The face of Thai honesty - yet another superb taxi driver saves the day!

 

Image: Sanook

 

BANGKOK:-- This is the face of yet another honest Bangkok taxi driver - his name is Laemsak Srilarn. He is 33 years old and comes from the north eastern town of Roi-Et.

 

On Thursday Laemsak picked up a lady and her friend from a Rama 9 Road hotel and took them to Suvarnabhumi International Airport where they were due to fly to Hong Kong for a three day sojourn.

 

After dropping off his excited passengers Laemsak dutifully went to pick up his wife and sister back at Rama 9. When his sister got in the cab she noticed a black ladies bag had fallen behind the driver's seat. It contained a lot of foreign currency.

 

Laemsak had no hesitation and knew immediately what to do. He called the FM 91 Radio Station who put out an all points bulletin.

 

At the same time the lady who had left the bag, that contained 135,600 baht worth of Singapore dollars, realized at check-in that it had gone missing. The Sukhothai resident also called the radio station and soon she was reunited with her property.

 

She was thrilled with the honesty of Khun Laemsak and praised him profusely before happily rewarding him with 400 Singapore dollars, about 10,000 baht.

 

Laemsak said he would never keep anything that did not belong to him. He knows how hard it is to get money and knew that he must return it to its rightful owner.

 

Source: Sanook

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2016-12-17

>sigh

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The face of Thai honesty - yet another superb taxi driver saves the day!
 
Image: Sanook   BANGKOK:-- This is the face of yet another honest Bangkok taxi driver - his name is Laemsak Srilarn. He is 33 years old and comes from the north eastern town of Roi-Et.   On Thursday Laemsak picked up a lady and her friend from a Rama 9 Road hotel and took them to Suvarnabhumi International Airport where they were due to fly to Hong Kong for a three day sojourn.   After dropping off his excited passengers Laemsak dutifully went to pick up his wife and sister back at Rama 9. When his sister got in the cab she noticed a black ladies bag had fallen behind the driver's seat. It contained a lot of foreign currency.   Laemsak had no hesitation and knew immediately what to do. He called the FM 91 Radio Station who put out an all points bulletin.   At the same time the lady who had left the bag, that contained 135,600 baht worth of Singapore dollars, realized at check-in that it had gone missing. The Sukhothai resident also called the radio station and soon she was reunited with her property.   She was thrilled with the honesty of Khun Laemsak and praised him profusely before happily rewarding him with 400 Singapore dollars, about 10,000 baht.   Laemsak said he would never keep anything that did not belong to him. He knows how hard it is to get money and knew that he must return it to its rightful owner.   Source: Sanook     -- [emoji767] Copyright Thai Visa News 2016-12-17

This will have tourists flooding into Thailand a land of honesty with a smile NOT!!


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Nice story...........it brought a tear to my glass eye.

"yet another"

Ho Ho Ho, well it is the Festive Season !

yet another superb taxi driver saves the day!

The mind boggles....just how many are there???

11 minutes ago, PatOngo said:

Nice story...........it brought a tear to my glass eye.

joy  or  pain.......just wondrin

Just now, kannot said:

joy  or  pain.......just wondrin

 

Wonder no longer.........pure joy!

1 minute ago, PatOngo said:

yet another superb taxi driver saves the day!

The mind boggles....just how many are there???

A cynic might say as many as needed when a feel good story, favourable publicity is required.

He's 33?

Well, it was the least he could do after charging them 4000 baht for the taxi ride to the airport :-)

 

All kidding aside, I just find it so unbelievably sad that this is news in Thailand.  Great, he's an honest guy and everything but it's a country of 70 million people and the "Taxi driver returns money to passenger" story happens about once a month or so.  I live in a town of 2 million people and other than maybe once (perhaps twice) a year when someone leaves $100,000+ USD or some irreplaceable family heirloom, nobody feels a need to cover this story.  

 

And when they do cover the story, the focus is usually on the massive amount of money or how much the item meant to the person.  

