63336 gets mountain rescue team out to customer in Thailand

Every so often we give away £100 for a great customer story involving 63336. A couple of months ago, we posted a story about how 63336 had come to the rescue of a customer stuck in Australia. This month we're publishing Ian's story: an increasingly desperate customer, stuck in a thailand jungle, and how 63336 ended up getting the mountain rescue team to save him and his girlfriend.

Ian writes:

"My girlfriend and I were in Thailand on holiday spending the first week in Koh Phanyang. Towards the end of our stay we decided to head to the north of the island to visit a place called Bottle Beach. As the beach is inaccessible by car / motorbike, you normally have to take the boat to get there.

However, due to high winds, the boat wasn't running. As we really wanted to see Bottle Beach and this would be the last chance, we decided to trek the 4/5 kilometers to get there, On arrival at the beach we planned on staying there for the night.

Setting off at 4pm we started the jungle trek looking forward to the challenge and adventure. As we got into the trek we started noticing people had been placing bottles at intermittent points which helped us find the way.

About an hour into the trek we hade made good headway but it was clear we were still quite a long way from our destination and we were worried about it getting dark.

We continued trekking for another hour or so and it started getting darker, by 6pm it was quite dark and we realised that we'd lost our way in the jungle.

Anxious not to get stuck we kept going, trying to find our way back to the route – but the jungle was getting thicker and it was getting increasingly dark. By 7pm we were still lost and it was almost pitch black; we decided it was dangerous to continue as we were surrounded by cliffs and crevices so we stopped on a rock to decide what to do.

At this point we were scared by the potential of spending the whole night in the jungle as we didn't know what it would hold, snakes, monkeys, spiders, bandits etc! I first texted 63336 and asked for the number of the police in Koh Phanyang, they promptly sent me back the number for the police in Koh Phanyang but also the number for the tourist police on the neighboring Island (Koh Samui). The Koh Phanyang police didn't speak any English so I was unable to communicate with them, we tried the number for the tourist police constantly but there was no answer.

I texted 63336 again and asked for the number of my hotel as I hoped they would be able to call the police and talk to them in Thai. But again, nobody at the hotel could speak English very well so that plan didn't work. Fast running out of ideas I texted 63336 a more general message saying "We are lost in the Thai jungle do you have any idea as to what we could do?

Then after an answer, and to our great relief, we got a call from Bill at 63336 to see how 63336 could help further. He talked to us to get some details about roughly where we were and said to leave it with him.

Within half an hour a gentleman called from the nearest hotel (Coral Bay) to say he had spoken to Koh Phanyang mountain rescue team and they were on their way to find us.

Bill had located the nearest hotel, spoken to them to find somebody that could speak English to call us, and even got the details of the Koh Phanyang mountain rescue team.

We spent a few hours in the jungle and were eventually rescued at 2.30am by a 12 strong mountain rescue team.

Without the help of 63336 we would have had the dangerous and unpleasant experience of spending the whole night in the jungle! 63336 really went beyond what you could expect of them and we can't thank you enough!"

We're extremely pleased that Ian and his girlfriend got back safely, and have sent him £100 as this month's customer story winner. Ian informs us that this is all going to the mountain rescue team who are all volunteers.

Send us your story and you could win £100

Have you got a great story about how you've used 63336, and the effect it's had on your life? We'll give you £100 if we feature your story on this website. So if you've got a good story send it to us making sure to include your name, mobile number, and some photos.