PHUKET: Do you recognise this man? More importantly, do you know where to find his luggage and his passport?

Australian James Andrew McDonald, 65, was dropped off at a resort in Patong late at night on Friday but didn't check in.

Through a brain fade, he forgot where he was supposed to be.

He ended up outside another resort in Patong, where staff remembered him from a visit he'd made to Phuket earlier this year.

Mr McDonald couldn't remember where he was supposed to be staying on this visit.

The kind-hearted staff at the Horizon Patong Beach Resort & Spa organised a bed for Mr McDonald for a couple of nights but at the height of the Songkran weekend, with all rooms taken, they had no choice except to try to find a new place for him to stay.

Mr McDonald was dropped off at the Vachira Phuket Hospital in Phuket City. The Horizon staff had managed, though, to rustle up a copy of his passport, from his previous visit.

At Vachira, the hospital's international matron, Methavee Maneesri, took Mr McDonald's case to heart and, although the hospital couldn't admit him because he wasn't sick, she found a bed for him just down the road at the Tourist Police headquarters.

Clever detective work by Khun Methavee has since traced more of Mr McDonald's movements.

He was actually booked to stay at the Deevana Patong Resort and Spa Phuket, but never checked in.

The driver from Buffalo Tours must have picked Mr McDonald up at Phuket International Airport, but had no specific memory of him.

Buffalo Tours contributed 2000 baht to Mr McDonald's cause, because as well as having no luggage and passport, he has no money.

Detective Methavee has since discovered Mr McDonald spent time before catching the flight to Phuket via Singapore in Cairns, a large city in the Australian state of Queensland.

Some people there might know him well.

He also has a son, Craig, in Townsville and a daughter, Jamie, in Blacktown, Sydney.

Now a pensioner, Mr McDonald says he worked as a nurse at Namboor Hospital, and hails originally from Warrnambool, in the southern state of Victoria.

He has a memory of having his wedding ring - his wife died many years ago - removed recently by a woman. But he cannot quite recollect where, or when.

Khun Methavee has discovered that Mr McDonald was due to check into the Hotel Ibis Phuket Patong from tonight until next Tuesday.

So that's a bed fixed. But then, to fly back to Australia, he will need a passport.

And his passport was in his blue backpack, which disappeared along with his larger blue bag . . . and unless the luggage and the passport can be found, he will have to fly to Bangkok to replace his passport at the Australian embassy.

Because embassy staff have been on holidays, officials in Canberra were able over the past few days to help Khun Methavee painstakingly put the pieces of Mr McDonald's movements together.

They've even organised a replacement ATM card through his Australian bank, which should be in Mr McDonald's hands on Friday.

But he really hopes someone can tell him where to find his passport and his bags before he has to go to the trouble of catching a flight to the embassy in Bangkok.