robsamui

I would have thought a 'screenshot' would have captured the pdf file in the appropriate jpg format?

Sarcasm, irony - and the Thai government's apps.

Because in the past they used to bring in teenage students from Singapore to do all their websites and apps. Now it's too expensive and too much hassle for these guys to go over.

In reality it's mainly based an the fact that Thailand STILL hasn't got it together to have government access to a centralised networked computer system where all incoming data can be readily accessed by all involved spokespeople in realtime. The Thai government isn't too good with computer stuff - just look at every exciting app they've ever gleefully trumpeted about.

smile - no but I read every. single. one. of them - I had the impression the story was a lot shorter than that.

Big chuckle - can someone explain to the majority of the posters here that we can't quote it but we are allowed to read it. Sadly about 50% of the replies here are posing questions about points that are all there in the full article.

Not bothering to read the story properly is a terrible habit. It was actually 6,600.

What really worries me about all this **** is the possibility of a bloody-minded face-saving foot-stamping fit of petulance from who-ever in the top Thai Gov gets the most upset over it all. Whilst all of the clowning is going on, with The Gov being laughed at and feeling more and more foolish, there are around 2 million full-time non-Asian expats living in Thailand according to Wikipedia (VERY out of date.) I wouldn't be at all surprised if there isn't some form of spiteful kick-back on this captive audience in the not too distant future . . . harsh visa changes or more-intensive scrutiny or tighter regulations with big fines attached for offenders. The Gov has not only lost face with it's people and the international community, but its also blundered its way into losing a s***load of cash, too. Not a good situation for an ex-pat in Thailand to be in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Thailand

55555 - you must be new to Thailand! (I have to assume you're talking about The Thai administration, and not the people commenting here? Your post is ambiguous.) Spot the impossibility in this sentence . . . "if only they could swallow the comments and admit they haven’t got a clue". Any Thai, at any level from a roadsweeper to the Prime Minister would rather slice off body parts than admit that they are incompetent (or wrong about something). Loss of face is part of their genetic make up. It's the main reason that Tland is in the s***t right now.

5 hours ago, webfact said: //inserted mention of travelers needing to be “fully vaccinated” Friday night lack of editing and proofing allowed to run through to press on Saturday. The mask probably prevented the editor's brain from functioning properly.

Chuckle - you don't understand Thai toilets at all, do you! ????

There's a whole load of tangled issues being all muddled together in the responses to this post . . . there's the ramifications of Covid and quarantine; there's the Thai government's lack of awareness that seasonal holidays have to be booked months in advance; there's the sudden weekly leaps and lurches and backtracks and changes in policy decisions about alcohol, bars, restaurants and "entertainment"; there's the muddling together of 'seasonal tourists' and 'quality tourists - which to the Thai eyes appear to be identical. What a mess! Up until 2019 I had spent 15 years working in an associated role in the hospitality industry on Samui. I was constantly in and out of hotels (both budget and 5-star) restaurants, bars and clubs. And the following are my observations on tourists of all nationalities) and what they expect. 1. Until Covid there were two types of tourist - long term snowbirds and seasonal vacationers. The longtermers were typically male and working in construction-related industries. The 'seasonals' were here for an annual holiday, typically as a couple and quite often with children. 2. ALL in these two categories would undoubtedly have looked elsewhere if they knew there would be no alcohol available; the Thai attitude to alcohol is unable to understand or relate to the Western social expectations . . . Thai thinking is that alcohol causes social chaos and is dangerous. 3. Hotels were the only choice for seasonal tourists; often the same hotel year after year. Longtermers settled into a rented apartment/house for 4 or 6 months. 4. Seasonal tourists ate in their hotel for 50% of the time, compared to longtermers who used restaurants 100% of the time. Alcohol was regarded by both as an essential part of the food menu. 5. Both sets regarded "entertainment" as essential, and included alcohol. 6. The Cost of Living in Thailand was an initial deciding factor. Although flights were expensive, this was offset by cheap food, drink and accommodation. For longtermers, an added bonus - if not the main reason - was easily-available sex, accesses through the entertainment venues of bars, a-gogos and clubs. SO - Thailand - wake up and decide what you want, then work towards it. As things stand you don't know if you want seasonal, longtermers or once-a year jetsetters, and you are muddling them all together. Thailand is no longer cheap. It is now less expensive to vacation somewhere closer to home. And if you take 'entertainment' off the list and add 'no alcohol' to it, can't you see you are cutting your own throat? If that's the case then all you will get is the Chinese, as they're the only raisins in the cake-mix who will get by with no entertainment or alcohol. But, then, why are you trying to drum up short-term seasonal business for this coming Christmas 2001 and the New Year? What a mess of indecision and confusion! The way things are going you will lose all your Western tourist prospects, probably for a very long time . . . or is that the idea? If that's the case then you better let your citizens know, as they are depending on you for their living!

Is there any other country in the world where, when they try to make things simpler and easier, everything gets twice as complicated and confusing as it was to begin with? I think it's the genetic ability to put their foot in it every time they take a step. Astonishing.

it's a fact that you have to be quite intelligent to realise that you're stupid. But this bunch, over in Thailand, are just soooooo stupid they don't even understand that every move they make is now seen by the world outside. They still have the mindset that anything done or said in Thailand can only be seen by Thai people. Times have changed, but Thai awareness hasn't.

ROFL!!!! Obviously a western couch potato, not a Thai resident!

Absolutely spot-on observations. Having no realisation themselves of the disgraceful state of Thailand's " . . . air and water quality, traffic safety, public transportation on the southern islands, rapid rail transport, and the lack of law enforcement", the government just can't understand that the 'quality' tourists they so disparately long for now regard Thailand as a backward nation which has no knowledge of, or interest in, conservation and ecology. Not to mention that Thailand is no longer cheap, cheerful and laid back any more, thus is losing-out at both ends of the tourist spectrum.

