mstevens

10 hours ago, Oldie said:

New Zealand for instance still has a travel ban. Australia too. So even if Thailand allows them they cannot come. I think it is not that easy. 

New Zealand does not have a travel ban and New Zealanders are free to leave the country as they please. New Zealanders have never been banned from travelling. There are some problems though for NZers who wish to travel. The first problem is that there aren't that many flights leaving. Second, they have to go through a mandatory 14 day quarantine on return to New Zealand.

I would imagine that Thailand WILL update the system over time. Why wouldn't they? It would be a big hole in their system to have records of unwanted / blacklisted foreigners that simply need to be scanned and uploaded, yet they chose not to. I imagine at some point your records will make it in to the system and following that the next time you fly in the computer will flag you.

You really ought to check to see if you were merely deported (forcibly removed from the country) or deported and blacklisted (i.e. not allowed to ever return). If it was the former, getting back is no biggie. Upload a copy of the stamp from your passport and it can be translated.

7 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

All this talk about NZ being in bubble with Thai is a flimsy smoke screen. NZ is country of 5 mil. Sydney (au city) same.

I can't even find the data on NZ tourists to Thailand. It wasn't in top 10 destinations for kiwis.

All of which actually makes NZ an ideal country for Thailand to open a travel bubble with before it does with other countries. New Zealand is is not a key tourist market for New Zealand and it could be used as something as a test run, to iron out the kinks etc before opening up to countries which are much larger sources of tourists / $$$.

It's one thing not having 5K baht to pay the rent....but you also mention your girlfriend is pregnant? Buddy, you've got to find work / income FAST! Paying your rent is important, but being able to provide for your soon-to-be-born child is even more important!

I can't see Aust. and NZ allowing Thailand in to a travel bubble this year. The problem is one of trust and ultimately at a government level the govts. of Aust. and NZ just don't trust the Thais. And lets 'face it, at some stage Thailand is going to throw the doors open and allow anyone from anywhere in because they want the money visitors bring which increases risks for all countries which allow visitors from Thailand....and that is what makes me think Aussies and Kiwis won't be travelling to Thailand this calendar year.

44 minutes ago, tribalfusion001 said:

If anyone is interested in having a go go bar then read this https://www.stickmanbangkok.com/weekly-column/2020/05/opportunity-awaits-at-nana-plaza/

Interesting and timely to this thread that 7 bars in Nana Plaza have called it quits. More to follow?

Two questions this article doesn't answer is what is the price to buy a bar and how much is the rent? I heard rents are sky high in Nana Plaza.

While at first it sounds like good news, it does seem to be awfully fast of the Thais to life all restrictions given what is happening in most of the world. I mean, seriously, how many countries have the virus under control? No many! While I am keen to get back to Thailand, if they allowed flights in from Europe and USA and Russia and India and Brazil and all these countries where the virus situation is out of control, I don't know that I would be all that happy knowing people around me might have the virus. I think I'll wait a while before heading anywhere. Better safe than sorry.

A visitor visa for New Zealand is fairly straightforward. So long as the lady can show that she has the funds to cover her stay and sufficient reasons to return to Thailand (a regular job is best but they do consider other things) then getting a visitor visa is not that difficult. Writing a cover letter to explain your relationship and what you plan to do when she is in New Zealand would help support the application.

Anything by Christopher G Moore is good. He has a depth of understanding of Thailand that few foreign authors writing about Thailand match.

I haven't read through all the pages of replies so am probably saying something others have said. I think it's seriously bad karma to mess around with someone else's wife. If she is married, leave her alone. It's not like in Thailand there aren't other options. Regardless of the circumstances, I think it's bad form to mess around with someone else's wife.

14 hours ago, Billthekiwi said:

Still it's better than on Qatar via Doha, Bangkok to Auckland at NZ$3330 per person one way. I just can't afford for my family to fly home.

Too bad the NZ government can't organise something almost affordable.

