I moved to Bangkok together with my wife at the beginning of this year and fell in love with the land of smiles immediately. Thailand is a beautiful country, and Bangkok is a great city, but it’s really the Thai people who make all the difference and make Thailand so popular for tourism.

I love Bangkok… except maybe the heat and the traffic. No kidding! The traffic can be so bad that when you’re in a hurry it’s probably better to walk than to take a car. Taxi and Tuk Tuk drivers have a reputation of always trying to negotiate a couple of dollars more from foreigners than they would normally charge a local.

And here, my story that deepens my love and respect to Thailand and its people.

Yesterday my colleague and friend, Jacob, after leading the Food & Beverage operations at the W Bangkok for the past three and a half years celebrated his farewell before moving on to his next adventure.

We all gathered with him for his farewell drink at the hotel around 10 pm. Jacob spent most of the night reminiscing about his journey in Bangkok, how much he enjoyed the life here and that he was so sure he would return one day. My wife asked ‘what do you like most about Bangkok?’. He answered without hesitation, ‘the people’. In his opinion, Thais are one of the most heartwarming and genuine people. In his word, ‘the smiles on the street’ was what he rarely found in any other place in the world.

Towards the end of the evening, he told us that it was an eventful and very emotional last day with packing up his last suitcases, last-minute meetings  and having to say ‘see you later’ to so many dear friends. He added that on top of all the stress on his last day, he realized in the evening when leaving his office that he lost his wallet with his travel money. He wasn’t really sure when and where he lost it but believed that he could have dropped it by mistake in a Tuk Tuk on his way back to the hotel. He mentioned that it was a lot of money in his wallet, but that he would never let this taint his last day in Bangkok and all the wonderful memories that he collected over the past years.

By mere chance I recalled that the hotel’s doorman reported in the afternoon about a Tuk Tuk driver claiming he had a bag from a passenger that he dropped off at the hotel earlier. He left his name and number with the doorman in case anyone would claim the missing bag.

Could it be that this was the wallet that Jacob was talking about? Is it possible that a Tuk Tuk driver would return a wallet full of cash?

My wife called the Tuk Tuk driver immediately and it turned out to be the one that drove Jacob over eight hours ago to the hotel. It was almost midnight, the driver had already finished his shift but said that he would come back to the hotel right away. He arrived no more than 20 minutes later with his son and returned the wallet.

None of us could believe the honesty we witnessed considering that taxi and Tuk Tuk drivers did not have the best reputation… not until yesterday.  We were in awe. My wife told the driver how much we appreciated his action. He simply responded by tapping his heart and said ‘I am just following my heart’ while smiling at his son…

Jacob had over 65,000 Thai Baht in his wallet (about two thousand US dollars) and needless to say that he gave a more than generous reward to the driver. To put things into perspective, as a driver it takes him about four to five months to earn this much money. He could’ve just kept the cash, but he decided to ‘follow his heart’.

While I would still recommend to be cautious in Bangkok with taxi or Tuk Tuk drivers just like in any other big city, I completely changed my perspective, and it took only one person to make up for all the bad experiences or stories and make such a difference for tourism in Thailand.

The name of the Tuk Tuk driver is Khun Polnarong, and he not only created a truly memorable Thailand experience for Jacob on his last day, he did so as well for me, my wife, and I guess for everyone reading this post.

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