EXPAND and READ Chad3000's quoted post first . . . . Yep - there's not much here to disagree with - it's a catalogue of Thai greed, incompetency and heavy-handed mismanagement. Thailand's government over past years, has never had to do any real thinking, managing or planning. Before the year 2000 it just muddled along. The immigration system in particular was wonderfully hit and miss - I lived on Koh Samui for over 5 years simply by getting one more double-entry (6 month) tourist visa after another, end-to-end, before anyone noticed. But, sometime in the mid 2000s, everything changed. An unpleasant arrogance crept into the 'management' of foreigners, an attitude that farangs needed to be kept in their place. The result was that entry requirements became stricter and more elaborate, paperwork became extensive and bureaucracy took over from the former laid-back interaction between immigration staff and foreigners. Rudyard Kipling said that you can tell the difference between an established nation and a developing one by its bureaucracy - mature nations have discovered what works already and streamlined everything, whereas emerging nations think that excessive paperwork and regulations are a sign of success and status. Meaning that when farangs became a serious cash crop, at the turn of the 2000s, Thailand didn't have a clue what to do about it or how to handle them. It began to blunder about with more rules and regulations, contradictory and confusing, hoping to hide incompetence and blind stupidity with more and more paperwork and regulations, until the mess today is listed in Chad3000's distressing post above. In a nutshell, it's a perfect example of how an arrogant and not very smart nation can completely destroy almost 20% of its income in just a few short years. And it'll take a lot longer than that to get back on track again - if ever.

Just a couple, sitting around doing nothing much, on the coast of Samui.- mainly in the same place while the world goes by. If you sit in one place long enough, all the world goes past.

Yes - I too was in the habit of cancelling an already-set-up transfer if the rates suddenly went down. I had done this perhaps a half a dozen times (over a period of about 3 years) when I got an on-screen message with my next transfer. It seems like they got picky about this sometime during the course of this year.

Right away the statistics (as ever) are wrong. 16.8 billion baht divided by 280,000 tourists = 57,000 baht each, which barely (if at all) covers the ASQ hotel costs, particularly back at the start of the schemes when 14 days were needed. It's not only the tourism industry that's comatose.

Utterly, totally beyond belief that after almost 2 years of the world's most invasive pandemic there are still people who don't understand what's going on, and that vaccinated people can still get Covid and be carriers and infect others.

I've been living in Thaiand for 24 years non non-stop and one of the first things I understood (after 'farang kee nee-ow') was that the hi-so Thais - including both the governments that have been in power in this time - regard their citizens as some sort of retarded children. One manifestation of this is the assumption that they can't be allowed alcohol as they will drink it until they fall down unconscious. Well, yes, 24 years ago, with the majority of Thailand (75%) being made up of (deliberately) undereducated and impoverished farmers, this might hve been true. But this is 2021 and Thailand has now been dragged yelping onto the world platform due to Covid, and everything's now being blasted out on international public media. So if a police commander can no longer get away with plastic-bagging a drug pusher to death without it appearing on YouTube, please, Thai government, wake up and realise that your citizens aren't like they used to be. Allow them alcohol on elections and voting days. Let them buy alcohol around the clock (what idiot came up with an afternoon alcohol ban in convenience stores? Why? Please explain your thinking.) If the demon drink is so beyond control as to potentially ruin society, then let the government have the courage to state it out loud. Considering their highly questionable statements about Covid and vaccines in the last year, my guess is anyone in government right now would change the subject and walk run away - or lie outright . . . just like they've been doing with the vaccine fiasco.

HA! I used to have that same policy. After the first year they have suddenly stopped issuing it, and changed it drastically. Now it costs over 2,000B to get the same cover. The equivalent to the one you have now costs 1,194B and the payouts have dropped right down to 50,000B for in-patient treatment. Looks like the underwriters didn't have the ability to imagine the results of a pandemic. You better start shopping around for a new policy!

In times of crisis, the fractures, cracks and faults of any system of management or government appear quickly. For many decades a favourable exchange rate and relatively easy paperwork made Thailand an attractive holiday destination - you came, you tolerated the tourist rip-offs, you toured around, you left brown and happy. The directives for the Phuket Sandbox are implemented by Phuket's governor, but based on instructions direct from the government. Unfortunately the government keeps changing its mind about the rules nationally, simply because the Covid pandemic is in control. Thus - on the one hand the central government creates 'Red Zones' and 'Orange Zones' which change almost weekly, for the protection of the local population of Thailand. But at the same time it's trying to create 'tourist zones' to lure some tourist income back again. And it seems that there's nobody in the government who has the intelligence or imagination to merge the two concepts together. Tourists are coming here in good faith, believing what they are being told, but discovering they have landed in the midst of a muddled confusion. They can't travel due to the costs of continual testing as they move between zones. Virtually every other nation is testing people free of charge. But not here. Boundaries, travel and testing rules are being changed on the fly - as the government - with no plan - simply reacts with a knee-jerk from one day to the next. Arguably this is the predictable result of a government which was not elected due to any kind of individual merit or expertise but simply by being family, friends and associates of powerful and influential people. I don't believe that any Thai government in modern times has ever had to cope with a crisis of this magnitude and duration before . . . and additionally one which has dragged the effectiveness of every government - not just Thailand - out into the scrutiny of the international public. The tragedy - which Thailand is now broadcasting to the world - is that it is desperate for tourists but can't be honest with itself and admit that it just can't cope with them right now. And - worse - it can't be honest with the potential tourists it's trying to attract - and that's a deadly double deceit for Thailand as a nation.