robsamui

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.

Absolutely, tragically, unbelievably inhuman: this is a real endorsement of the regard with which very many Thais (particularly those in positions of authority) see foreigners - no compassion or sympathy at all.

I'm 100% certain that no Thai official would publicly humiliate an elder Thai person who's just been bereaved like this. and who is obviously grieving, lost and confused. 

Hi Simon - yes, there a very good storage facility (on  Samui) by the name of 'Samui Storage & Moving Solutions'. They have  secure cages of various sizes indoors, within a gated compound. I used them to hold some of my stuff when I went to Vietnam - very friendly and helpful. Details below. Good luck with your move.

location on google maps.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/9.4515372,100.0008818/9.4515372,100.0008818/@9.4819296,99.9864644,13z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e0

Jacob

Samui Storage & Moving Solutions

Samui Cheap Shipping

86/55 Moo 5 Namuang, Koh Samui, Suratthani 84140 Thailand

+66 (0)83 392 8049 Email : [email protected]

3 hours ago, Scouse123 said:

They no longer in this country hide behind a facade of attempting to cover up the blatant corruption.

"They no longer hide . . . "?
What you say makes me smile. I came to live here in 1996, and sent a one-cubic-metre package of personal goods on ahead by sea. It disappeared into the guts of Customs in Bangkok, and I was told " . . . they're waiting for their bribe."  I was indignant and angry.

At that time there happened to be a big public outcry going on in the Thai papers and TV about corruption in Thailand. "Yeah, right, good, they've got what's coming!" was my reaction. But then I read a little bit closer about what was actually happening.

It turned out that the public wasn't up in arms about 'bribery and corruption' at all - this was an accepted part of life that folks just shrugged off.

No - they were furious about a glaring inconsistency in the corruption; the bribes to get your stuff in through the seaport and docks were higher than the cost of the bribes at the airport. Everyone was indignant at the unfairness of this, and people were protesting, and demanding that this dreadful inequality should be put right immediately.

This was 25 years back. Not much has changed since then.

6 hours ago, samtam said:

 

I am one of those who did my visa extensions for 12 years in person at Chaengwattana. The last 3 years of the 12 were such a pain, taking me about 7 hours or more door to door, for an extension plus re-entry permit. This, on top of going to pick up the bank letter from my branch the day before.

 

After these increasingly irksome experiences I thought the services of a good agent, particularly during covid, (the first time was last year, the second this year), were an investment I was prepared to make. The service also takes care of my 90 day report, (either online if it works, or in person, if it doesn't, as with the last one). My visits to CW are now reduced to about 20 minutes face time with the IO.

 

Like so many things in Thailand, it is often better to have a gofer; I use different ones for picking up undelivered parcels from the post office/customs, getting me items for household maintenance, a personal shopper for groceries and mall items, and a tame motocy for pick up and delivery of various items. Some of these have become essential during Covid, and my desire to isolate as much as possible, until I get my second vax.

 

When in Rome...

I used to think that all this ridiculous and excessively  bureaucratic paperwork visa-wise was the side effect of a little undeveloped nation desperately trying to make itself look important. Then, a few years later, I got to thinking no - that's not it - it's a cunning plan to get lotsa brown envelopes by making the whole visa business so long-winded and unbearable.

Now I've come to realise that, actually, it's both.

8 hours ago, BangkokReady said:

People should learn very quickly that like so many things in Thailand, they are just for show and don't have the slightest effect on anything.

Mmmmm . . . such as human rights, responsibility, politics, Parliament, democracy, education, justice, banking, law and policing.?

7 hours ago, crazykopite said:

As of today phangan has gone into lockdown from 9 pm until 4 am Can only get takeaway meals , gyms , massage tattoo shops as well as bars closed until further notice . Everything was fine here prior to this years SONGKRAN and since then we have have had Covid cases on a daily basis. . Living on a small island can send people a little stir crazy 

Ah . . . yes . . . Songkran. 
Wasn't that the one where the Minister for Health very kindly told all the Thai people to travel en masse, tens of millions of them, all over Thailand to visit their families -  as long as they did not go out and party for the new Year?
Yes . . . I remember that . . . 

