macaroni21

Proposed Menu: Pizza: - Marinara - Quattro Formaggi - Neapolitana - Carpaccio - Prosciutto e Funghi Pasta: - Al tonno - Arabiatta - Carbonara - Bolognese Dessert: - Nui - Ton - Beer - Wut - Sao - Golf

Regardless of how any of us might think we shouldn't overreact to the Omicron variant and try to carry on as usual, particularly in our plans to travel to Thailand, the fact is that it is not something entirely within our control. News from many countries are of borders slamming shut again, or quarantines being demanded. Japan is barring entry of all foreigners. Morocco is banning all incoming flights. Who knows how many countries will follow? Airlines will be watching and adjusting their flight frequencies. I will predict that singling out southern Africa will prove meaningless. The variant has already reached many other places as the rising number of reports of Omicron being found here and there, in just the last few days, attest. So, if governments are of a mind to close borders or require quarantine, it won't be restricted to travellers coming from or through southern Africa. Of special cooncern is this report in the South China Morning Post (and elsewhere)that says Omicron has some 43 mutations in the spike protein compared to the original virus and compared to 18 mutations in the Delta variant's spike protein. Since the mRNA vaccines were developed to target the spike proteins of the original virus, this may mean reduced effetiveness of vaccine protection for those who have been vaccinated with either Pfizer or Moderna. It's to early to be certain -- no doubt we will hear more shortly -- but the big bad news is if the answer is "yes, noticeably reduced effectiveness", then we can expect more border control measures as countries try to protect their domestic populations while waiting for modified vaccines.

Read the fine print: "Visa on arrival is not available yet and Foreign travelers are required to apply visa from Royal Embassy or Consulate general of Cambodia in the host country." So, while it might not be similar to the Thai Pass, there is still an online application to be made for visa. This may be an existing and proven system, in which case the bugs would have been sorted out long ago, or it may be new. And does anyone know where to find out more about the differences among A B C K T E visas? Which countries qualify for "exemption visa"?

Such a plan may well draw domestic tourists; this market doesn't need the bars that farangs frequent. Even in the past, how often did we see Thais in the bars?

What's missing from Richard Barrow's stories is whether the featured persons had been vaccinated. Quite possibly the response protocol is differentiated by vaccination status of whoever tests PCT-positive. Also missing is that there is no second PCR-test to check if the first was a false positive??? I have long been concerned that this is the hidden side of Thailand trying to promote tourism. Much of the communication that I have seen stress this part: "If you test PCR-negative on arrival..." and then speaks of sandbox freedoms or reduced quarantine. Missing from the communication is any clarity about the other limb of the "if" statement. If not, then what? It's like a sales pitch for Bog-Sod Airlines. "If we take off on time, load your bags onto the same plane, and our pilot is not inebriated, then we will arrive at Paradise Beach by noon ..."

How brilliant! They deserve a prize. No, wait, they deserve a visit.

You'll have to take the Skytrain (BTS) to Saphan Khwai Station. If you're starting from Saladaeng station, that will involve a change at Siam station. the Gbeat website has a map but it's in Thai, so I have attached an equivalent map in English. It shows Gbeat Massage to be only 100 metres from Saphan Khwai station -- far closer to the station than most other attractions of the area. My question is a different one. I think I know what "H.173" and "W.60" means, but what would "S.52", "S.54" or "S.56" mean? I also notice that the website speaks of a promotion that ended in April 2021. It has not been updated since then, so one naturally wonders if it is still open. On the other hand @TotallyOz shared pictures of the guys above and he must have got them recently, perhaps from their Line account?

I am not referring to the users of parks, who may indeed include those less well off. I am referring to the street vendors, food cart operators and ordinary folks living in squatter colonies some miles from the proposed Chong Nonsi Park. Have you seen food sellers pour away unfinished soup into drains and wash their utensils by the side of same drains? I have, all the time. Have you seen toy vendors throw plastic wrap onto the ground, which then gets blown into drains? I have. Have you ever had a hard time finding a rubbish bin so that you can throw away your empty drink can responsibly? I am sure many of us have. When the municipality fails to provide basic sanitation amenities (clean water and sewage connections for squatters, to begin with) people do what they must. And then all that stuff drifts down canals and khlongs to the same parks that city planners imagine. I am not pointing moral fingers at those who have no choice but to live on the sidewalk or carry on their trades there. I am just stating a reality of poverty. But the downstream reality that follows is that somebody then has to take care of the rubbish in the waterways. I don't know how many board members have taken the Khlong Saen Saeb boat starting from near Pratunam and that goes all the way eastwards to Lat Phrao and Bangkapi. If you have you would have noticed the water - seated on the boat, you'd just be 30 cm from the virually black surface - and kept your fingers crossed you don't fall into it. Even being splashed would be most unwelcome.

