Jack, a 22-year-old French tourist who traveled to Thailand for the first time, booked a taxi from Bangkok to Koh Tao Island in Surat Thani province on February 12.
According to Jack, he said he had clearly informed the driver about the destination and then fell asleep on his journey to the tropical coast in southern Thailand.
However, when he woke up, Jack felt extremely confused when he realized he was not near the sea. Instead, the scene he saw before him was the mountain ranges.
Jack quickly discovers that he has made a very silly mistake, forcing him to travel nearly 1,000km in a completely different direction.
Specifically, when booking a taxi, Jack misspelled the location name "Koh Tao" due to language barriers, causing the driver to misunderstand.
Instead of taking him to Koh Tao in the South, the driver drove him to "Doi Tao", a place in the North of the country.
The pronunciation of the word "Koh Tao" can easily cause confusion. In Thai, "Koh" sounds like "cho" in chocolate, and "Tao" sounds like "wow".
Therefore, the words Jack pronounces can be misunderstood as "Doi" and "Tao" are also pronounced similarly.
At that time, Jack also did not realize that driving straight to Koh Tao was also impossible, because to get to this remote island, he needed to take a ferry.
After realizing his mistake, Jack went to meet and talk to the local police. These people offered to help him continue his journey to the finish line.
In a recorded video, Jack said, "I will go to Koh Tao tomorrow. Not Doi Tao. Koh Tao, an island".
He added that he was quite surprised when the driver disappeared right after letting him go down and collected a fee of more than 6,000 baht (about 4.5 million VND).
"I woke up and realized I was in Lamphun, near Chiang Mai. I was really shocked to see mountains instead of seas," Jack recalled.
The police taught Jack how to pronounce the island's name correctly and took him to a hotel to stay overnight. They then helped him find a truck carrying cabbage to depart the next morning to return to the capital Bangkok.
Police officer Teerapat Modjod said: "We received a report that a foreign tourist had left his wallet at a restaurant. When we found him, we discovered a precarious situation. We took him to a resort to stay overnight and then took him to the bus station so he could continue his journey to the island."
Koh Tao Island is also known as "The East Sea", due to many unknown deaths here. However, every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors still visit this small island to admire the clear blue waters and beautiful marine ecosystem.
