In Thailand, in a bar, I met a guy who told me he’d eaten his brother. A few moments later he passed out drunk with his head on the bar. I looked down and his dog was unconscious too, lying spreadeagled on its back with its feet half in the air.

As we left, one of the young Thai girls working the bar slipped into my seat to patiently wait for the fellow to wake up. The guy was an old sea salt, complete with obligatory wild hair and long white wizened beard, a solo sailor who’d sailed into Thailand for one common reason. Nearly all lone round-the-world sailors end up in Ao Chalong at some point, usually with their dogs. Within a few short days he’d depart on his battered sail boat with a new Thai bride and the dog would be gone. We never found out what happened to their dogs…

Continue reading