Lost for 25 years after taking the wrong bus

76-year-old Malay-speaking Jaeyaena Beuraheng was reunited with her family yesterday, 25 years after taking the wrong bus, according to Bangkok newspaper The Nation.

In 1982 Jaeyaena Beuraheng, who does not read, speak or write Thai, got on a bus she thought was heading to Narathiwat in the south of Thailand. Unknown to her the bus was going almost 1,200 kilometers north of Narathiwat to Bangkok.

In Bangkok she boarded another bus that she thought was southbound, but the bus was in fact going to Chiang Mai, almost 700 kilometers further north.

Now 1,900 kilometers away from home, unable to speak the language, Jaeyaena Beuraheng had no choice but to beg for money in order to survive. After five years of begging she was arrested and put in the Phitsanulok Wang Thong social service centre, a centre for homeless people.

The staff at the centre believed Jaeyaena Beuraheng was a mute, because she did not speak other than a few mutters, which the staff did not understand. In the meantime her family, who had been searching for her both in Thailand and Malaysia, were told that she had been hit by a train and died.

Early February 2007, the Phitsanulok social service centre was visited by three students from Narathiwat. When Jaeyaena Beuraheng saw the three student, she started chatting to them and was finally reunited with her family.

If there is a lesson to be learned here for travellers, it has got to be: Learn a few essential phrases in the local language! If it can happen to a local, it can happen to you.

Technorati Tags: travel, lost 25 years, Thailand, Chiang Mai, languages

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