cape

12 hours ago, ThailandRyan said:

Been a long week of holidays that ended yesterday unfortunately from just before Christmas to after New Years.

That ll likely be the reason. Holidays, offices closed.

I came in on a Thailand Pass.

Means all this:

(a) insurance - I bought from a company not based in Thailand

(b) a PCR before take off, and

(c) a hotel stay - another PCR on arrival, and one night in a gov-approved hotel (at the time, now one or two weeks).

The hotel fee also includes picking you up in a taxi from airport and three meals a day brought to your door.

I stayed at an Ibis Styles and it was fine, gave me time to laze and adjust.

*Fill in a form online beforehand to get approval, ie your Pass. The form seems daunting, but the pattern is simple, for each information they want:

(i) there's a request for a document eg your health insurance;

(ii) you answer with the doc ID ; and

(iii) you upload a jpeg scan of the relevant page from the doc eg the page showing your insurance covid.

*All doc.s checked through at airport. Then your taxi is waiting for you. You are whisked off to the hotel. You are given a bit of time to settle in and unpack. Then you go to another room for the PCR.
Chill out in your room and wait for the result. They've added on x days and another test, with omicron.

*"Negative" and all Thailand is at your feet.

Although it's changed with omicron, I reckon next month Feb22 it'll be back to this.

Buy your tickets when you can get them cheap. "Jack's Flights" are good.

Allow 10 working days for the Pass, I would think that's OK.

Best of luck everybody. Everything will be OK for high season '24. Omicron and the pandemic over this year, probably next month, because the vaccine.

Then two years to clear up the mess.

Back to the new-normal at, what, 80% of the old numbers?
 

20 hours ago, fangless said:

Big C is still there and for many in the area, like me, it is their main grocery shopping place!

The next closest supermarket is Rimping on the other side of the river.

Rimping over the iron bridge sells food within its expiry date

4 hours ago, rupert the bear said:

the definition of prostitution.interesting.it can be held that its the act of selling oneself.so there s a lot of people doing that here,many in govt and also .......yep you got it!!!!

Not selling , renting, they rent

"Class" is about the job you do or did. It says something about your income, education and your interests. So it is useful for marketing purposes.

For example, if you run a newspaper of some sort that gets its income from advertisers, you'd like to know what "class" your readers are because then you can focus your marketing on companies making products or offering services that will benefit your readers.

Extraordinary coincidence - public think the same as Prayut.

15 hours ago, Tuvoc said:

Yes the land borders are a huge problem for Thailand. Impossible to police them completely.

Hopefully this will be understood and foreigners will be thanked for visiting despite contagion in the country and not accused of bringing it in.

What is so sad is that year after year the problem of man made airborne pollution in N Thailand and surrounding countries, continues, unabated.

The people are ignored. Their health counts for nothing.

How can this be?

Make me laugh. Migration is a major challenge for the next 30 years and much of it is for climate reasons, so not economic and still less political.

Now we read here there's money to be made from attempts to understand and manage the change. Surprise.

As it is a global challenge, causes and effects that do not respe t man-made borders and legal systems, it requires that nations collaborate through supra national bodies, such as ASEAN.

This is already the future in Northern Thailand. The govt can take the lead and position itself at the front of ASEAN on what is actually not a complicated problem.

It is a few farmers vs. the health of millions.

So, great to see the initiative, now move into solutions mode and surprise us some more.

He ll be pretty lonely without his kid brother, now and for the rest of his life. 

Sometimes new inspiration or a change of leadership lead to new policies.

Instead of closing down a successful sector of the economy, try first to create a new and promising sector.

For example, in 1979, Deng Xiaoping visited America to meet Pres. Clinton. He was the People's Republic of China chairman from December 1978 to November 1989. He had seen Japan, S Korea and Taiwan becoming immensely rich and wanted to know more. China was at that time following the Russian USSR ideology.

What he observed was that those three countries were making very high quality goods, at competitive prices, and the huge and wealthy American Middle class was buying them.

So he got China to start doing the same thing - he completely reoriented the economy from agriculture to production for export.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, of course, there is an even bigger and wealthier middle class. And it is not in America.

It's in China.

What does the Chinese middle class want? Well, Thailand could find out and get manufacturing. Or it could stick with mass tourism.

Up to the PM.

8 hours ago, Willy Wombat said:

Just pissing into the wind is TAT.

Oh

How to Get from North Thailand to Bali , to avoid the smokey season? Any help much appreciated.

19 hours ago, Sheryl said:

If you test positive you will be sent to a hospital - even if asymptomatic. This is why insurance is required.

 

If you test negative but were in close contact with someone who tests positive, you will be quarantined.

