Feeling like a complete idiot. Flagged a pink taxi on Sukhumvit about 11pm last night, got out at my hotel near Phrom Phong, and realised about twenty minutes later that my phone was not in my pocket. It must have slid out on the back seat.
No receipt, I did not take a photo, it was a street taxi not an app so there is no record. I have rung it from my wife's phone about thirty times and it now goes straight to voicemail, so I assume it is dead or switched off. Is there any realistic way to find a random taxi in Bangkok? Or do I just write it off and buy a new one? We fly home on Sunday.
Don't write it off yet. Do you have any of those find my phone things turned on? Even if it's off now, it may show where it was last seen before it died. That at least tells you whether it's still in a taxi or sitting somewhere else.
Ask the hotel. Seriously. Some hotels have a camera on the drop off area and the night security sometimes notes taxi plates. Ours did when my friend lost a bag. They found the plate from the camera in about ten minutes and the rest was easy.
Becca, find my phone shows the last location at about 1am somewhere out near Lat Phrao, which is nowhere I have been, so I am guessing it was still in the taxi when it died.
Somchai, you might be a genius. Asked at the desk this morning and they are checking the camera. Will update.
Lat Phrao at 1am sounds like a driver heading home after a shift, which is honestly a good sign. It means it was probably not grabbed by the next passenger. Fingers crossed for the camera.
#6October 31, 2026, 10:26 am Matt, sorry to hear it, and good on Somchai for the camera idea, because the plate is the whole game here. I have lost a phone in a pink taxi on Sukhumvit myself, and the reason it came back was that a doorman had noted the plate.
If the hotel finds it, ring the Department of Land Transport on 1584 and the Tourist Police on 1155 with the registration, the time and the place. The Tourist Police speak English and can help follow up a licensed taxi from its plate. If the camera has nothing, still report it, with the colour of the taxi, the time and the route, because phones do get handed in at police stations and airport desks days later, and your report is what links it back to you. Get a written police report either way, since your insurer will almost certainly want one before Sunday.
For everyone reading this later, I have written up the whole routine, including the app version and what to do if it is a passport rather than a phone, in left something in a taxi in Thailand. The short version is: snap the plate before you get in. Two seconds, and it turns this whole thread into a single phone call.
Update, and I genuinely did not expect to be writing this one.
Hotel camera got a partial plate. Took it plus the time to the Tourist Police on Thursday, got a report written up in English. Friday afternoon the hotel rang, a driver had brought a phone to the front desk. Same driver. He had found it at the end of his shift, it was dead, and he had no idea where to take it until the police rang round the taxi company.
Gave him a thousand baht, which he tried to refuse. Photographing every plate from now on.
