Oblomov

We've all been young here too and many faced with the same problems, I know I have, and you're not alone in having issues about visas. I don't know where you're from originally but the friends I know that didn't get their visas extended were those that could fairly easily fly back to their countries. If you have that partner you feel so strongly about, go for it and get married and then at least you get yourself on a footing you can work from. I know how you feel as i had to leave so often in the past due to work in my home country and visas etc., but you're too young to be so desperate so find a way. It's almost impossible to nip around like many of us did before, with months on Bali, then months in Thailand, with many quick and relatively easy land border options to renew visas. I hope you find a way, as you shouldn't be feeling like this at your age but I do understand it. Making it official with your partner must be your best option I think Good luck buddy

The sea is certainly full of rubbish as I know from experience having dived all over Asia and the sad thing is that the marine life is so depleted, that areas that were once so full of diverse marine eco-systems now simply feel dead and look dead. Not sure who all the 'we're all doomed nutters' are but scientific measurements of sea levels tend to be a little more sophisticated then looking out of the window LOL Cleaning up the sea and the air and preserving natural carbon capturing environments are all the same thing and lead to the same results or consequences, depending on how they are managed. You do know Google maps aren't updated very frequently right? Watch BBC's 'Life at 50 deg C' I doubt even the whackos that deny climate change can ignore that!

I think for many, the problem seems so huge and distant, that it's easier to switch off from it and I guess we're all guilty of thinking 'Phew! I'm glad I'm not in that country or region,' if we're not so immediately affected. I've visited places like Borneo and seen the terrible damage and I was a diver but stopped diving as the seas are so full of plastic and pollution that is now too saddening. On Bali, even in the 25 years I've been staying there, the scale of the damage is staggering. I sometimes wish I didn't look too closely too so don't blame those that try to ignore it.

True - It remains the only country in the region at least having a bit of a go at reopening and I have some very happy friends (Thai and Western) who have returned to Thailand to see their wives or partners and some, their sons and daughters. We all hope the process is streamlined a bit so that airlines continue to operate, as there must be a limit to how many sparsely populated flights they are prepared to fund, as their responsibility is to their shareholders and not the governments of the countries they fly to.

Exactly right - I'm sure many expect it to be a Hollywood CGI event but satellite photos of the polar ice caps shrinking are clear enough - extraordinary flooding is occurring more frequently and mankind is too small to engineer solutions - The usefulness of the Thames barrier is already to be compromised much earlier than expected to tale one example. Migration on an unimaginable scale. Cities such as Bangkok and Jakarta already precarious and doomed to flooding and sinking. Drought and the loss of topsoil due to drier climate simply turning it to dust and blowing it away. Fires. Natural carbon capture systems in nature reverse at a certain point and then release the stored carbon. There was a very good BBC documentary called 'Life at 50 deg C' which is a sobering looking at how once vast and fertile regions are now desolate and ruined. As always, humans as a species bury heads in the sand, there will be plenty of that, then start panicked measures when it's really too late. I suppose we watch so much dramatic footage of cataclysmic environmental catastrophes that we become used to the images and they become normal, and as long as it has not quite reached us... Yet.

Never have suggested that and no idea why you'd think that - Having had my own booster as efficacy waned, I accept the need for vaccines so that hospitals can function and I wish more would have vaccinations so that all the other areas of health that hospitals must cope with, are not disrupted. Work is well under way on new vaccines in Oxford UK based on the study of natural responses of people who remain asymptomatic after infection - these ground breaking studies will significantly add understanding to this virus and how it can be tackled. My point was, and any forthright doctor will tell a patient, that as good as medicine is in any treatment of any condition, it will be significantly more efficacious in one who has maintained a healthy weight/diet/exercise regime etc..

I have never once suggested vaccines aren't critically important - they are and I have always said that - please read more carefully - my point is that also people must assist medicine by optimizing their own robust immune responses to illness with good diet, maintaining a healthy weight and eating properly. Vaccines work and have really altered the outcomes of the aged and vulnerable but for those of us that can, we should all be trying to do so. Not only for this, but any health issue. When did I ever suggest vaccines didn't work ? I maybe should have used the word effective rather than magical but there is more to this fight than simply relying on vaccines as there may be a time when vaccines fail to tackle a mutated strain so getting healthier for ourselves is a no-brainer

You are ill informed and miss the point - the point being that humans are becoming increasingly unhealthy through poor diet/obesity and harmful lack of exercise. Individual responsibility for one's own health must once again be paramount as there is not always going to be a magical vaccine. Long covid is a post viral syndrome common in many other viruses such as viral pneumonia. You also have no sense to understand the huge damage done in other areas of health whereby whole sectors of health treatment have been disrupted by this harmful focus on one condition. Covid, like many other conditions, can of course be significant if someone is particularly vulnerable either by old age or other conditions but to simply say 5 million deaths as if covid was the sole cause of death is simply too stupid to elicit a reply

The point was that context should be added so that individuals can do more for themselves with regards to their own health so that a more robust reaction to any illness is possible - misrepresentation can be in the form of omission as well as a more obvious deception Could you conceive that a lot of data is bereft of the context that allows a rational response to a new threat ?

