Police volunteer Chris McLaren had in fact mailed the ring to the rightful owner, Dutch national Marco Meintsma, shortly after he found it. However, Phuket Police wanted to “officially” hand back the ring to Mr Meintsma when he recently visited the island with his wife Pleoamchit “Paow” Choaiarom.
Marco and Paow, though married eight years now after meeting in Holland, were on their first holiday in Phuket.
“I have been to Thailand about 14 times already, but this was our first time to Phuket. We thought it was about time to check out the beaches and the other areas such as Phang Nga and Krabi,” Marco told The Phuket News on Wednesday (Nov 25), calling from Paow’s hometown in Sapphaya District in the Central Thailand province of Chai Nat.
Marco, from Oudenbosch in Holland, near Belgium border, could vividly recall how he lost his wedding band.
“When I go swimming, I use a lot of sun lotion. This is probably one of the reasons the ring came off, and maybe it was a little too big,” he fessed.
Marco even actually saw it slip off his finger. His heart sank, as did the ring. “I dived for it, but all I could see was a cloud of sand. I kept looking for about half an hour, but I couldn’t find it,” he said.
He marched back up the sand to deliver the news to Paow. “Your first thought is that you will never see it again,” said Marco. “I remember thinking, ‘This is not going to be good’, but thankfully Paow understood what happened. She wasn’t happy, but she was okay.”
Marco then went directly to the Tourist Police Box on the beach at the end of Bangla Rd and reported the ring lost.
“After that I went back to the same place on the beach to look for it, and just when I arrived I saw Chris walking on the beach – walking side to side with a metal detector. I told him what had happened and where I had lost my ring, and we looked together for about two hours,” he recalled.
But Marco and Paow were out of time and had to leave Phuket, so they swapped contact details with Chris in case the ring miraculously returned.
And so it did.
“About three days later I got an email from Chris saying he had found a ring. He attached a photo in case it was mine – it was,” he said. Chris then sent the ring by EMS to Holland, free of charge.
Marco highly praised the police volunteers in Phuket. “They are doing a great job for people a long way from home. Things would turn out very differently for many people without them,” he said.
“Communication is very important. It is the most important thing they do between tourists and the Thai Police – and they all do it in their spare time.”
Paow is happy, too. “She said it means we were meant to be together. It’s fantastic,” Marco laughed.
Chris Mclaren says he finds lost valuables all the time.
“I have already sent back many rings to people who have lost them, and also find rings the same day they are lost and go to the owner’s hotels and give them back,” he said.
“I recently found a small Glomesh purse with B20,000 inside. I found the young Russian woman who owned it as there was an ID card inside. She was elated when I gave it back to her as it was all her spending money for her holiday.”
Chris also often finds lost anchors for the owners of the boats and jet-skis at the beach, as well as motorbike and hotel keys lost in the sand.
“I have given many back many keys to Honda in the hope the owners may come looking to buy new keys and find their lost one.
“But the joy of finding rings is seeing the look on their faces when I hand them back. It’s priceless,” he said.
Chris also finds about 50 kilos of loose change on the beach each year, which he donates to The Phuket Christian Centre (PCC).
“The money goes towards the upkeep of the Miracle Village in Phang Nga, where PCC built 10 houses for children who were made orphans by the 2004 tsunami,” Chris explained.