''My job is to help AIDS patients die peacefully and in as little pain as possible. Some people say my work is futile, because the patients are going to die anyway. My answer is: we're all going to die one day. Surely we should be providing these people with kindness and mercy. If we turn our backs on them, how can we call ourselves human?''

Alongkot Phonlamuk was born in the Thai north-eastern town of Nong Khai in 1955. He was schooled in Bangkok, and then studied a Bachelor of Engineering at Kasetsart University. In 1979 he went to Australia to study a Master Degree in Engineering at Australian National University, Canberra.

''I had plans to create a giant recycling and litter separation plant,'' he said. ''But my life took a different turn.''

Soon after returning to Thailand in 1984, he worked in the Thai civil service as an academic in the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-Operatives. Then he did what many young Thai men do for a short time; he ordained as a monk. That was 14 years ago; he has yet to leave.

He received a monastic name: Dr Alongkot Dikkapanyo, and in 1990 moved to Wat Phra Baht Nam Phu, a small temple in the hills of Lopburi, 120 km north of Bangkok. Thus began his study of the teachings of the Buddha.

Then in 1992, while visiting a hospital in the area, he met a dying AIDS patient.

''This man had nobody,'' he said. ''His family and friends had shunned him. Society had shunned him. I held his hand, and he died then and there. It was a moving experience, and one that got me thinking.''

Dr Alongkot did some further research, and learned about the timebomb that was AIDS ticking away in Thailand. He decided to set up a hospice to care for AIDS patients who had been shunned by society.

Initially he encountered opposition when he brought AIDS patients to the run-down temple, set against a mountain and overlooking the cornfields of Lopburi. Other monks said it was not the role of Buddhist monks to care for AIDS patients. Local villagers, lacking any real knowledge about AIDS, disliked the idea of a group of AIDS sufferers in their backyard.

Thai monks traditionally set out early in the morning to receive food and alms from villagers; no villager dared to give food to Dr Alongkot, for fear that the simple act of putting food into his bowl may give them AIDS. Once a delegation of corn growers approached the temple. They feared the run-off of the water used in the temple would run down into their fields, thus giving their corn AIDS, and thus being unable to sell it at the market.

Dr Alongkot persisted.

His timing was impeccable. Six years ago, the monster of AIDS was beginning to emerge in Thailand. As more and more average families fell to the spectre of AIDS, his temple became more accepted.

Outisde of providing a home and treatment for AIDS patients, Dr Alongkot devotes his life to educating the Thai society about AIDS. His goal is to have society accept AIDS patients, and to have them lead their lives with as little pain as possible. He teaches families and relatives the proper way to care for AIDS patients.