Spilornis

When removing indoor masks in Singapore and Malaysia both governments emphasised how important it was to get masks off children in schools.

Message ignored with almost 100% of school children still in masks a month later

Travel Agents have been able to make bookings and pay later for years.

Not sure how many times they can refresh a booking but I recall that the booking was good for around five days and that it could be refreshed for around a month before payment.

Perhaps this is how the phantom ticket agencies work

Came across an announcement that Thai AirAsiaX will be flying twice a week direct to Tbilisi Georgia. (From October 8 )

Tbilisi is a lovely city but one wonders if it has anything to do with Georgia having open borders with Russia.

The flights are charter and bookings are done through a travel agent. (An unusual model for AirAsia)

https://newsroom.airasia.com/news/thai-airasia-x-to-fly-direct-to-tbilisi-georgia-2-times-a-week-from-oct-2022

18 hours ago, mommysboy said:

People too easily forget, or never sought to understand, that the Omicron variant we have today is a different beast from the earlier more dangerous variations.

So true but many want to think that it's the more deadly 2020 version.

I often ask myself would the World close down for Omicron.

Something strange here. Korea is one of the most honest places around.

Perhaps not your normal tour group

Clicked on the full article... Especially the last paragraph

"Hundreds of Thais have, in recent weeks, been detained by South Korean immigration officials and many of them were deported back to Thailand after they were suspected of entering Jeju to work illegally in South Korea"

1 hour ago, TunnelRat69 said:

They have specialized resturants in Belgium dedicated soley to Horse meat, not well adverrtised, but you will see a store with a horsehead over the door, or a picture of one in the window.

Thanks

Had it in Russia when I was there for the World Cup.

Delicious and not cheap. It was boiled but very tender

Here it's cats everywhere. Just strays breeding prolifically.

Eating dog... so what.

A bit like the aversion in the UK and elsewhere to horse meat

You guys haven't lived until you've taken the Rocket Paddle Steamer in Bangladesh.

US$5 gets you a first class cabin.

On the subject of trains Bangladesh banned travel on the roof of trains recently. What a spoiler

Singapore is a very heavily masked society but their recent per capita case numbers are some of the highest in the world at over 12k cases per day.

Numbers can be skewed by a greater willingness to report positive cases but masks aren't the silver bullet.

In Singapore they invariably use N95 masks and they know how to wear them.

Saudi Arabia could halve the barrel price of oil within a month or two but it's enjoying the bonanza of record prices.

These sanctions were never thought through and it's just a matter of time before many more countries start to ignore them.

Cooking oil and wheat shortages are fast becoming a flash point for developing countries

Being reported that masks are to remain in air conditioned buildings which would mean malls and supermarkets, offices etc

“Only fully vaccinated persons in non-high-risk groups can go mask-free in public places, though facemasks will still be required in certain places like air-conditioned buildings, entertainment venues, hospitals, public gatherings and in areas with poor ventilation.”

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2022/06/26/thailands-no-mask-mandate-comes-with-conditions-warns-ministry-2378-covid-19-new-cases-on-sunday-june-26

In Malaysia and Singapore outside masks were removed two months ago but there does not appear to be any desire to go further and remove them indoors.

In Malaysia masks are worn outdoors by almost all of the Chinese community. Malays and Indians far less.

Looking at it dispassionately there is now no justification for the additional covid related entry requirements imposed by many SE Asian countries.

All they are now doing is creating confusion and reluctance among would be travellers

Which districts are dropping the mask mandates? Do they include big cities/towns.

Is it only outdoor masks that are dropped.

Here in Malaysia mask wearing seems to align mainly with ethnicity. They are not compulsory outdoors but I'm not seeing any moves to drop them indoors.

On my few trips into the smaller towns mask wearing seemed to be low.

Interesting that in Singapore masks were dropped over a month ago for non customer facing office workers

2 hours ago, internationalism said:

As thailand is taxing fuel around 6b per litre, looks like Malaysia is not taxing at all and even subsidising.

Has never been tax on most fuel in Malaysia. The subsidy was removed some time back but in the last few years it was re-introduced.

It costs the Government billions and is very inefficient.

There are moves to make the subsidy only available to the bottom 40% economically but no one has come up with a simple way for how that would work.

Foreign registered cars are prohibited from filling up with 95 (they must use 97 which I assume has a lesser or no subsidy).

As an aside Singapore has a rule that cars leaving Singapore need to have their fuel tanks 3/4full to avoid Singaporeans filling up in Malaysia and avoiding Singapore taxes.

The weather warning even hit the Malaysian papers.

It looks like a lot of rain on the way.

Stay safe everyone

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2022/05/21/metmalaysia-issues-tropical-depression-advisory

Strange that they are pushing masks outside when the region (Singapore and Malaysia) has relaxed that mandate.

I would expect Indonesia to be the next to move now the Ramadan period is over

Here in Malaysia there have been a lot of pictures of unmasked senior politicians at crowded social events. I assume they are outdoors or banquets. A month ago you would never have seen this in the media.

At the end of Ramadan the PM celebrated with 100k persons at his open house meal serving. All/most unmasked

July....they don't move quickly.

How about next week !

Amazed that classes are only just beginning.

Hard to think of many other countries where the children have been absent from school for so long.

Malaysia which is very conservative on the pandemic has had full schooling for 6 months and during the second half of 2021 it had senior classes back.

One of the problems faced in Malaysia was the lack of technology for online learning faced by many families. They simply could not afford multiple mobile phones let alone laptops. The Govt gave out some free data allowance which helped but it was less than ideal to say the least.

Good to see the kids back...