It’s a dog’s life on Koh Phayam – Thailand

After having enjoyed Europe’s comfortable lifestyle for a while, I’m back on the road again.

First stop in Bangkok. I receive an e-mail from Sabai Sabai Bungalows asking if I can come by to paint. I hop on an overnight bus to Southern Thailand the same day I set foot in Bangkok, and 12 hours and a speedboat later I find myself on the island of Koh Phayam.

And this island appears to be a beautiful, natural place, not yet overcrowded by tourists. In Sabai Sabai I meet James, the owner who built this place up in 7 years time from 3 to 23 bungalows. He has a fully booked high season ahead of him, which will soon start off. But first some maintenance and construction work to fix the monsoon’s damage. It’s the perfect timing for me to get lots of signs painted and help decorate the place with my art.

My companions are, besides 2 Dutch friends who help painting, 6 dogs living on Sabai Sabai. This seems a lot, but I quickly discover that it is an average for every person living on the island. And besides there are countless semi domesticated stray dogs: people will feed them, but they belong to nobody. And since all these dogs are not vaccinated nor sterilised, Koh Phayam has a hard time controlling the dog population.

The association All for Villages, run by the energetic Australian Fiona, takes matters into own hands and runs sterilisation and vaccination programs. Of course they need financial aids for this so if you’d like to contribute please check out their website.

But for the time I’m at Koh Phayam I frankly quite enjoy all that furry company. And drawing dogs is a lot of fun!