Cherry picking the best of the vets!

By John Roberts 27 April 2008 01:26:00

After a successful year feeling the bumps and bruises, the scrapes and scratches and inspecting the dung of our elephants; a year which saw him move from nervous newby to a point at which he is now often the only vet on site at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre Hospital; a year when he represented us and the Mobile Elephant Clinic at the Elefantasia Elephant Festival in Laos - where he had to sedate and handle an aggressive musth bull amidst a crowd of onlookers; a year where he made more than a few friends up here in the Golden Triangle; Mor Pap, our first adopted vet, has decided  leave us and accept a job with the Royal White Elephant Stables in Lampang - he will also spend time helping out at the hospital.

    Our elephants will have to get used to a new pair of investigative hands but we believe we've come up trumps in finding Dr Tittiporn Keratimanoch D.V.M, or Mor Cherry as she is universally (and more pronouncably) known.

    Cherry learned her trade at Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and has also had a cameo role in a previous missive when her presentation on neo-natal care provided us with the excuse to go to Lampang, visit some old friends and pretend that it was work.

    A lover of elephants, her trunkside manner has won her many friends already, pachydermic and those with thin skins.  She has agreed to spend fifteen days a month with us as we are now up to thirty elephants of all sizes, all playing in the recently created mud, we manage to provide her with a sprain a day to massage - though yesterday we caught her helping out Pa Nang at the weaving table putting the finishing touches to our unique, handmade silk "Tawan & Lynchee" design scarves (available from the Wives' Shop - all silk grown at home, dyed and woven on site by mahouts' wives - all profits to the weaving wives).



...Cherry reaches to give Tong Kam her ectoparasite injection across at the Four Seasons camp...



...at Anantara treating an abrasion on Phu Ki's old logging injury...



...treating Tong Kwao's injuries from that last night of polo when she got a little carried away playing with the T.E.C.C. baby boys, silly girl (Tong Kwao that is)...



...and caught demonstrating her mahout skills, hiding behind HM the King and riding one of the said T.E.C.C. babies before his wild fling with Tong Kwao.

    One day I'll get a picture of her face - but she's always so hard at work it is difficult!

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