt lousy and like no other illness I have had before. So for the next three days I pretty much slept, only surfacing a few times for a wee bit food and to get some badly needed fluids into me. The hospital gave me several different tablets to take and by Monday/Tuesday I was finally starting to feel like my old self again.
Christmas day was marred by the unfortunate death of one of my foster kittens Ren, closely followed on the 26th by the passing away of his little buddy Stimpy leaving me with only Custard the little ginger kitten left. Custard has had a pretty hard time of it, crying constantly as she is still missing her mam and now her two new-found friends have suddenly been taken away from her. I tried to introduce her to some of the other cats in the shelter but she has found it really hard to make friends and fit in so by New Years Eve she was looking thoroughly fed up and lonely sat facing the wall staring into space. I had been invited along to have a few drinks in the resort with the other workers to celebrate New Year but by 11:45pm as I looked round the room and realised that non of these people were either close friends or family it seemed that I would only be staying to satisfy my own need for company on the New Years night. I could not see any difference between me feeling lonely without friends and that of Custards plight, sitting looking very lonely and sad on her own so I headed back and spent my New Year with Custard, playing with her and trying to cheer her up. It cheered myself up probably a lot more than having another few drinks with relative strangers would have so a good result all round for the kitten and myself.
The rest of this week so has been fairly standard fare. Work during the day then catching up with friends and family online on the night. Been taking a look into where else in Indonesia I fancy with Dani when we head out to Bali as well as looking at various other places around South East Asia that looking amazing and well worth a visit.
