Zyte

Elderly Aussie with health issues ( my neighbour ) has a problem , should he go straight to the airport buy a ticket pay the fine and go. He has been advised by an immigration volunteer that that he cannot do this and must surrender himself to the local immigration officer ( Pai ) , he is unable to make a decision. The immigration office have been aware of him for at least a year without making a direct approach , except through the volunteer. I wonder what is the best thing to advise him. Additional question , if he wants to take the airport option , can he travel on a domestic flight to Bangkok with an emergency issue passport , that has no valid visa stamps. How should he travel to Bangkok ?

The email for Agoda complaints is [email protected] which is Singapore based and fairly quick to respond. I have had no other problems with Agoda and will probably continue to use them. I have not been put off by this. It is a good question who is more at fault the guesthouse or Agoda. I gave the guesthouse the above email address and they did not attempt to contact Agoda so I assume that there is something they have not told me. They talked about enquiries into family members that once handled internet things and have since moved on and seemed satisfied that they were not behaving fraudulently. They talked of a Chiang Mai based company that they thought to blame but without giving details or how or why a third company would have been involved. I think non confrontational characteristics taken to an extreme are part of the problem. I am surprised that nobody ever left a review on the website at all until I did , and my review is still there so it does work. I personally met three people who booked the guesthouse through Agoda in December , two of which were allowed to stay without further payment and one a rather young Thai girl was turned away on new years eve. She was upset and so would I have been at that age. The guesthouse are genuinely upset about it as well , “book on the internet sleep on the internet “ said one of them despairingly. They seem to feel unable to do anything and then allow short term solutions to run for a long time. The guesthouse has a rundown look following the lockdown with few huts available. I cannot say where the fault is or the blame , I wonder if Agoda have a body of money they have never forwarded , or if someone has made a very successful long term fraud out of it , but there is no obvious candidate for those suspicions. For me at least it has been an interesting experience.

I booked a 30 night stay at Giant house in Pai through Agoda , when I arrived they had no record of my booking and had received no payment either. They let me stay without further payment which made feel as if I had something wrong. They said that they had never ever received a payment or a notification of a booking or other communication from Agoda ever and when a traveller arrived they let them stay like myself without receiving any payment or if they had no spare rooms they sent them away. They said this had gone on for 12 years. The guesthouse is run by an elderly woman with no internet skills whatsoever. In the time that I stayed at the guesthouse I saw two young people arrive with bookings , one for 30 nights who was allowed to stay , without making a payment to the guesthouse , the second person was turned away which confirms everything that they said to me. I had great difficulty initially finding a way of complaining to Agoda , their website has a great emphasis on communication between customers and hotels but not on talking to Agoda directly. I eventually found an email for Agoda and made a complaint and to their credit they reimbursed me quite quickly. The website now shows the guesthouse as fully booked which it is not , which stops people booking on it at least. Amazingly no one ever left a bad review for this guesthouse ever, there were no reviews at all. I wonder where all those payments went over all those years , if there was a fraud somewhere and why the guesthouse was not more direct in tackling the problem , they would not contact Agoda even when I gave them an email address. When Agoda reimbursed me I passed the money on to the guesthouse , to which they said it was the first money they had ever received from Agoda. I wondered if anyone had had a similar experience.

They have not asked me for evidence of an outbound flight yet. There were several pages of forms that I filled in and signed , and an additional one in Thai that the io offered me , so I am not sure if I signed an affidavit amongst them. One of the forms asked about outbound flights and I wrote down that I had an open ticket for my return and plans for onward travel to Malaysia and Bali. All of which is true but a little vague and subject to change and dependant on borders being open.

I have just applied for my first covid extension and I have been told to return after fifteen days while it is considered. There is a stamp in my passport to that effect. This is mae hong son immigration at pai. Is this the normal procedure?

So this monk was in the middle of the road near Kata beach , he waved me down tied a bit of string around my wrist and demanded money. I thought you’ve got me now so I gave him twenty baht to get rid of him to which he asked for a hundred , which of course I did not give him.

The hotel reception are not too clear about it all themselves , they are trying to contact the relevant authority , so hopefully it will work out well.

