Adelphi

So that is what it looks like from Planet Gaga.

More news from planet gaga.  I normally spend winter in Thailand which I love to do.  Due to the ludicrous entry requirements, expensive potential incarceration if I test positive on arrival and the general lack of fun I am giving it a miss this year.  I have now booked a couple of months in Gran Canaria.  Sad really as I know many poor Thais could have benefited from the expenditure from people like me.  Still the rich elite who run the country will do just fine regardless - so that is ok.  

9 hours ago, eliassfeir said:

Well when it comes to the underage thing, it’s really hard to tell, so that’s why I said probably. I would hope that that’s not the case, and that despite being probably 50-60 years younger than the one they are “together” with, at the very least, the girls are not underage. 
 

I know it’s not very related to this topic, but I am of the opinion that prostitution should be something a girl chooses because she freely wants to, provided she has other options… In the case of Thailand, many girls are forced into the job, not particularly by anobody, but by the conditions. It’s either prostitution or poverty and living in the streets. 
 

And so yes, I see those farangs, specially the old ones that get extremely young girls and take advantage of their situation just for their sexual please as not much less than devils… Hence I want them far far away from me.

If you were to make those same comments about guys from a particular ethnic or religious group you would probably be banned from this forum.  However you think  it is ok to attack guys because they are old. The issue here is vulnerable young women who are being exploited due to their financial circumstances.  I fail to see why it is more wrong for a guy of 80 to do the exploiting than a guy of say 35.  It is simply wrong. Your post comes across to me as full of unpleasant ageist discrimination. 

As best I can tell there is a deeply embedded prejudice among some Thais against alcohol.  I suspect that these are often the same people who have wet dreams about getting rid of the sexpats and replacing them with high net worth individuals. I have heard on the grapevine that Monaco is worried that many of its high net worth residents are planning to move to Pattaya as these people are attracted to washed-out beaches and broken pavements; particularly if they can no longer get a glass of overpriced dodgy wine with dinner.  Makes me smile.  ????????

With a bit of luck it will finally be an acceptance that locking down longer and harder just does not work.  Most countries are giving up on that approach.  Covid is now endemic in society.  Mass vaccinations are the only way to go.  We have to live with this virus like so many others.  The risk of letting fully vaccinated and tested people enter the country is minimal.  Time to open up and start reviving the economy.

 I can sympathise with many of the positives and negatives above.  I have been looking at the retirement options for other SE Asian countries post pandemic. I am coming to the conclusion that Thailand with all it’s faults is still the best option for access to a wide range of services and retirement visas. I would be interested in the views of others.  Particularly which other country is better and why.

The Phuket Sandbox is definitely an improvement on being kept in an hotel room for two weeks.  However, given how few of the fully vaxxed and tested visitors were positive any rational person would review this policy.  These foreign visitors do no represent an overall Covid 19 risk to Thailand; given how much Covid is already in the country.  Rather it underlines the fact that if Thailand is serious about ramping up the number of fully vaxxed and tested visitors it needs to abolish any notion of quarantine.  

I really hope this is true but my BS detector is twitching. 

53 minutes ago, fulhamster said:

To properly open up Pattaya needs the workers who have returned to their homes, mainly in Isaan.

The majority of these will return without having had a vaccine in their home towns.

Chonbury has gone from about 40 new Covid cases a day 2 months ago to 982 yesterday.  The genie is out of the bottle.  As a percentage of the population Chonbury is probably one of the more infected regions in Thailand.  Lockdowns don't seem to work with the Delta variant.  The numbers wanting to come to a pandemic ridden country with a failing health service are likely to be small.   So only a small numbers of workers if any are likely to return from their home towns - where the infection rate is probably much lower.  Without mass vaccination we will just have to live with this virus.   Just my thoughts.  

The virus is now widespread in Thailand. It is not going away without mass vaccination.  Is it not better to let fully tested and vaccinated people in without other hurdles.  They are low risk in terms of infection.  They will spend significantly more than a poor unregulated refugee slipping across the border from Myanmar. Time to get real. 

I think that the strict entry requirements into Thailand made sense when we had very low infection rates.  However, the Government’s mishandling of the situation allowed the Delta variant to get established.  If Thailand wants foreign visitors then why not let people who are fully vaccinated entre without restriction.  They are not going to have much of an impact on the overall rate of infection particularly as only small numbers are likely to come with a full blown pandemic going on and the health system under extreme stress. Just a thought.