I have a story that will be a nice change from beaches and travel etc. I would like to introduce you to a dog I named Sue (short for tsunami).

It seems that since the Tsunami there have been a number of stray dogs around Khao Lak, whether they were separated from their owners during the tsunami or their owners were killed by the Tsunami I do not know. Sue was a stray and wandered into the place we were staying the day we arrived. I thought she was the bungalows' dog and I played with her as she was so friendly. I went for a walk into town and she followed me to the main road which was over a mile from the bungalows so I got worried and walked back and it was then that I was told that she did not belong to anyone.

On the way back she would walk a few feet in front of me and a couple of times I tried turning around and carrying on with my walk but once she realized that I was not with her she would turn around and run back to me. She was such a great dog that when other dogs started barking at me on the walk, she stood in front of them to protect me. The bungalows already had three dogs and they (the dogs) did not take kindly to this new arrival. It was so hard to watch the other dogs attack Sue as she would cower and put her tail between her legs. It was like she knew that they were in charge and she had to take the abuse until they got use to the idea of having her around. I would intervene every time and eventually the other dogs (who were all good dogs) waited until there was nobody around before playing their dominance game.

Sue looked as if she was pretty healthy other than the constant scratching when she was not chasing the lizards around the property. I felt bad for her as she was clearly trying to fit in after losing her family. The dog was clearly thirsty with her tongue hanging from her mouth so I did try give her some water but that did not sit well with the other dogs. I dared not give her food as I would be leaving and it was up to the people at the bungalows to decide what to do with her. I left with a heavy heart for the snorkel tour not sure what was going to happen to Sue. I know there were thousands of people killed in Thailand by the Tsunami but there must be hundreds of animals still roaming around trying to figure out what happened. I prayed that this one dog could find some sort of a home where she would get the attention she deserved. Three days later when we arrived back from the tour I was so happy to see that Sue was still there. Some of the people who work at the bungalows took pity on her and gave her a place to stay. She still gets picked on by the other dogs but I think she will be okay.

By the way, not that anyone noticed, but there was another big earthquake off northwestern Sumatra. No tsunamis though there were some high waves near the epicenter. Apparently there was panic on the streets in cities in the region, but we slept through it. We didn't hear about it until about an hour ago when we checked into our beachfront bungalow on Pulau Langkawi and turned on Malaysian TV and heard there had been a tsunami warning in Langkawi and Penang (our next stop).

Amie told me about the news but failed to tell me that the earthquake was last night so I spent a few minutes scanning the horizon for a large wave. I tracked down our landlord and asked her about it (with a tinge of worry in my voice). She laughed at me and said it was last night around midnight and not to worry, that she had been watching then. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that she never woke us when she heard about the warnings last night. Maybe there's a reason why the beachfront bungalows suddenly became available this morning? Anyway, all is quiet and hopefully it stays that way.