Pottinger

29 minutes ago, pauleddy said:

Speaking for myself here, I am on Ret Ext here for many years (just did it CW 4 weeks ago) but I need to go to the UK for sick parent, to Spain to look at property, to Malaysia for business and to Malta to see friends.

 

With all of these options I am looking at quarantine in each country (if it's open) plus 14 days when I come back. Correct?

 

I know that they recently said "no tourists for a long time", but once air travel starts (Qatar say they are already flying), can I do all these things? If I can do all of these things I am happy to pay for a Q-Hotel in BKK for 14 days. Or is it much wiser to wait and wait? As a long-time resident retiree, am I allowed out and back again? Or am I barred from returning until all borders are down?

 

Eddy

If you are in Thailand now on a retirement extension, once you leave there is currently no route by which you can return easily, unless you fall into one or more of the categories allowed to enter - for example, being married to a Thai national. Put simply, retirees without other ties are not on the current list of those allowed to enter Thailand. This may change at some point in coming months, so you need to pay attention to government announcements. In any case, for the foreseeable future, even when retirees are allowed to enter, the cost will be prohibitive in terms of air fare, quarantine, Covid tests, insurance and other costs - I've seen figures on the Facebook 'Farangs Stranded Abroad Due to lockdown in Thailand' page of people paying anything from $3000 to double and even triple that per person.

October 39th - I got the date from that tree with the shape of the Buddha and a bottle of raspberry Fanta entwined in its trunk, so it must be true.

5 hours ago, Sundown said:

"They also reported that the new app will be used alongside the Thai Elite Card for well-heeled foreigners."

 

Say what????

 

 

The ones whose visa is so 'elite' that they're still not allowed back into the country.

Boy, the knuckle draggers are all over this one.

Thai women are great at 'rope-a-dope'. They allow their mark just enough information to kindle and maintain hope and fantasy, and the best can sustain multiple chumps dangling at the same time. The experts can keep the charades running for years,

Just be sure to have a whip round among the passengers for aviation fuel before taking off, particularly from Germany.

Chiang Mai fifty, forty or even thirty years ago was very special, with a Northern culture of its own still intact, and a laid back charm that beguiled me when I first arrived.

In common with many places worldwide, time and over-tourism has not been kind to the place, and coupled with the now regular mass burning season making the air quality appalling for a large part of the year, I'm afraid those days are long gone.

There's always the army, but no mincing at the induction ceremony.

Around and around we go again, to no useful purpose. Those who are convinced Thailand has done a superb job, better than almost anywhere else, will remained convinced of it, though the country appears to have done very little differently from a host of other places. What about the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from neighbouring countries? Singapore's and the Gulf States' experience with such people tell us that Thailand's lack of cases is difficult to reconcile with their experience.

Then there are theorists who believe that little testing results in few cases, or that deaths have been ascribed to other causes, or that bodies have been quickly cremated or disposed of to hide the virus' prevalence. And so on and so on.