gearbox

Is that rent pre-covid? I have an offer to move to rent another property for 10k/month, they were renting it 18k/month pre-covid, if I pay rent one year in advance. The rents are down in Samui, that's if the landlords are lucky to get renters at all. I know only one guy who has long lease, but he leased the land and built a house on it. I think it is a 30 years lease, and then the landlord gets the house and the land back. However with ever changing immigration requirements I don't see many foreigners willing to commit on 10+ years leases, as if the rules change they may need to go and lose their rent. From your description you probably have a townhouse, and there are tons of these on the market, my Thai gf is looking to buy property, and she has seen heaps of them in the last 2 months.

The antivenom can be successful if you have lifeguards with appropriate training to do CPR and apply antivenom they have with them. Depending on tentacle coverage, the antivenom needs to be administered within a couple of minutes of the sting. There are no lifeguards at Haad Rin and Chaweng, how long it would take an ambulance with antivenom to come through the narrow and busy roads? The victims in Australia are relatively low, as the people in the North are well aware and prepared. At the most popular beaches there are lifeguards. Nevertheless stings do happen. I was chatting with a guy at Dingo Beach, north of the Whitsundays. His little kid was stung by Irukanji in ankle deep water outside the season (late May), almost died.

The net was pretty big, I doubt a hotel (there are no expensive hotels in front of it) would incur these expenses in the current covid situation. Why it was at that beach...this probably explains it: https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-016-1931-8 "The highest number of cases occurred on East Rin beach of Pha-ngan island (27.3 %), Chawang beach of Samui island (27.3 %), and Bo Phut of Samui island (18.2 %). Two cases occurred on Lamai beach of Samui island and Khuat beach of Pha-ngan island, subsequently." Chaweng also has sting cases, but I don't remember seeing a net there... In normal pre-covid times there were tens of thousands of tourists in Samui August/September, so it doesn't seem the risk is that high, although the jellyfish population seems to be rising.

I was waiting for the typical 5 straws comment to appear, didn't take that long. The Chinese will have a break today.

I was 100m outside the net swimming 1km parallel to the beach. I was actually not aware this was a net, it looked from outside as a rope with plastic floats, one can see these on many beaches where they mark areas for jet skis, etc. I was swimming back and tried to go below the rope, and my hands went straight into the net. I swim in Samui all the time quite far from the sand and there are no nets, so I wouldn't be expecting a jellyfish problem around the islands so serious to warrant a net. Nets are common in Northern Australia, but the beaches around the gulf islands don't look like typical jellyfish and croc beaches.

These signs are put in paces where are not very visible. The hotels should do more - warning the customers when checking in, but for many reasons they won't do it. Creating too much noise about jellyfishes scares the tourists, to some extent Australia doesn't make too much noise about the jellyfishes in the North too. I was there around 2 months ago, and the net was already in place. I didn't put too much thinking about it, and swam more than 1km outside the net, probably around 100m further outside it. I guess I was lucky...and there were a lot of people including children in the shallow waters outside the net. No other beach in Phangan had a net, it is either only Haad Rin where the encounter is possible, or they just don't have resources to put it in more places. They better do something to address the problem, otherwise there would be ongoing issues - nobody wants to fly thousands of km to swim in a net.

Quite likely not....probably foreigners living there. There are quite a few "enlightened thinkers" living around Sri Thanu, and many are anti vaxxers believing that a few yoga asanas, detox therapy, or an hour of meditation are better than any vaccine.

I don't know how safe it would be, but otherwise good news for the fully vaccinated returnees planning to go back after October. Hopefully no CoE and quarantine at all.

Samui, which is almost as vaccinated as Phuket, has so far more than 400 cases, one death (not vaccinated), and I think at the moment no people in intensive care. Not big number of cases as a sample but still some indication whether the vaccines work or not.

That sounds terrible. I expect the chaotic scenes from the evacuations in Afghanistan to be repeated soon by the expats here...one advice, don't hang on the landing gear, it retracts.

I wouldn't worry too much about the travel to EU. For most of the countries a recent PCR test is enough to enter, as long as Thailand still remains orange. For quite a few airlines flying to/from Thailand the PCR test is mandatory to board the plane, the vaccination status doesn't matter. I entered Europe not vaccinated, only with a PCR test (which Etihad required anyway), and got my first Pfizer shot there. The vax certificates are mostly valid for 180 days after 14 days from the second jab, so if you want to go back to Thailand and travel again to Europe your certificate may expire by then. If you don't plan to get 2 shots in Europe it would be better to get a booster there, and get the same booster back in Thailand to get a certificate with a longer validity. For example 1 X AZ booster in Europe, and a few months later 1 X AZ booster in Thailand and get an AZ certificate. It is probably better to jab with something widely available in Thailand like AZ. I went not vaccinated to get Pfizer jabs from scratch, as the chance of Australia approving 2 X Sinovac jabs are remote at the moment, and I need to go back when the country opens. I hope to enter Australia before the certificate expires and get a booster Pfizer there.