Thai Delivery Worker Rides a Boat to Bring Pizza to a Customer in the Middle of a River

The great thing about food deliveries is that you can enjoy your favorite dish whenever, wherever—on the couch at home, with your friends at school, on your work desk, and apparently, even on a boat in the middle of a river.

Phichai Phummak, also known as “Ake,” is a 37-year-old GrabFood delivery worker living in Thailand’s Pathum Thani province. He’s made countless deliveries in his line of work but nothing quite like this one time in April, when a customer requested him to deliver pizza to a location pinned in the middle of a river. While he was baffled by the order, Phummak, powered through.

“That day, I went to work as usual. Someone ordered a pizza and I realised that the customer’s location was in the middle of the Chao Phraya River. I found the location weird, but I just went because I thought the app might have just marked the customer’s home wrong,” Phummak told VICE.

He arrived at the delivery location and was surprised when he could not find the house. Phummak called the customer to ask where he was and learned that he was actually on a boat and, indeed, in the middle of the river.

“I was very shocked and confused because I didn’t know how to deliver a pizza to a boat, in the middle of the river,” he said.

With Phummak stuck at the dock, the delivery worker had no way to get to his customer. The customer asked him to look for other people in boats who could receive the pizza and bring it to his boat, but there weren’t any others around.

The customer then suggested they meet at a nearby bridge instead, but that posed a problem too.

“The bridge was very far and the cargo boat the customer was on was travelling very slowly. I realised I’d have to wait an hour before it reached the bridge,” Phummak said.

“I almost gave up [and wanted to] cancel this order because it took forever but because I’m an easy-going person and cared about the customer, I didn’t give up. Fortunately, I found a noodle vendor's boat in the river.”

Phummak asked the man and woman on the boat if he could ride with them to deliver the pizza and they agreed.

“They were so kind and took me all the way to the boat, and so I was successfully able to deliver the pizza to the customer.”

They drove all the way to the customer on the boat, which only took 5 minutes.

Phummak said that the customer was so happy that he gave him a 100 baht (US$3.20) tip, which he shared with the two noodle vendors who helped him.

“Despite the slight troubles, the delivery was successful and I met very kind people, so I took a few photos to keep some memories on Facebook. I didn’t expect so many people to be interested in my post,” Phummak said.

He wrote about his experience in April but it only started going viral internationally in July. As of press time, the post had over 73,000 likes, 28,000 shares, and 1,600 comments.

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