 

A certain level of basic honesty is just expected.  In Thailand it's just so surprising to Thais that the taxi driver didn't steal the money and run back off to his village and go on a 2 month long bender of booze, drugs, gambling, and whoring, that they have to write about it in the newspaper.  

 

You notice they don't write about the people who never saw their wallets or money again.  Because that's common.  That is the expected outcome.  

 

I've taken a buttload of taxis in my years and I've left something behind only twice.  Both times I called the taxi dispatcher, told him where I was picked up and dropped off, and asked him if they could ask the driver to look for the item.  Both times, sure enough, they found it and the driver dropped the items off to me (and I tipped him generously for going out of his way).  

 

I just don't get why that's news.  

11 minutes ago, digibum said:

I just don't get why that's news.  

 

Oh, come on! It enhances the reputation of the country!

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

....dutifully went to pick up his wife and sister.....

Open with main character depiction....

 

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

...had no hesitation and knew immediately...

Inner voice guides....

 

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

...happily rewarding him...

Reward of merit....

 

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

He knows how hard it is to get money and knew that he must return it to its rightful owner.

Moral closing....

 

A common plot of all Aesop's fables.......

 

 

 

33 minutes ago, digibum said:

A certain level of basic honesty is just expected.  In Thailand it's just so surprising to Thais that the taxi driver didn't steal the money and run back off to his village and go on a 2 month long bender of booze, drugs, gambling, and whoring, that they have to write about it in the newspaper.  

 

You notice they don't write about the people who never saw their wallets or money again.  Because that's common.  That is the expected outcome.  

 

Dog bites man: not news.

 

Man bites dog: news.

 

In his defense, it can be said that maybe he was drunk and he didn't know what was

he was doing....... but when he woke up, he realized his mistake.....

"Superb"? Please.

In a perverse way this sort of OTT adulation backfires because by having to gush over someone's basic honesty they highlight the fact that it's generally uncommon here.

The future of Thailand rests on the shoulders of people like this man.

Taxi driver arrested for rape.

 

Few days later, taxi driver returns cash story.

 

Thailand sticks to its tried and tested formulae.

3 hours ago, DM07 said:

>sigh

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And same again from this ex-taxi driver.

    It may come as a surprise to the author that the majority of people are honest. It says a lot to the cotrary about the honesty of a nation's people if when an occurance like this happens...it is an seen as an opportunity to broadcast it from the mountain tops.

1 hour ago, PatOngo said:

 

Oh, come on! It enhances the reputation of the country!

 

Yes, I understand it on the propaganda level but not in the sense that Thais are so inwardly focused they don't really understand how it looks to others.  

 

 

PM Prayuth just invited the cabbie to "shake a leg" with him during next weeks aerobics at Government House

USD 100,000 for  a three day "sojourn"?

 

Or a money laundering weekend?

It is a sad society or times when we have to publish when someone does the right thing. That used to be reserved for when people did wrong. 

Anyone who is careless with their money like that deserves to lose it !!

Also this seems to happen a lot, i dont remember seeing this type of thing in the news in any other country i have been in.

Are they so ashamed of all the bad things that happen that they think pumping out one of these stories every so often will make everyone flock in their millions and only read the good points !

Why is this news? Because it sets an example that others can follow. Other taxi drivers read the story and they follow the same line of thought. Then over time a habit and reputation develops.  Its good its an inspiration people read it and think i will do the same. 

 

Wasnt it dionysis who walked around with a lamp in the day in search of an honest man? Here is one. I have done the same. 

Here is another as highlighted by the thai prime minister in his friday night address to the nation.

 

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1159176/taxi-driver-returns-2kg-gold-cash-to-owner

3 hours ago, PatOngo said:

 

Oh, come on! It enhances the reputation of the country!

How about its advertising for a radio station 

4 hours ago, PatOngo said:

yet another superb taxi driver saves the day!

The mind boggles....just how many are there???

 

That many when there might be an honest one it's headlines?