The Cheonggyecheon stream has two advantages which the Chong Nonsi canal does not have. The first is that Cheonggyecheon stream runs down a slight incline, thus the water is never stagnant, and running water has a very soothing effect. The second advantage is that the stream sits in a bit of a valley about 6 metres below the road level on either side. So, when one is walking alongside the stream, one is physically cut off from the parallel roads, and traffic noise is reduced. In addition to the maintenance issue that z909 has referred to, I also doubt if Thais have the same social discipline as Koreans not to keep putting trash into waterways. Even if those appreciating the park demonstrate that discipline, thousands more upstream of it may not. As a poorer society, more of them spend their lives or carry out businesses on the street. This makes the burden and cost of cleaning and maintenance higher. I wonder as well if they're going to create more pedestrian crossings from the sidewalks along Narathiwat Road, otherwise it will be difficult and dangerous to get to the proposed park. But then, creating pedestrian crossings will annoy drivers -- the hi so on which most Thai governments depend on for support.

Don't forget to have your passport in hand too. They need to add the passport number onto the yellow card.

New data released in the last month or so seem to show that for good effect, Sinovac (also known as Coronavac) needs a 3-dose regime, with the 3rd dose about 6 - 8 months after the second dose. From https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210810005405/en/SINOVAC-Announces-Positive-Data-on-Booster-Shots-of-CoronaVac®-Induces-Strong-Immune-Response-in-Adult-and-Elderly-Populations "A third dose given 6 to 8 months after the second dose quickly induced a strong immune response, and the neutralizing antibody titers at day 28 after the third dose increased by three to five times higher than the levels recorded on day 28 after the second injection. " Also reported in https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/turkish-university-reveals-findings-of-3-dose-efficacy-of-sinovac/news Tell your friend not to despair. Just try to get a third dose 6 - 8 months after the second.

How are you able to ensure that?

Wasn't DMK the base for Air Asia? Is that airline no longer flying?

So the lucky Americans would be those vaccinated in Thailand Here's a sample image of this card which, as Peter RS says, states nationality, passport number etc: Now, here's the CDC covid vaccination card issued by private parties doing vaccination in the US: Is it possible for Americans to go back to their vaccinator and ask for a yellow card certifying Caovid vaccination? Would that work for Thailand immigration? On top of everything, here is a story from NPR about the availability of fake vaccination cards in New Jersey/New York: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/01/1033337445/fake-vaccination-cards-were-sold-to-health-care-workers-on-instagram

I won't underestimate the pushback from segments of the Thai elite who are embarrassed by the thought of Thailand as an entertainment destination. These folks may be living in cloud cuckoo land, but I have a met (and been alarmed by) a few who seriously want to shut down this side of the country's tourism sector. They genuinely think that the whole world values Thailand for its cultural attractions such as temples and elephant parks. The government will have to navigate the demands from this group who (taking advantage of the Covid situation) want to use the opportunity to permanently re-orient the tourism sector - the same way we always have voices about making Pattaya a wholesome family destination. They may not succeed, but they're not giving up. I would also anticipate the health ministry guys warning the prime minister that the country is not fully ready to open entertainment venues. They may not be speaking merely of tourism but of the Covid risk to the general population. After all, 99% of bar patrons across Thailand will be Thais. Bangkok Post recently had a story https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2199995/no-need-to-halt-boosters-for-sinovac pointing out that there is still a debate about whether to proceed with booster shots for those who have had two doses of Sinovac. There is recognition that the ten million who have received two SInovac jabs so far have "less capacity to fight against the dominated Delta variant, so it's now advised that a booster dose is required, largely from AstraZeneca, to increase immunity." Yet, they haven't quite rolled out the booster programme. So I can imagine the people in the ministry of health saying "Not so fast....."

It will be interesting to know whether the Thai agency succeeded eventually. Maybe it's mentioned in the programme, but I didn't watch more than 6 - 7 minutes of it. Americans will probably have the hardest time (among developed countries) navigating vaccination requirements for travel, because in the US, vaccination was outsourced to all manner of private parties (including pharmacy chains) each of which maintained its own database. As this guy said in the programme, he was lucky in that Maryland is one of the few states that maintain a State-wide register of vaccination. Trouble is, does a Thai bureaucrat even know what "Maryland" is? He probably looks up a register of countries and discovers there is no such sovereign country as "Maryland". This guy on the programme assumes that anyone in the world would know that if you're from Maryland, you must be from the US. This guy is also assuming that just because he is holding a passport of a country, he must surely be a citizen of that country. This is not quite true. Some countries give out passports to non-citizens, so (in defence of Thai authorities) it is not ridicidulous to ask specifically what one's nationality is, as a separate question from passport. The third thing I noticed is that the guy was waving all sorts of paper certificates. Some countries do not accept paper certificates (due to risk of fake certs) and want digital certs from reliable (preferably national) authorities. Here again, Americans may have hte hardest time due to a lack of a centralised database containing all the needed information. In India, I heard that fake vaccination certificates are available for only 40 Rupees (about $0.53). On this note, I wonder about Thailand's aspiration to attract Indian tourists as part of its reopening.