FYI, the Thai Embassy in Wellington is organising a flight on Monday, April 27, for Thai citizens to fly from Auckland to Bangkok. Prices not fixed yet but the embassy said in its Facebook post that one-way tickets will cost in the range of 50,000 - 60,000 baht per person. This will presumably either be a Thai Airways plane flying down from Bangkok to pick them up or an Air NZ plane chartered to fly them up. One imagines there will be a flight back from BKK to AKL. You might want to get in contact and see if they have any info on the return flight.

9 hours ago, DaRoadrunner said:

We must remain on lockdown until it dies out or we have a vaccine or better treatments.

And there is no guarantee that any of these 3 things will happen. The vaccine especially strikes me as pie in the sky stuff. A professor from supposedly the world's best university some weeks ago said that that week self-test kits would be available in the UK with an initial production run of 3 million. Nothing ever came. A vaccine in 12 - 18 months? Given there has been no vaccine for other coronaviruses, I am not sure why so many are convinced one is coming.

21 hours ago, donnacha said:

Few things are sadder than a farang who lives in Thailand and, yet, has now idea how it operates.

Probably the best single sentence I have ever read on this forum. Bravo!

Thailand will likely open its borders up some time in the second half of this year so I guess in theory that is when you can get back to Thailand. But I'd expect there will be entry requirements such as a certificate saying you are Covid-19 free / have contracted it already (and cannot get it again) / have been vaccinated for Covid-19 etc.

Other things to consider are when commercial flights will resume. And what will the requirements be when returning to your home country (compulsory quarantine etc.).

It's going to be rather complicated and not nearly as easy as it was pre-Covid-19.

7 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

I expect the borders to open up again, maybe with some restrictions, by the end of April or early May.  Schools are due to open on 1 July and International Schools have been told they can open earlier, with some restrictions.  The State of Emergency decree will end at the end of April, so things should start relaxing after that.  Hopefully.

While that may, or may not, happen to the borders in Thailand, just as relevant is what happens to the borders elsewhere. The likes of the UK, Australia and New Zealand have all said that border restrictions are likely to last to next year in one form or another, and they likely won't return to how they were until there is a vaccine available (and by definition everyone passing can show they have been vaccinated).

So anyone planning to travel between Thailand and those countries, and I suspect most developed nations, might be out of luck this year.

10 hours ago, justin case said:

exactly ... the GREED of BIG PHARMA has no limits

 

how can 1 pill be  1000$ ?   10 cents to produce and the rest is marketing & profits

And all the research and development costs nothing, right?

Some real horror stories of the fares people are paying to get home....but best to pay them and get home because as fewer an fewer flights operate, one imagines fares are just going to get pricier and pricier!

41 minutes ago, owl sees all said:

There is a big drive - as we type - to find suitable people to inhabit/populate the new planned International space station. A mix of races and ages (16 to 30). They want 87 women and 13 men. This is the optimal ratio for breeding from scratch.

Is each person who is allowed on the space station issued with a tin hat?

9 hours ago, Monomial said:

Somebody has to pay for this devastation. We need to decide as a society who it is going to be. Is it going to be the struggling small businesses and individuals, or the relatively wealthy investors?  I know which one should pay, and I know which one is going to pay, and sadly they are not the same.

Send an invoice to the Chinese government.

I get this when I use Firefox, which is my preferred browser. I don't get it when I use Safari - but then there are ads all over the place, to the extent that it actually ruins the experience of tuning in to the forum. I'm all for ThaiVisa to make a good return from advertising but the whole experience now has been ruined by the ads to the extent that if someone opened up a new forum, I'd be happy to go there.

16 hours ago, moojar said:

This week it is just sharks circling, sensing blood in the water - cashed up pr!cks trying to take advantage.  People seem to think the market has already dropped 15% - 20%.

Yeah, that was yesterday. Probably down 25% today and still falling.