Very true - it amazes me that some simply don't care about mass poverty as long as they are okay. Also the same old nonsense about deaths as a reason to destroy whole sectors and all those that rely on them to feed and educate kids and simply live. The overwhelming majority of covid deaths listed as 'death within a month of a covid diagnosis' were of people with myriad other pre-existing and more serious health conditions or were very old. The facts are there if people care to look beyond the sensational media numbers totally without context and that terrify the timid and lead to these justifications of selfishness. Crating huge and ruinous societal and other serious health problems will not solve the one so many seem fixated upon.

An individual and his/her responsibility to personal health/weight etc must be paramount in getting out of this mess, rather than relying on 'magical' vaccines, which though good, cannot ever be totally effective due to the mutations common to this and other corona viruses. I know manyfriends who've had Covid, including myself, and none were hospitalized and only a few had some complications, being diabetic and overweight. I hope we all get the message to get fitter and eat sensibly and the right things

80% of slots were relinquished, so given up and unused. It was reported that only 20% were taken but that's probably a rounded up figure. If this 20% share of potential capacity remains unprofitable, more will be cancelled as airlines will not continue for very long, flying in expensive planes with only a small number of passengers onboard. The airlines won't fund loss making routes for very long

That should guarantee around 25 dazed and confused souls on each flight so they can all fit in the business class cabin - A quiet flight and they can sit with the pilots LOL

That other 20% of slots will be relinquished soon unless they can get passenger capacity up to the 75%+ + + to make a profit unless the airlines ask the 40 or so passengers to throw in a few tens of thousands to pay for the fuel and a tip for the pilot International airlines do not have to shoulder the financial burden of the incompetent and unrealistic idiocy of governments and they won't for long Either they really open or stay closed but enough of this insanity

Thailand has its place in the world - it is (was) fun, relatively affordable for the masses that liked good fun and some good beaches and islands. Good food. Some decent people assuming you're hanging out with the right crowd. Nice pools in most buildings. Great hub to get down to Bali or a city break to KL, Hanoi or Phnom Penh. A wild nightlife if you want it. Accept that and take the money and improve the the nation's infrastructure, education and health, roads even though we all know they will not/have not in better times etc.. Delusional and vague initiatives to attract these so called wealthy tourists ignores the fact that they're not coming to Thailand. Thailand has a product that sells - it's called fun and relaxation - does it really matter who buys it?

Travelled extensively around Asia for nearly 30 years and had great times on beaches and islands, made great local friends as well as Westerners from all over the world. I've really missed it since travel was interrupted from April 2020. But despite how much I miss it, I simply couldn't risk getting mired in some ruinous and unnecessary enforced quarantine. Double vaccinated - fine. Test prior to departure and n arrival - fine. Adhering to local guidelines on distancing and masks in enclosed areas - fine. All the other insanity? Senseless, idiotic, futile and potentially able to destroy any enjoyment of a trip. Is Thailand the only country that does this? At some point, countries that have such a heavy reliance on travel and the associated sectors have to make a decision about how much poverty it can inflict on its own people. Those unfortunate travellers who have already scrambled through enough hoops should not be punished for unfortunately picking up this virus - there are people picking it up in much more flagrant breaches of sensible precautions and they aren't locked up. Will the madness ever end - travel and tourism might if we are not careful about our reaction to this unbeatable foe of freedom.

Sad isn't it ? - Life's tough enough for most without hobbling ourselves by bad diet and lack of exercise.

It's pretty sad to see so many overweight kids in Thailand now too and diabetes is becoming a big issue in Asia too - when I first lived in Thailand nearly 30 years ago a fat kid was an exception - when I look at the schoolkids now, so many are fat or heading that way. Then I look at the snacks they now eat compared to years ago. I lived on Rangnam road for 25 years and saw the change from Thai food and fruit vendors to all 7/11s and coffee/donut/pastry cafes/vendors.