I agree. They are too complicated. I too will wait. I am pretty sure that in a couple of months the rules will change again, more likely in the direction of further loosening than tightening. Don't see the point of dealing with these complexities right now.

This is any "IF" question: What happens if the PCR test conducted on arrival is positive? Is one bundled off to a hospital? Or is a further quarantine period imposed, staying where? Another question: What if someone on the same flight tests positive?

I believe Cambodia is mostly using Chinese vaccines, with some Astra Zeneca, so its high vaccination rate my not be as re-assuring as it could be. Notwithstanding that, Cambodia is a viable alternative if Thailand does not open up soon. The only downside is that Phnom Penh doesn't really have enough attractions (our kind of attractions) to justify more than a quick 3 or 4 day visit. I don't know about Siem Reap, but from what I've read, no better than Phnom Penh.

Daydreaming! Using Maldives as comparison, as z909 did, we can see how unrealistic this TAT strategy daydream is. In 2019, Maldives had a grand total of 1.7 million tourists who spent an average of 4 nights in the country. Each visitor spent about USD1,862 per person for his/her holiday. (see https://www.worlddata.info/asia/maldives/tourism.php). However, the average spend per tourist has been flat or declining for the last 5 - 6 years, pre-pandemic. In 2014, the Maldives got 1.2 million tourists spending an average of USD2,333 per person. This seems to suggest that Maldives had only been able to grow its tourism numbers by attracting lower-spending travellers. Other articles on the web described a national plan to promote smaller guesthouses. The island country might have discovered that there was a limit to how many high-spending tourists would be prepared to go there, despite Maldives long-established high-end reputation. Yet Thailand imagines it can get about 32 million by 2023, each spending 82,000 baht (USD2,440). Are there even 32 million potential tourists anywhere in the world prepared to spend this kind of money on a Southeast Asian destination? (Don't compare with Italy or France -- these countries have far greater cultural pull than Thailand and people expect to pay developed country prices while there).

