Desperate family left unemployed due to COVID-19 make 1,000km trip on old motorcycle and sidecar

[webfact]

Desperate family left unemployed due to COVID-19 make 1,000km trip on old motorcycle and sidecar 

 

Picture: Manager

 

Manager reported that a mother and her children - out of work after tourists stopped going to Pattaya due to the coronavirus pandemic - set off on a near 1,000 kilometer journey from Chonburi to Mae Sai in Chiang Rai. 

 

Jaruwan, 30, and her daughters Thanet,13, and Sornsiri, 12, left the eastern seaboard resort on a rickety old motorcycle with sidecar.

 

They got as far as Tak in the north west of Thailand before they broke down. Ban Tak officials helped them with repairs to a sprocket, lights, chain and brakes and gave them food to continue their long journey. 

 

They made it to Lampang where a foundation coordinated with other foundations in Phayao and Chiang Rai to help the desperate family. 

 

After health checks, they were given a phone and sim card, lots of rice, drinking water, 2,000 baht and masks. 

 

Picture: Manager

 

Then their conveyance was dismantled and transported to their destination. The family were taken in a minivan.

 

Mum Jaruwan said they were left with no option but to leave Pattaya. Formerly they collected trash but no tourists meant they could no longer earn a living so Jaruwan decided to head for her elder brother's home in Mae Sai near the border with Myanmar. 

 

But their problems, like so many during the devastating pandemic, are set to continue. 

 

They face an uncertain future in the north, reported the media.

 

Source: Manager

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2020-05-05

 

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[cornishcarlos]

A country let down by its government..

Sad story but just the tip of the iceberg.

[colinneil]

Desperate people, desperate times, and Prayut and his bunch of clowns do nothing to help.

Good to see that  there are others prepared to help... Well done folks.

[Antonymous]

Truly a very sad situation, that many tens of thousands of other Thai folk now find themselves in due to the economic effects of the lockdown.

 

But what a lovely heartwarming story this is. I hope to read more stories of people assisting each other in the coming weeks and months.

[Rhys]

Good to see this family made it....

[jaiyen]

Haven't seen any articles with Prayut spouting BS for a while. Has he just stopped caring about the Thai people and is keeping out of the limelight cos as usual he is scared of taking responsibility.

[Vigilante]

Farangs who can afford it, should offer help, in these dark times.

Local wats (or churches) might organize relief efforts.

Offer in kind or cash..option A preferable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tarteso]

What a brave mother in crazy situation???????????????? 

 

Did you read it Mr PM?

[Burma Bill]

1 hour ago, jaiyen said:

Haven't seen any articles with Prayut spouting BS for a while. Has he just stopped caring about the Thai people and is keeping out of the limelight cos as usual he is scared of taking responsibility.

Possible victim of the virus???????

[hotchilli]

1 hour ago, jaiyen said:

Haven't seen any articles with Prayut spouting BS for a while. Has he just stopped caring about the Thai people and is keeping out of the limelight cos as usual he is scared of taking responsibility.

Nothing he can say or do, the pots empty and he has no excuses for where the monies gone.. so he's pushed his ministers up front to take the flack.

If he shows up in public he'd be almost lynched in some areas, so he stays safe with just the odd televised speech or meetings with close aides!

[Tropicalevo]

1 hour ago, Vigilante said:

Farangs who can afford it, should offer help, in these dark times.

Local wats (or churches) might organize relief efforts.

Offer in kind or cash..option A preferable.

 

Most local wats are struggling big time.

Donations are dropping.

No restaurants to donate food.

Locals struggling to feed the family. Not much to spare for the monks on their rounds.

The monks and temple dogs are going hungry in some cases. They need help as well.

On our last food donation to the temple, we put in cans of dog food and dog biscuits. The dogs looked better on the next trip.

Back on topic - well done to the people that helped the mum and her daughters.

[sweatalot]

2 hours ago, Antonymous said:

But what a lovely heartwarming story this is. I hope to read more stories of people assisting each other in the coming weeks and months.

 

Absolutely. May they get help. May they be happy

 

And thank you so much to the assisting people

[Tropposurfer]

Very sad story. As a man I wonder where the woman's husband is to help and carry part of the load?

But, a brave, humbling stoical 'commoner' story. Collectors of garbage to make a living. This is certainly the bottom of the food chain. 

Good on the folks that came to their aid. Where are all the Thai multi billionaires to help their people. Yeah, I know I posted almost the same words yesterday and I will continue to do so until censored ! I find myself being repulsed by images of hi-so people with their whiter than white skin and their affluent, indifferent lives.

 

I don't know the answers to this virus thing and I'm not inferring I do.

I guess like many of us I'm trying to integrate and come to terms with this as a life experience.

