PHUKET: Phuket's illegal cabbies may not have a great reputation for service and low fares but the honesty of one of them cannot be questioned.

Somkriet Wonkaonoi, 51, picked up Korean tourist Kim Hye Rin and her family from Suriyawong Circle in Old Phuket Town about noon yesterday and took them for his, ahem, guided tour of Phuket.

After doing a circuit, he dropped his passengers at Jungceylon shopping mall in Patong, the holiday town on Phuket's west coast.

Almost at the same time that Ms Kim was discovering that she'd left her purse in the taxi, driver Khun Somkriet was discovering the purse on his back seat.

The result: the Korean tourist who lost her purse and the Phuket taxi driver who found it turned up at Kathu Police Station, which oversees Patong, within moments of each other yesterday evening.

''I thought I would never see it again,'' said Ms Kim. ''I'm so grateful to find that Phuket has honest taxi drivers.

''We will tell people when we get back that the people here have been extremely good to us.''