Sanctuary Koh Lanta, Thailand
Cats in Lanta Animal Welfare
A rescue centre on a beach island in the Andaman Sea that has sterilised most of the island’s cats and dogs, gives free tours every day, and lets you take a cat home to Europe if you are flying that way anyway.
Where to find cats in Lanta Animal Welfare: Lanta Animal Welfare, on the main road at Phra Ae, behind Long Beach, on Koh Lanta Yai in Krabi province. When: Tours daily; check the current times. November to April is the season; the centre is open all year and needs help most in the wet months. Why here: One of the best-run small animal charities in Southeast Asia, on an island you would go to anyway.
The short version
- Where
- Lanta Animal Welfare, on the main road at Phra Ae, behind Long Beach, on Koh Lanta Yai in Krabi province
- When
- Tours daily; check the current times. November to April is the season; the centre is open all year and needs help most in the wet months
- How long
- An hour for the tour. An afternoon if you walk the cats, which you can
- What it costs
- Free tour; donations. The café next door funds it
- Why here
- One of the best-run small animal charities in Southeast Asia, on an island you would go to anyway
What to bring
- A donation, or lunch next doorThe centre runs on donations and the café attached to it. Eat there; it pays for a sterilisation.
- The tour timeFree tours run daily at set times. Check the website; turn up ten minutes early.
- An open mind about flight volunteeringIf you are flying to Europe, the centre can arrange for you to take an adopted cat to its new home. It costs you nothing but paperwork.
- A scooter or a tuk-tukThe island is long and thin. The centre is on the main road behind Long Beach.
Why there are cats everywhere
A woman opened a café on Koh Lanta in 2005 to feed the strays outside it. It is now the island’s animal hospital.
Koh Lanta is a long, quiet island of beaches and rubber plantations in the Andaman Sea, south of Krabi, popular with families and divers and people who find Phi Phi too loud. In 2005 a Norwegian woman who had moved there opened a small vegetarian café at Phra Ae and started feeding and treating the street animals around it. That became Lanta Animal Welfare: a clinic, a shelter, a sterilisation programme that has fixed most of the island’s cats and dogs, and a volunteer operation that draws vets and helpers from all over the world.
What makes it worth a page is how open it is. There are free tours every day, where a volunteer walks you round the cat rooms and the dog runs and explains what the centre does. You can walk a dog. You can sit in the cat house. And if you are flying to Europe, you can be a flight volunteer: the centre finds a home for a cat there, does the paperwork, and you carry it as your baggage. Hundreds of Lanta cats have gone to Scandinavia this way, which is where the founder came from and where the homes are.
The island’s own cats are the ordinary Thai kind, on the beaches and around the restaurants, and thanks to the centre they are mostly ear-tipped and healthy. The old town on the east side, a stilt village over the water, has them under every house. But the centre is the reason to come, and the reason the rest of the island’s cats are in the state they are.
The walk
Not a walk so much as a day on the island: the centre and its tour, Long Beach in front of it, and the old stilt town on the east coast for the island’s own cats.
- From Krabi airportMinivan and ferry to Koh Lanta150 minBook the through ticket. The van drives onto the ferry and continues down the island.
- From Saladan pier, the island’s portTuk-tuk or scooter south to Phra Ae15 minLong Beach and the centre are a few kilometres down the west coast road.
- From Phi Phi or Ao NangFerry to Saladan90 minSeasonal boats; the sea is rough from May to October.
Lanta Animal Welfare
On the main road behind Long Beach. The tour, the cat house, the café. Come for the tour time, stay for lunch, ask about flight volunteering if you are heading to Europe.
The cat house, on the tour. This one has a collar and a future.Kullez, CC BY 2.0 Long Beach
The beach in front of the centre, the island’s longest, with restaurants along it that feed the ear-tipped cats the centre has fixed. Swim, eat, and watch the cats work the tables at sunset.
A beach cat, fixed and fed.ironypoisoning, CC BY-SA 2.0 Lanta Old Town
Across the island to the east coast, the old Chinese and sea gypsy trading village on stilts over the water. Cats under every house and on the piers. Quiet, hot, and the island as it was.
Old Town. Stilts, water, and the island’s own cats.ironypoisoning, CC BY-SA 2.0
Same numbers as the list. Worth keeping open on your phone.
The cats you will meet
Thai island cats, short-coated, kinked tails and Siamese points among them, on the beaches and under the stilt houses, and almost all ear-tipped thanks to the centre. Sociable at the restaurants, and, at the centre, entirely used to being sat with.
Centre cats
In the cat house on the tour.
Recovering, or waiting for a flight. Sit; they come.
Beach cats
At the restaurant tables on Long Beach.
Fixed, fed, and professional at sunset.
Old Town cats
Under the stilt houses on the east coast.
The island’s original cats, in the village that was here first.
Everybody says You cannot take a cat home from Thailand.
Actually You can, and the centre makes it easy for Europe: it finds the home, does the paperwork and vaccinations, and you carry the cat as baggage on a flight you were taking anyway. Ask on the tour.
How not to be the annoying one
- Turn up for the tour on time and let the volunteer lead. The animals are in recovery.
- Eat at the café. It is the funding.
- Do not feed on the beach. The restaurants do, and the centre has the numbers where it wants them.
- Flight volunteering is real work for the centre. Only offer if you will follow through.
- Old Town is a living village. Photograph the cats; ask before the houses.