 

In mid January this year I was very ill with what I initially thought was the flu, however the symptoms were very different in some respects. I am unsure as tests at hospital (blood only) were not returned to me as having Covid 19 but simply bronchitis.

It certainly didn't feel like any bronchitis I have ever had and as a younger man I had a few bouts of it so I have some memory of this illness.

What was very different for me was the rapid onset of the feeling of drowning in mucus which I have never ever had with flu viruses any time in my life before.

I was treated with a raft of drugs. I have no idea what these were. I recovered in about 10 days after being increasingly ill for the previous 5 days.

There was no talk of Covid at that time in Thailand or on the world news at that stage, well not that I heard or read anyways.

 

I see the numbers of deaths out of Europe, and the US and they are/seem bad. I think to myself what would it be like to have hundreds of people die  in the suburbs around you? This bug is as bad as some other bugs and diseases we have annually and suffer from decade after decade, yet it seems the death rate is more concentrated, or perhaps somehow more noticeable than these others?! Is this a valid observation? 

Maybe it's just Covid deaths are being reported in a different way, and that flu virus deaths (yes I know Covid is NOT flu and very different) which are over 650,000 a year worldwide are not reported other than anecdotally, thus less noticed, maybe integrated in our minds now and thus seen as normal, acceptable in society? 

Yet with these other bugs we don't close the world down like with Covid. Why is that? Why is this virus, and its death rate of about 15% of those infected bringing such response/reactions across the globe? Is it because it is as deadly and dangerous as they say it is?  

I'm reading my post and seem to see a degree of confusion, or maybe just critical questioning.

I'm aware I feel the want/need to get out and take the risk of free movement, of course acting responsibly and taking precautions, but be free to, to accept responsibility for my own life and yes even unto contracting and dying perhaps as part of that responsibility.

By the same token accepting the responsibility of attending a hospital asap and seeking treatment even for slight symptoms.  

I don a mask at the first signs of a cold to reduce the droplet spread (as Japanese folks do) and have likewise for many years not gone to my places of work when coming down with fever so as to save others.

As I write I say to myself; Hang on P! ... There are 700 or more deaths a day in a small country like Spain from Covid ... that's really alarming i.e. around 15% of those infected dying, which seems to me to be a high number. I now see in my mind images and talk of truck filled with dead bodies, open ground areas being dug up in NY city for mass interment, exhausted med staff, even higher death rates for medical staff who daily attend to severe Covid infected people.

But, for some reason I'm starting to think to myself, to question, the responses by govt's across the globe and wonder about the steps taken. I'm a reasonably critical thinker and don't always swallow everything I am fed. Hence this post I guess. 

I read/hear/see information/speculation about suspected infection rates in the global population at exponential rates above those rates being reported by press, govt's, and huge 'in the know' agencies. 

Is this true, is this bug far more widespread that known and if so why aren't there millions dead by now rather than hundreds of thousands? 

Maybe the answer is simple, maybe there aren't million more infected than being some speculate are, and that the numbers given us are actually accurate.

Google tells me that Sweden's Covid death rates are just above 10% for those infected, yet they have not put in place anywhere near the levels of enforced social management processes that most of the western world has imposed upon its citizens. The pres I have seen of conversations with Swedes seems to show little to no panic, no paranoia certainly not the widespread fears I have seen here in Thailand and as reported from the rest of the globe!

The Swedish social psyche is one of respect, responsibility, and compassion towards all other citizens. These concept of compassion and care are uppermost in the minds of the whole of Swedish society thus all govt structures and more importantly those who lead, lead at the privy of the people.

Perhaps this integrated consideration of others has some bearing on how Swedish numbers have refused (so far) to shoot through the roof. 

This consideration translates into thoughtful adherence to voluntary isolation, hand washing, self-presentation at the mearest sign of infection, yet we see some with masks, some without, people going about their daily lives often closer than 2 metre distancing as followed in other countries in Europe and see no exponential viral infection rates? 

Certainly I raise many questions and curiosity in my post as I sit in my 'safe-place' in Phuket. 

 

[Quickmill]

Balls of Steel....what many Thai people are going through is unimaginable by many of us, they know that they must to go ahead with their own power,  many of them are really poor, i can't say they are what they did in the past, because many never had their life in their hands or had any opportunity to improve their life.

Living in poverty for all the life and suddenly you lost the little you have, probably nothing will change, but this lady still to push hard for her children and herself, as her many did, so this is a very good opportunity for any government, let your people sink, they will never have the voice to battle you, they will only battle to survive.

  

[AgMech Cowboy]

18 hours ago, Rhys said:

Good to see this family made it....

And wishing them the best!!

[ChipButty]

It would be good to hear her side of the story on how she managed to get that far, I think many people are in that position and at the same time the government is looking to bail out Thai airways to the tune off what??????????