(Credits: Asia Pacific Press via ViralPres)
A teenager used all his instincts to survive in the harsh jungles of Thailand when he was saved after stumbling across a remote Buddhist temple.
Lawrence Stallard Honour, 19, emerged looking emaciated, dishevelled but unharmed after vanishing more than two weeks ago near the border of lawless Myanmar.
He walked more than 150 miles following the Mekong River, surviving only by eating ants and tree bark, according to local reports.
Lawrence’s mother, Gulnara, expressed her deep gratitude to police, soldiers, and volunteers who worked to find her son alive.
‘I am thankful beyond words,’ she said. ‘He is safe now, and that is all that matters. I hope this story warns others to be careful.’
The computer expert was last seen leaving a hotel and walking into the forest on September 27, sparking a frantic search by Thai police near the border.
Police colonel Santi Phithaksakul, superintendent of Sangkhla Buri Police Station, said he was notified on Monday, October 13, that the boy was found alive at the Wat Tham Sawan Bandan temple.
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He said: ‘The interrogation revealed that Mr Lawrence intended to go to Payathonzu in Karen State, Myanmar.
‘He had planned to go through the Three Pagodas border pass on September 27, but the checkpoint had already closed.’
Immigration Police reported that, on the same day, Lawrence attempted to cross to Myanmar, while talking on the phone.
When told the border was closed, Lawrence left before returning to try and climb the fence to cross the border again.
Police forced him onto a bus to a nearby resort but he was unable to check in as he had no money for a room.
He charged his phone before setting off – only to lose his way in a forest as darkness fell and vanished.
His mother, a Russian-Thai national, told police that she ‘feared’ her son, ‘a quiet boy’ with advanced computer skills, may have fallen victim to scammers, trying to lure him to Myanmar to join a gang.
She filed a missing person report at Pattaya City Police Station after he ‘vanished without warning’.
Shortly after, she checked his email account and noticed unusual activity traced to Sangkhlaburi, more than 400 kilometres away.
Panicking, she feared her son had been lured by a fake job offer at a call centre from criminal syndicates in Myanmar.
The army was posted to every border crossing with missing posters of Lawrence’s British passport handed out to try and find the teen.
Finally, two weeks after vanishing, villagers from Ban Phra Chedi Sam Ong reported that a foreign man had been seen living quietly at Wat Tham Kaew Sawan Bandan, a magnificent hilltop Buddhist temple known for sheltering travellers.
Soldiers rushed to the tranquil spot and found Lawrence ‘alone and disoriented, but physically unharmed’.