After enjoying a few "quiet" drinks at The Southern Cross in Marton the night before, Phillip Boyle and Jamie Blyth found themselves nearly 7,000 miles away at the popular tourist resort of Pattaya 24 hours later, Gazette Live reports.

Packing only a Tesco carrier bag with a few T-shirts and boxer shorts, 33-year-old Mr Boyle was persuaded by Mr Blyth to embark on an impromptu lads break to the beach resort, which lies about 100km from Bangkok.

On arrival, the pair met up with a few friends who were already there.

"It's a last minute bad idea - but one of those bad ideas that turns into a good idea” said Mr Boyle.

"After lots of jokes, at around 11am the next day with a hangover, Jamie asks if I have my passport handy and comes up with the idea of us going to Thailand straight away.

"I thought he was joking at first and then he pointed out how there are quite a few lads from Middlesbrough over there we hadn't seen for a while.

"Then we got into a taxi he'd phoned and - apart from the short delay of picking up Jamie's passport - we were off to Manchester Airport.”

Mr Boyle nearly backed out of the trip en route to the airport, thinking it was “all a bit rash” as no flights had been booked.

But it soon transpired this was not the first of Mr Blyth’s last-minute getaways, according to the taxi driver. He had previously done four other similar spontaneous trips using the same driver to take him to Manchester Airport.



Phillip Boyle, from Nunthorpe (Gazette Live)

"I thought that was hilarious and then said 'okay I'm in',” said Mr Boyle, who travelled on two seven-hour flights with a stopover in Abu Dhabi before arriving in Pattaya. The pair plan to return to Middlesbrough on Tuesday.

"Some of the lads have serious girlfriends and kids and it's been pretty intense for some of them” he said.

"I wouldn't like to be facing the grief that some of them will be inevitably going home to,” he added. "But no-one's misbehaved to be fair."