I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but I like cats. So it was fitting that when I got to an island called Penang, with a hip little old town called Georgetown, I noticed a disproportionate amount of cat themed street art .

Mmmmmmmmmm oi

But no amount of street art or delicious street food could have prepared me for what I was about to do.

I did another help exchange, this time at Cat Beach, a cat sanctuary in a small fishing village called Teluk Bahang. It sounded like a great idea to me, hang out with 200 cats all day on the beach, easy peasy.

Let’s play a game, how many cats can you count in these pictures?

But reality sunk in when I got there. There were many cats that were on the verge of death. These cats had been taken in off the street, riddled with diseases, parasites and infections. We were there, trying to bring them to a happy healthy state, but in a lot of cases, especially with the kittens, we were only able to provide a comfortable last home before they moved on.

A pile of sick kittens

All in all I will say this was a good experience, although tough both physically and mentally. Me and the other volunteers cracked jokes while cleaning up massive piles of cat poop/vomit/piss in the mornings, cursing the beings that created these messes, but at night we sat out by the ocean as cats jumped on and off of our laps and swarmed us with kitty love.

Sitting out on the ocean with cats

A good experience but I felt like I needed a break afterwards so I spent three days relaxing in Georgetown, eating food and getting the cat stains out of my clothes.

Now I’m in back in Thailand! Ready to take on it’s prophesized islands. Who knows… maybe it will be paradise after all.