Woke to Sounds

Yes, but remember they came out of special wombs and you didn't. "Do as we say, not as we do"

Godspeed you get outta communist China. The best way Suwanna-Don Mueang is the train, aka skytrain / metro / urban rail system.

Will be arriving next month, ready to spend some well earned shekels. Am curious to see just how many Western tourists are out and about. First journey around Thailand was 2008....eons ago in this post Corvid world of crazy. Doesn't help tourism that there's no 90 day exemption for Americans / Europeans / Oceaneans. Whether I visit Chiang Mai -- and spend $$, listen up TAT -- is wholly dependant on the air quality up there. Couldn't care less about the tax on wine, double pricing at monuments, etc. Air quality is the big one.

Geezer wasn't to be outdone by the sword wielding Russian...

They spending their rubles and yuan in the wrong country. Kanada welcomes foreign money into its real estate. Look at Vancouver. That's a no lose scenario. Even a crack shack in the worst part of town sells for $2.5 million and it will never devalue. Unlike in Thailand where there's a surplus of condos and takes a lifetime, if ever, to sell if you want out. Far easier to just rent in Thailand. No commitments, no headaches. In Kanada there is a severe housing shortage and so houses are sure bets. List and in less than a week you've sold for tens / hundreds of thousands above asking. Easy money if you've got it to invest...

Uh-uh. Kanadians love Mr Trudeau, still. The Liberal gov't gave them their pot shops, over-leveraged home mortgage bailouts and upcoming free dental care. Plus, the national anthem was emended - they flushed the highly offensive line "in all thy sons command" down the memory hole in favor of a much more inclusive - but far less mellifluous - "in all of us command."

Sure. A few months ago Air Canada assigned vomit soiled seats to a couple flying Las Vegas-->Montreal. What happened in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas. The incident was thrown up all over the media. When the couple protested, they were threatened with No Fly list! Air Canada is honored to be Skytrax Best Airline in North America, 6th time in 8 years. So the US airlines must really suck.

Not sure about UK wait times, but I did mine online from Kanada and it took 29 business days (!) to get the 60-day SETV (single entry tourist visa) incl a request for further documents. Perhaps someone who did it from the UK will comment. Thailand MoFA has streamlined the evisa site in terms of req's / docs, but there are still bugs, incl the blue button spinning for all eternity. Bob Sultan has made some helpful YouTube videos about applying for the evisa, albeit from the perspective of a US citizen applying, but helpful nonetheless. Hope your mate gets the visa faster than I did!

Hanoi-Tokyo is about 5 hrs. (Layover Tokyo 6 hrs.) Tokyo-Van about 9 hrs. So roughly 14 hrs flying time, with the jetstream. But Stargeezr is correct: much longer flying times against the jetstream. Regardless the arc of the flight path works in BKK-Vancouver's favor. And AC has much faster airplanes than anyone else.

Waiting for that fellow who says Kanada is "a woke failed state" to come along shortly...

Is it really only 13 hours? That seems ambitious to me. Hanoi to Vancouver via Tokyo is 14 hours.

What a terribly callous thing to say, especially about the guy's mother. Consider yourself lucky if you never know grief.

Wonderfully diverse geography, rich culture and history. No beef with the average Joe. Chinese characters (the written script) are a work of art and it's a wonderful language. Chinese tea is the best. The public infrastructure in China puts the West to shame! Con: many of the big Western internet companies are banned, so it's a pain to use Google, FB, etc - always logging in / out of VPNs. Yes I have lived there.

I'm afraid this was never about good sense and reason. A deadly virus of questionable orgin wreaked havoc round the world. The grief and loss at all levels is astounding and so very sad. I know of someone who passed from the virus and someone else who passed from the jab. Where were flight bans when we needed them? Why were small businesses gutted? Gov'ts pounced on it as leverage to hasten their social engineering agendas - particularly in the West. Most folk will never smell the coffee.

Why not instead open the floodgates to immigration like Canada is doing? 500,000 a year at last count. At least Thailand has affordable housing and much better weather.

Fourteen days? Buddy, I wish. I'm now at business day 27 .... and still waiting. Fourteen business days would be quick service. Three things are clear to me now: 1) I will never again apply for a Thai tourist visa; 2) Canadian tourists are not any priority whatsoever; and 3) I have banished any thoughts of ever retiring in the country. If a simple tourist visa application has been this much hassle (yes, stupid questions online too) I can only imagine the nightmare of bureaucracy and paperwork and nonsense involved to try to retire there. No thank you. I'll spend my future money elsewhere.

So 23 days after submitting my pprwork for the SETV, the Thai embassy in Ottawa Canada today emailed me asking for further info. They need "a copy of the Thai ID of the owner" of the guesthouse where I'm staying upon first landing in Thailand. Looks like the confirmation email from the guesthouse (that I submitted to the embassy confirming a multi-nights stay) wasn't good enough. So, I emailed the guesthouse asking for this Thai ID, which to me seems intrusive and rather silly, all things considered. Anyone know if this is a common embassy request? Waiting to hear back from the guesthouse......

Stayed at Jimbaran Beach area, south of the airport, in 2016. Top shelf hotel. It was nice. Then I went to the beach at Jimbaran Bay. Couldnt enjoy the waves because the water was like a plastic soup, so much plastic pollution. My legs kept getting tied up by plastic bags and tarpaulins. The development in the area was insanely over the top. Too much traffic, nowhere to walk safely. Imagine the area south of Jimbaran is well and truly overdeveloped by now. No desire to go back, but perhaps other parts of the island are more sedate... and cleaner?

@Trip Hop No worries. Mine's not yet sorted. Applied online from Canada, it gets processed in Ottawa. The Thai consulate site in Ottawa says "up to 25 days to process." Other nationalities seem to get theirs sorted in less than a week. I guess Canadians are at the bottom of the pile as far as foreign tourists go....

SETV, correct? May I ask where you applied from? Sent mine from Canada 29 Oct and still waiting. Day 12 now. Ridiculous.

The book Wild Swans by Jung Chang. Great read and tells you everything you need to know about the CCP. Of course she is persona non grata in CN and the book is banned. Says it all.

Thanks for the info. I submitted my application for a SETV October 29th, also from Canada, and Ottawa is processing it. Site said 25 business days. Fingers crossed they ain't too backlogged.. My flight leaves Canada January 9th.

Quality tourists?

UPDATE: To my surprise I didn't need to upload a bank statement 😜 Wonder if the application process for Canadians was modified when the site went offline for maintenance yesterday? They asked me for only flight tickets and proof of accommodation. Had to send to Ottawa embassy, unfortunately. Was hoping for Vancouver because I heard faster processing times. As it stands, 25 business days to process according to embassy site. Wonder if they'll bust my b@lls over accommodation. I sent only my first 11 nights (nothing else booked yet because, duh..... traveling!) Will update.

Seems to me in lockstep w those certain govts fawning over the ideologies of the Schwabinator, the whole "you'll own diddly, eat bugs and smile" crowd. They can't force you to stop traveling but they can price you out of it. Or shame you out of it.