From the New York Times yesterday (Oct 4, 2021). I have highlighted some interesting nuggets: Thailand’s Quarantine-Island Experiment Is Showing (Modest) Results Phuket, a resort island where vaccinated people who test negative for the coronavirus can roam freely, is starting to see some life return to its tourism industry. By Richard C. Paddock PHUKET, Thailand — Three months ago, with great fanfare, Thailand began a campaign to start reviving its crucial tourism industry by letting visitors who follow strict Covid-19 protocols roam freely on the resort island of Phuket. The so-called Phuket Sandbox program effectively turned Thailand’s largest island into a quarantine zone for overseas tourists who were fully vaccinated and had negative test results. If they continued to test negative for seven days, they could visit certain other islands; after 14 days, they could go anywhere in Thailand. Roughly three months in, the campaign has drawn about 41,000 people, far short of the government’s goal of 100,000 in the first 90 days. Many have been residents returning from abroad, not tourists. Phuket had nearly 10 million international visitors in 2019, according to industry groups. Still, hotel operators and small business owners say the program has helped the ravaged local economy, and other Southeast Asian countries with resort islands are considering emulating it. “I see the Sandbox as far, far better than nothing because at least there are employees who are working again,” said Kanyaphak Lertjaraspong, who sells tour packages in Patong, a beach town at the heart of Phuket’s normally rowdy party scene. “At least they have some income.” Indonesia’s tourism minister, Sandiaga Uno, told reporters last week that a similar program could be designed for the island of Bali, Indonesia’s largest tourist spot. Bali has had a recent decline in Covid cases, and Indonesia is hoping to open it to foreign visitors as early as this month. “With the better situation now in Bali, we are discussing whether to adopt this,” Mr. Sandiaga said. Last year, Thailand was a leader in containing the spread of the coronavirus. But it was slow to procure vaccines, and it has been overwhelmed by the Delta variant since the middle of this year. It hit a peak of 23,400 daily infections in mid-August and has averaged more than 10,000 new cases a day over the past week. Even as the government tries to contain the virus, it is attempting to bring some life back to tourism, which accounted for as much as a fifth of Thailand’s economy before the pandemic. On Friday, some restrictions were eased for Bangkok and other hard-hit areas. A curfew was pushed back by an hour, to 10 p.m., and fitness centers, beauty salons, massage and tattoo parlors, libraries, museums and movie theaters were allowed to reopen. On Phuket, some of the program’s rules have also been eased, which officials hope will lead to more visitors. On Friday, the maximum required stay on the island was reduced to seven days, from 14. Just two Covid tests are now required during that time, and vaccinated visitors from any country are welcome, not just from places deemed low-risk. And Phuket’s restaurants can sell alcohol again. In Patong, once-boisterous streets have largely been deserted for months. Enterprising vendors have taken over the street fronts of empty nightclubs to sell fruit, clothing or other wares. But on Friday evening, street life seemed to be seeping back. Though bars were still forbidden to serve alcohol, some did so anyway, selling it to customers in paper or plastic cups. Ms. Kanyaphak, the seller of tour packages, said that since the Phuket program began, some visitors had been disappointed to find Patong nightclubs and many other businesses closed. “They came to Phuket with the expectation that everything would be like it used to be, that shops, restaurants and bars would be open,” Ms. Kanyaphak said. “But in reality, not all the shops are open. I would say maybe only 20 percent are back in business.” But she said that business had been gradually increasing with the influx of visitors, and that she hoped the recent changes would lead to more. Phuket has its own international airport and is connected to the Thai mainland by a single bridge. That makes it possible to screen all travelers, whether they are arriving by road or air. Officials acknowledge that Phuket Sandbox’s complicated application process has been a deterrent. Visitors have to submit numerous documents, pay in advance for coronavirus testing and provide proof of Covid insurance. Some may also be wary of the requirement that they install an app on their phone that lets health officials track their movements. Thailand’s prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, pledged to improve the application process in a Facebook post on Friday. He called the program a success and said it would be expanded, adding that it had not caused Covid to spread in Phuket. About 125 Sandbox visitors have tested positive. Another problem with the program has been the policy requiring that travelers who test positive, or who are traveling with someone who tests positive, be transferred from their hotel to a health care facility and kept in strict quarantine for up to 14 days at their own expense. This has led to the mandatory quarantine of tourists who were sitting near an infectious passenger on their flight to Phuket. Other nearby countries besides Indonesia have been watching the Phuket experiment to see if something similar could work for their own beleaguered tourism industries. Malaysia opened the island of Langkawi to domestic tourists in mid-September as a first step toward receiving foreign visitors. Vietnam had hoped to welcome foreign tourists to the island of Phu Quoc this month, but was forced to delay the opening because of a vaccine shortage. Thailand, which also has a limited vaccine supply, has made it a priority to inoculate people living in tourist areas like Phuket and Koh Samui, another popular tourist island, to accelerate their reopenings. In Phuket, more than 83 percent of the population have had two vaccine doses, according to government figures. But many of those were Sinovac, the Chinese-made vaccine that has been less effective than others against the Delta variant. To remedy this, the government has begun giving boosters of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine to people who received Sinovac, using a fifth of the normal dose to conserve the limited supply. Many of the Phuket Sandbox participants have been not tourists, but residents of Thailand returning from overseas travel. For them, a stay in Phuket has been a nice alternative to mandatory quarantine in a Bangkok hotel room. Anthony Lark, president of the Phuket Hotel Association, called the program “an absolute lifeline not just for hotels and hotel owners, but for thousands of staff whose only income is based on tourism.” In Phuket Town, the island’s provincial capital, colorful, 19th-century shop houses have long drawn visitors to the historic Old Town district. Business there collapsed during the pandemic but is slowly coming back, said Piangpen Thampradit, owner of the Phuketique Coffee Bar. “My customers who rely on tourism can get their businesses moving and we can see the money circulating,” she said. Large resort hotels have been among the program’s biggest beneficiaries, while some small-business owners say they have yet to see much benefit. Ms. Piangpen, who closed one of her two shops for lack of customers, said that her initial expectations were low, but that she was now more hopeful. “I am optimistic about the program,” she said. “It is far better than doing nothing. For us small businesses, it will take a while to receive the benefits. We are waiting for that time.”