8 minutes ago, Espanol said:

Most "sandboxers" are not tourists, but residents coming back home and avoiding ASQ confinement in Bangkok. So, we are on topic.

You are overlooking the very many Thais who are fleeing outwards from Bangkok in their search of a vaccine. Every day Koh Samui Hospital is turning away a dozen or more . . . Thais wanting jabs are made to show ID; any not from Surat Thani province are turned away.

They are all unvaccinated and the potential for increased infection, while they are they traveling, is considerable.

The reasons for this sudden leap in infections is blisteringly simple:

1. the Thai people have been vaccinated with the cheapest bargain-basement vaccine that the government could lay its hands on. Sinovac has been proven to be only 3% effective (against the initial Alpha strain) with only one jab, rising to 50% effective with 2 jabs. The manufacturers are still refusing to publish their vaccine's effectiveness against the Delta strain;

2. In their desperation to reach the magic figure of 70%, the local administrators were not over-fussy about counting only those who had received two jabs;

3. Thai workers gong to Phuket from other provinces are not monitored carefully enough;

4. Thais have been escaping from the mainland (particularly Bangkok) - where there are limited jabs available - and trying to find jabs at regional hospitals by any means possible;

5. Migrant workers are still slipping through the net.

The despair is now transparent - a bold safety guarantee of "90 cases a week and it becomes dangerous for everyone and we'll close it all down" has been totally ignored when this happened very predictably and within a few weeks.

(Keep an eye on what's emerging from Koh Samui, too, now that it's also "open".)

The thousands standing in line every day and waiting for their first jab in Bang Sue station is a graphic symbol of what is happening all over Thailand . . . even if the politicians are trying to pretend it's not so, it's not their fault, and there's nothing they can do about it.

2 hours ago, hotchilli said:

You mean the didn't anticipate the squeaky clean locals spreading the infection... only the incoming fully inoculated multiple tested dirty farangs could bring it in to the island...

Well that's another lesson learned then.

 

Thais can't learn lessons - to do so would be losing face.

This fantasy scheme is the latest in an ever-increasing spasm of desperation and disbelief. This last 12 months it's been happening everywhere you look. And the real problem is not greed or stupidity, it's proud, haughty, arrogant nationalism. 

Thailand had boasted for generations that it's never been conquered and colonised. Even from the early days of the first foreign diplomats, it's deliberately isolated foreigners and kept them at arm's length. As a nation it knows little of the ways of foreigners and has traditionally considered them a dangerous and corrupting influence on Thai culture. Foreigners are a breed to be tolerated with suspicion and to be taken advantage of at every opportunity.

But the Covid pandemic has forced Thailand out onto the world stage. It's ripped away the smug, often arrogant, self-sufficiency that Thailand has been able to maintain politically for so many years, and revealed the governing classes as elitist, self-serving, incompetent at governance and totally out of touch with not only the big world outside, but with its own people.

What you're hearing with this ludicrous million Dollar investment proposal is the panicking voice of a nation which understands nothing of Thailand's place in the world, and just cannot understand why nobody is now interested in their glorious country. 

Covid has been the catalyst, not only tearing down the insular wall that Thailand's built around itself, but also laying bare the corruption and ineptitude of some of its top people, its unrealistic healthcare system, and giving voice to the dismayed masses of its citizens who are now openly showing their discontent.

From the outside we can see that Thailand is very much not an attractive nation to visit or invest in at the moment. Let's hope that this international disruption is the watershed for the Thai people and their managers and, when eventually the dust settles, Thailand will have lost some of its unearned sense of self-importance and established a more realistic international poise.

For the Thai peoples' sake, I really hope so.

9 minutes ago, Keesters said:

Not just ordering but receiving. Time to put the Thailand AZ vaccine facility under military control and ensuring no vaccines leave the country. 

Do you not realise that the Government IS the military?
The AZ vaccine is already under military control!
That's part of the problem.