The West does have an obesity crisis and UK certainly is included in that - obese people have a choice to lessen the risk and many people I know are certainly taking their weight seriously - obesity related illnesses and complications have a huge cost in every way imaginable - time for people to choose whether they want to give themselves the best chance to fight off illnesses A lot of people seem to be trying as number increase at gyms and on organized walks and other health related groups

Maybe she should ask why it is that when a Thai partner ( female-male male-male female-female old-young and any other variation ) marries or otherwise settles in UK with a British national after the formalities, left alone to live their lives (and even get the security of citizenship). When the other way around, a British national (or any other foreigner) entering into marriage is subjected to perpetual checks and renewals of documents etc... And a Thai male with is accepted as a partner with very strong citizenship rights, even if he happens to have made a union with another male. I know many Thai males and females, now settled in UK and living very good lives and I know the villages they left, some decades ago. I know from this forum that many foreigners don't feel that same security. We don't bar them from working and they want to work and contribute. They don't have to report and not should they. Britain is fair about these things and almost all of us don't feel threatened by immigration as long as rational and I've never heard anyone make a negative comment about Thais in UK. I wish more countries in S E Asia reciprocated with similar arrangements to allow people to live together without the hassles if they want to make a life together. She could ask that.

UK had an increase - That was mostly due to schools reopening and most of the increase was in those students so that was inevitable - there was a small increase in hospitalizations and that was mostly unvaccinated - of the vaccinated that became ill, all were either clinically and dangerously obese or over 70 or had very serious pre-existing conditions. In fact most of those again were in their 80s and 90s so would have succumbed to almost any other medical condition. When did we learn to ignore our mortality and all of the nasties that determine this, as well as what we could do for ourselves to get slimmer, fitter and therefore encourage a more robust immune response for ourselves. When looking at increases in cases, it is important to look at factual context just as we once did with all of the other much more serious conditions that never seemed to elicit the same level of panic. Causing economic chaos and personal ruin for a generation should never have been part of the solution to a virus that shares so much with a flu virus, especially its ability to mutate and increase its transmission rate.

Short answer - No Scared of the extraordinary cost to lives and livelihoods caused by the hysterical reaction to it - fatal disruptions to treatments for myriad more serious grave conditions - disruption to the education of our future generations , who'll be mired in further debt and instability for generations. Creating many extremely serious problems does nothing to resolve the one in front of us. Masks in closed places and distancing etc., was sensible initially but the lockdowns were inane and insane. People talk about damage to organs, but that occurs with most conditions and we don't panic about that. It's good that it has encouraged many to get fitter and lose weight as those two simple steps can make the body more robust with a better immune response to any virus or disease. The correct response, if we believe in an extraordinary reaction to something like the emergence of a new virus, would have been to quickly shut down travel out of the area until more was known - hundreds of thousands continued flying out of the region where this virus originated - I heard about laying on a beach on Bali in January 2020 so I'm sure our 'leaders' were informed. I doubt anyone wants any illness but to be fearful of one illness with a very high recovery rate in relatively healthy people whilst not showing any concern at all of the other risks to ourselves we knowingly take every day is bizarre. Of course, measures to protect the old and those with conditions making them more vulnerable to this or flu or anything else would be sensible and humane but to ruin so many young lives and disrupt so much that we all rely on was insanity, and most know or are starting to realize this.

I wonder about that also - having lived in Thailand or Bali during winters for the last 25+ years I glaze over when I read yet more of their efforts at 'selective' tourism where they seek to exclude some by various means but at a time when both places need foreign cash fast, why choose this time to deter any people who will spend hard earned wages in all of the smaller businesses that are in dire straits. Nobody wants to spend a week wrestling with dodgy online applications and very few will unless they have family or an urgent need to be there - airlines will not keep flying in planes with 30 or 40 passengers as it is not their responsibility to fly in a few determined souls. You have to wonder what level of destitution they are willing to inflict on poorer Thais or Indonesians before they accept things as they are and not how they dream they might be. Madness

Some friends of mine used Trawick International and that was fine - Price was better than I any others I could find Good luck

I'd noticed of course and the sad thing was how easily so many were led by fear into accepting these restrictions and then changes, even when data was so tendentiously and selectively released without any factual context. And still, even now with all of the medical evidence, so little is being done to encourage people to take more responsibility for their own health/weight etc.. Robust immune responses come from good diet/exercise and that's something we can all improve. Not sure how subtle it was though as in UK these things were forced through after eliciting fear in the more timid, as well as those accepting an agenda that was far from truthful - no idea why people were so credulous towards Johnson considering the lies he told during the Brexit campaign. We'll all live with the consequences of the restrictions and lockdowns for a long time.