Saturday 15 June 2013

Expat Cat - Pt 1

The soon-to-be Jetset feline contemplates the green green grass of home.


There can't be many cats that get to travel on an aeroplane. We don't want to leave our pampered furry princess behind, though, which means figuring out the complicated process of taking a pet to Thailand. Today she and I took the first step towards that goal by taking her to see her new vet. He was so helpful and reassuring that I'm happy to give his company, Village Vet, a plug here.

So what has this expensive and complicated process to drag a few kilos of ungrateful fur and claws a few thousand miles consisted of so far? Mainly, a great deal of googling and wading through a swamp of confusing, contradictory information. It turns out, though, that the necessary steps are fairly simple. First, find an airline that will transport your beloved furball. It turns out that the lovely people at Thai Airways, already our preferred way to reach the land of smiles, are happy to let you bring cats onboard as hand luggage, so you don't have to subject your pet to the unknown horrors of the luggage hold. You also need an export certificate, which means finding a vet approved by the government for this purpose - which is why we went and made a new friend today. He administered the necessary rabies shot, made sure her other vaccinations were up to date, and advised us what to do next. Which, unsurprisingly, involves filling in a form - the evocatively-named EXA01. This raised a number of awkward questions. How old is said cat? I felt I really should have known the answer to that one. In the end I scoured my hard drive for a photo of me proudly clutching my then-tiny bundle of fun, looked at the date and added the six weeks or so she'd been alive at that time. Turns out my best guess was at least a year out. What address will you be importing her to? Trickier, when you're moving to a new city without a permanent place to live arranged. I'm hoping the address of our temporary accommodation will suffice. What date are you importing your pet? I'll answer that one when we've booked the flights. Did I mention there was quite a lot to do?

UK paperwork is bad enough, but the Thais seem to have an affinity for slow-moving red tape, so with some trepidation I also found myself emailing the relevant local authority in order to enquire how to obtain an import permit. I'm hoping the resulting form will take less than two days max to fill in. Some sources seem to think this is unnecessary, and you can simply deal with the Thai paperwork on arrival, but I'd rather not risk that.

There are also more basic matters to consider, such as how to carry a cat through an airport and onto a plane. After much searching, I bought her a Sleepypod Air - the ultimate in carry-on cat comfort. It's business class for moggies, with a price tag to match, but it seems ideal for the task, is airline approved, and crucially can fold up at the ends to fit under the seat in front of you during takeoff and landing, whilst allowing the backpacking beast some room to stretch out and rest in between. I've left it open on the living room floor, and she's spent approximately 65% of her time asleep in it since, so I think she likes it in there. It does look more tempting than an economy seat, to be honest.

And so today we found ourselves at the vets for the first of several visits. As ever, she embarrassed me by persistently jumping off the table and giving his examining room a thorough examination - she's not a shy creature. The dreaded needle came out for the aforementioned jabs, her microchip (another necessity) was scanned, and much advice dispensed. It turns out that once the civil servants have processed my lovingly-filled-in form, they'll forward a second, even more complicated piece of paperwork directly to the vet, who will then examine the creature again and attest that she is healthy, appropriately vaccinated, and generally not a threat to anyone's well being.

So it's complicated, and it's certainly not cheap, but for now, once the forms are filled, we wait and hope the the documents arrive in time and that our intrepid furry friend can embark on the next stage of her unusual adventure.




Friday 14 June 2013

A confession

Before we start, I have to get something off my chest. The title of this blog is a lie. Completely untrue. I don't live in Bangkok. I'm not even anyone's husband. But both those things are about to change very soon. Life is a whirlwind of planning right now. I'm aiming to do my best to document here what it takes to move one's life halfway round the world.