A love-sick Vietnamese man had to be rescued after he paddled for 18 days on an inflatable boat 'to reach his wife in India'.

Ho Hoang Hung, 37, packed drinking water tank, 10 packets of noodles, luggage and plastic flowers for his wife in the 8ft-long dinghy before setting off on the solo voyage with a paddle.

He was 80km off the coast of Phang Nga province, southern Thailand, when passing fishermen noticed him struggling in the Andaman Sea on March 23.

The fishermen helped the starving and fatigued man who claimed he was separated from his wife in Mumbai due to Covid-19 restrictions before Thai Navy officers took him in.

Ho told officers he was missing his wife and had given up waiting for her to return so he decided to 'go there myself'.

A Thai Navy spokesperson said: 'We care about all lives in the Andaman sea. We would like to thank the local fishermen for letting us rescue this man.

'From our interview, we found that the Vietnamese man planned on rowing the rubber boat to his Indian wife in Mumbai. The couple were married two years ago but had to be separated because of the pandemic.'

Navy officers confirmed that the foreign man had entered Thailand from Saigon, Vietnam at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok on March 2, before taking a bus to Phuket and starting his journey to India on March 5.

Ho did not have a visa to enter India but wanted to meet with his wife despite the travel restrictions so he planned on sneaking into the country.

Officers took the man to Similan Islands Marine National Park and coordinated with relevant agencies to assist him.