 

Your insurance should, hopefully, cover the hospitalization though some room for doubt regarding foreign insurances and hospitalization of people who are completely asymptomatic (since not medically necessary)....would likely depend a lot on what the hospital put on the medical forms.

 

No insurance will pay for preventive quarantine. You have to pay yourself.

 

It would be serious insurance fraud to present a hotel receipt as coming from a hospital and I doubt any hotel would agree to that. In addition, most insurances require pre-authorization for hospital costs which requires direct communications between insurer and hospital.

That's why a lot of this seems nonsensical. Makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. 

19 hours ago, garyk said:

It is killing thousands yearly and reduced the life expectancy by years. 

 

Smog from burning crops kills more than covid. 

I have a 60 day tourist visa that I would like to extend to a 1 Yr 'O' multi-entry retirement visa. Have I got this right?:

/Documents needed: 
 

TM7 form with picture.

Photocopies of passport pages.

Identity page. Most recent visa.

Entry stamp. TM6. Take along TM30 receipt printout from hotel or proof of current residence.

/If this extension is possible, what is the cost?

Thank you for any support.

18 hours ago, gearbox said:

Looks like the key is to vaccinate fact and then provide different type of boosters...even the average performing vaccines do well in these circumstances, Cambodia and UAE are good examples.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/mixing-cansinobio-sinovac-covid-shots-induces-stronger-response-than-sinovac-2021-09-07/

 

"Participants who received a CanSinoBIO (6185.HK), booster dose three to six months after a second Sinovac shot showed a 78-fold jump on average in neutralizing antibody levels two weeks later, according to a paper published on Monday before a peer review."

This is very good news. Once the T-cells get activated you're OK, far as I can gather, and the booster does this. The booster is best within five (5) months of a second jab.

14 hours ago, arithai12 said:

I am paying 65Eur for RT-PCR before flying.

The test&go costs me 5000B, or another 130Eur.

 

For a returnee, this is an extra pain to be endured.

For a tourist, it can turn Thailand to a "maybe another time".

 

Besides, two RT-PCR tests within 48 hours doesn't make much sense. I think they know all this, but they are perhaps unable to organize rapid tests at the airport for many thousands/day.

Theres no "maybe" for a tourist. The requirements for the Thailand Pass (fit-to-fly) , best prices I've found for a fully vaccinated, ex transport, are :

   Pre-flight PCR $80

   Insurance covid $170

   Hotel one night, incl PCR and food $140

   TOTAL about $400 and lose a day ... and another day on all this  paperwork.

Conclusion : leave Thailand till its people are all vaccinated means restrictions dropped. Say High Season 2022.

Try S America.

Oh my, not one serious comment here!

With a thousand dollars and couple of days form-filling invested in this new TP process, it had better work!

8 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

there will be a drop off in the coming weeks if pass not abandoned.

That's a good point

On 11/1/2021 at 2:51 AM, fangless said:

So you need to start this process at least 7 days before your planned departure date!  No spontaneous "lets jet off to Thailand now its open" trips!! ????

Seven working days. But allow three for the PCR.

Should factor in for your application being rejected and you have to correct something.

Question. Has anyone had their TP application rejected and if so why? Sure Ubonjoe will keep a list of things to watch for.

The local embassies approve visas, but the Thailand Pass is approved centrally (Bangkok, Min of Foreign Affairs maybe).

There are issues with the software. Plus, has the process been stress tested? Is Bangkok properly staffed and trained to deal with the volume of applications?

So, a couple of worries.

What is problematic is that the applicant will have had to pay out a lot of money in advance. You need to have bought a return flight, a quarantine hotel, insurance and possibly a PCR in your home country before you get approval.

And what if you don't? What if your application is rejected? You cannot recover the $1,000 you've put in.

So big risk here. You are counting on Thai authorities in a new system that may not have been fully tested.

Conclusion. Unless there is urgency, probably best to allow three to six months for the system to stabilise.

5 hours ago, shuffler said:

I found the two main issues when applying for the Thai Pass.

One, convert your doc, s to jpeg. Do not send pdf. 

Two, Do not use Hotmail. Use g mail. 

Once I did that. Got the pass in two hours. 

Hope this helps.. 

You got the Thailand Pass two hours after submitting your application? Two hours later?

???? Sure?

5 hours ago, shuffler said:

I found the two main issues when applying for the Thai Pass.

One, convert your doc, s to jpeg. Do not send pdf. 

Two, Do not use Hotmail. Use g mail. 

Once I did that. Got the pass in two hours. 

Hope this helps.. 

You got the Thailand Pass two hours after submitting your application? Two hours later?

???? Sure?