Reuters is reporting -- quite definitively -- that no quarantine will be needed for vaccinated travellers arriing in Bangkok and 9 other places starting from November 1. However, this tone of certainty seems to conflict with reports posted by others here which paint a picture of nearly weekly changes in policy. Is this Reuters report to be believed? https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailand-further-ease-coronavirus-restrictions-2021-09-27/ BANGKOK, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Thailand will waive its mandatory quarantine requirement in Bangkok and nine regions from Nov. 1 to vaccinated arrivals, authorities said on Monday, as the country tries to boost its immunisation rate and revive its battered tourism sector. The regions include popular tourist areas Chiang Mai, Phangnga, Krabi, Hua Hin, Pattaya, and Cha-am, and follow the successful reopening of Phuket and Samui islands to vaccinated people in pilot schemes since July. The country is keen to welcome back foreign visitors, after nearly 18 months of strict entry policies that contributed to a collapse in tourism, a key sector that drew 40 million visitors in 2019. Authorities will also reduce the quarantine time nationwide for visitors arriving from Oct. 1, the COVID-19 task force said, halving it to seven days for vaccinated arrivals, and cutting it to 10 days for those not inoculated. Read more at the link.

Indeed, different cultures use different metrics to judge their rulers. Western societies with a long history of democratic development give strong weight to what is known as "representative legitimacy" -- a government is considered acceptable and legitimate when it is representative of the people. When seen through the centuries even of European history, this is actually a very recent way to see things. In many other parts of the world, the biggest weight is given to a different metric: "Performance legitimacy" -- a government is considered acceptable and legitimate when it delivers a better life. This better explains the persistence of authoritarian governments; they still have a bedrock of support and any resistance just does not catch fire so long as the rulers deliver progress. We need to bear this distinction in mind whenever we read of protests against governments. Too often Western media might cast the grievance of the demonstrators as that of unrepresentativeness of the government, when in fact the impetus for protests has much more to do with the failure of the government to deliver a better life. Partly it has to do with the fact that it makes better copy for the protestors to shout slogans that mimic calls for democracy. Partly too, they see a nexus between the uncaring attitudes of an unrepresentative elite (particularly corrupt ones) and the daily grind of the poor. But again and again, we've seen in history how, after protests have succeeded, what followed was not necessariily a more "democratic" government. And they're OK with it. They see the messiness of Western democracies, and the very underwhelming performance of democratically elected governments in Latin America, and they say: "That's not for us". I'll just mention Afghanistan -- but I won't go further. Too much of the effort in the last 20 years had been to ensure that the country had elections and a "democratic government". In the end the representative legitimacy of the the government counted for little when it had no performance legitimacy. Huge numbers of people in the countryside were agnostic about the Taliban taking over. The misplaced focus of the last 20 years all but guaranteed today's outcome.

Yes. Would be happy to have the opportunity. If getting drenched in a downpour and wading through floods is the price to pay to visit soon, It's more than affordable. By the way, I've waded before. Some years ago, just as the taxi from Suvarnabhumi was turning into the Bangkok soi where my hotel was located, driver said, "Cannot go. Many water." So I had to get out of the cab into almost knee-deep brown water, holding my biggish bag over my head like some African villager and wade some 150 - 200 metres to my hotel. Along the way, I met a drowned rat and what might have been a little snake sturggling too to get out of the water. It might been just a piece of thick string, but I was not about to pick it up for closer examination. I'd do that again. Dead rat and slithering snake/string notwithstanding, for a chance to be back.

That's an informative photo, z909! As pointed out, the pipe may be undersized if, as I reckon, it serves a biggish catchment area of several sois and several hundred metres. Torrential tropical downpours should not be underestimated especially in thise times of global warming. Secondly, I doubt if planners have considered how much silt and trash also gets into drains and how these reduce the capacity of pipes like this one. Even more worrying is the poor construction standard, shockingly visible in the pictuer itself. Firstly, the pipe is made by joining innumerable sections each of 0.8 or 1.0 metres. Every joint is a weak link, particularly if workmanship quality is not closely monitored. Once a crack occurs, water rushes out of the pipe into the loose soil, washing it away, and creating "vacuum" spaces in the ground. Other countries now use long sections of steel pipe for such sewerage pojects, where a steel section is perhaps 15m long, and sections are welded together to a high standard. Steel also has the advantage of tensile strength, meaning it can bend and flex slightly (though imperceptible to the human eye) and therefore is a better material for horizontal structures. (Concrete has good compression strength and thus has advantage in taking vertical loads --- but not if it has so many joints.) Secondly, look closely at the picture and you see vrtually no support beneath the pipe. Loose, shiftable sand/soil below the pipe means that, with its numerous weak joints, it will cannot resist the soil forces around it. Imagine when the job is done and the area paved over and one day a tractor decides to drive over the walkway above it. Imagine the load the tractor will put on the pavement, which is then transfered to the soil/sand below it, which is then transfered onto the pipe sitting within the soil/sand, sans foundation!