I took the advice and reloaded morchana and entered the coe number successfully , thanks for that. The DIY test kit was handed out at the airport with no instructions , I left it at the bottom of my bag until today , I would have left it there permanently, I thought it was some sort of a gift , if not for a casual remark from the hotel staff it would still be there , it has no instructions at all. I looked at U- tube videos on lateral flow tests which I presume it is , they all look similar and fairly easy to do. How you upload to an app is anyones guess. I have morchana that says I am a medium risk side by side with Thailand plus saying that I am a very low risk , neither of them have a facility for uploading the test results , I will photograph the test results and keep the picture as a record if I can’t upload it.

Did anyone else get one of these test yourself kits on entry through Phuket airport ? The hotel suggests I should self test at day 6/7. I was going to ignore it and leave it at the bottom of my bag. There is no instructions whatsoever about how to use it , or how to upload the results. It is labelled GSD NovaGen sars covid 2 Ag rapid test swab , online I can find only how to buy them but not how to use them. Anyone have any ideas on how they used , there is a nose swab , a container of liquid and test tray , I can guess the sequence but I think timing must be important.

I arrived in Phuket on the 2 November, yesterday and they did not ask about morchana or Thailand plus and I did not raise the question. I still cannot use the apps and presume there is nothing I can do about it.

I have some 100 baht notes with the old kings image on them , are they legal tender ?

It is for ios , annoying but I think your advice is good , sort it out at Phuket airport.

I have both apps on my phone but neither will work , they require a Thailand pass QR code to activate , and I have a coe not a Thailand pass , the QR code on the coe does not work on either of the apps. I wondered if anyone else has had this problem , I am due to fly out tomorrow.

You’re letting technology get away , it will only get harder as you get older , and more of a problem. Get yourself a reasonably cheap one , used ones with a guarantee are good to start with. Learn the basics and try not to let it change your life. I presume you have a computer of some kind.

Waste of time going there in person. Monday morning get on the phone , get in line , put it on speaker and wait as long as it takes , if it drops your call try again. Also send an email and if necessary do it all again tuesday , carry the phone around with you the whole time. Good luck You didn’t mention Torquay on your application did you , that could only go wrong , too much information.

I am not so interested in Khao sok if it has limited access without a guide , I might try exploring by motorcycle the area around and outside of the park. I am particularly interested in photography , sunset and sunrise views that sort of thing.

Thanks for the advice , I was thinking of Khao sok in surathani and if things work out well I may go to Pai and Mae Hong Song

I want to spend a week or more at a national park in Thailand, do I have to pay an entry fee every day ? , that would be a lot of money.

How much is this enforced , do you ever get approached by the police or by the public

What are the requirements for wearing a mask in Phuket , is it everywhere in public , on the beach , on a motorcycle , out walking ?

I have the same problem , I have recently applied for the second part of the coe with a 45 day return flight and haven’t received an answer yet. I notice on the coe form that you can have return or one way flights , it doesn’t want very much information about the return one even if you have one. I am hoping that it doesn’t matter for the coe. I anticipate the airline may refuse boarding in which case I will try onward ticket .com or failing that even the cheapest throwaway ticket which would be singapore. Let me know how you get on. Best of luck

I am in exactly the same situation , I have a coe application in progress with a 14 night sha booking , I hope I don’t get an answer like yours , it makes me anxious. If you hit the confirm/ edit button it takes you into your original application , you can then change things if you wish , it will not automatically change anything , all the uploaded documents stay the same , you have to re enter flight details and the shaba code again. I have done this several times. Maybe the hotel will give you a new shaba code for 7 days , that might be do it , you could ask them for that. Maybe it is possible to re enter the same information and get it accepted this time. I might do that just re enter everything the same and hope it’s okay. Let me know how you get on , because I might have the same problem in a few days. Good luck with that.

Thankyou all for your help on this , my plans have evolved a bit now and I am thinking of a bike trip starting in Phuket and taking in krabi and khao sok in surrathani. I will get a international driving permit but I am unsure about insurance for a rented bike. I am mostly concerned about riding a bike off of the island on the mainland. Apologies for taking so long to reply It took me a while to find the little icon indicating replies.

Thankyou all for your help on this , I tried a computer in the library and it went first time (moment of supreme joy) , I also checked all the uploads as people said but they were all okay. The limits then of mobile internet I suppose. I must wait now for the embassy’s reply , I may have a problem with the return flight which I booked for 45 days on , but I can change that if necessary.

I’ve tried four different browsers now all on the ipad , I will try a laptop or computer then , thanks for that idea.