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Thailand 2022 (Travel in the Times of Covid)
For all the photos on flickr click here: Thailand 2022
Getting There is Half the Fun
January was soon to arrive in New Hampshire. It was time to go to Thailand.
For most of 2021, if you wanted to travel to Thailand, you were required to quarantine in an approved hotel for 14 days with multiple antigen tests during your stay, regardless of any test results you might have had, your vaccination status, or illness history. Eventually they instituted programs where you could quarantine in a “sandbox” – generally a beach area that had received intense vaccination efforts for the local population. These were on islands so they could control your movement, such as Phuket or Koh Samui. I think there were a couple of golf resorts that were set up that way, as well. Otherwise upon arrival in Bangkok, you were ushered to your approved hotel and prohibited from going out – locked into your room with meals left outside your door – until the quarantine period was over and you tested negative.
But on November 1 of last year, the government eased restrictions for vaccinated travelers. With the new “Test & Go” scheme you were required to pre-register for a “Thailand Pass”, and once approved you only had to spend one night in quarantine while awaiting the results of an arrival PCR test.
Applying for the Thailand Pass seemed pretty daunting, but the government website was straightforward and walked me through the process. I uploaded photos of my passport and a copy of my pre-paid hotel reservation at an approved quarantine hotel. This reservation also had to show that I pre-paid for transportation from the airport to the hotel and for an arrival PCR test.
I was also required to upload my vaccination record/certificate. As my record looks like it was written by a 2-year old, I was doubtful about it’s acceptance. But a couple of weeks earlier my medical center notified me that I could apply for a QR code which encoded all of my vaccination information (this was in the absence of any consistent US federal program that might violate my privacy (ridiculous)). I had done this thinking it might come in handy some time. Bingo! The Thailand Pass website encouraged uploading a vaccination QR code if you had it. Wow!
Then I had to upload copies of my airline reservation, and had to provide proof of Covid insurance ($50k worth) covering a hospital/hospitel stay while in Thailand. This was available through a link on the website and cost about US$70 for three weeks.
The biggest problem with the process was that all documents had to be uploaded as photos in .jpeg format. This is fairly silly since all documents come in .pdf format and had to be converted. (The easy way is to open the document on your computer and take a screen shot of it.)
It took only about two hours of concentrated effort to do all of this. The website warned that it would take 3-7 days to receive an approved Thailand Pass if everything was in order. With everything uploaded, I hit the “submit” button and figured I’d hear back… sometime. Remarkably, I got the approval within 3 hours. I think having my vaccine record in a QR format is what eased the process – a Thai official didn’t need to decipher a two-year old’s writing and judge it’s authenticity.
I received the approved Thailand Pass on December 14 just as the omicron variant of Covid was raging around the world. On December 22 the Test & Go scheme was suspended….. But they were allowing people who had already received approval to travel … whew!
Before departing the US I needed a negative antigen test result. Finding a testing location in the US is relatively challenging, but $185 later after an uncomfortable nasal swab and a 20 minute wait, I had that last bit of necessary paper.
Off I went.
I recommend against EVER transiting through Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. It’s a nightmare. Multiple security checks, waits for buses and trams to change between the many terminals…. But I had a six hour layover and had lots of time to negotiate the system. I even got in a few winks in an easy chair by my gate at the end of Terminal 3.
Three flights were listed for the gate, mine being the first to go. About 45 minutes before departure time, a gate agent appeared and started making announcements for the second flight on the list – to Beirut. I’m sure Beirut is lovely this time of year, but I asked about my flight and the agent said, “Oh. They changed the gate. It’s in another terminal.” But he couldn’t tell me which terminal. So I dashed the length of the terminal, stopping twice to scan my ticket on a reader that promised to tell me gate information only to leave me disappointed. I finally confirmed on a departure board near security that I had to change terminals. I went out through security, jumped on the next tram to Terminal 2 and pleaded with the security agent to let me near the head of the line (my THIRD security check in Paris), ran to the end of Terminal 2 as my name was being called on the PA system, and was the last on the bus to go to the plane.
(Who remembers OJ Simpson for his runs through the airport for Hertz, rather than for his later fame? Without OJ we wouldn’t have the Kardashians…damn him! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo0MIUrrNpc )
As I buckled my seat belt I noticed we were already 2 minutes late for departure. Why can’t they ever leave on time!
Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok is a big hub for SE Asian air traffic (19th highest passenger traffic in the world with 65M passengers in 2019. Atlanta and Beijing lead the pack with over 100M passengers each). It’s normally a very busy place, but it’s size and organization means it is usually not a problem to deal with. It is designed to handle the traffic even with modern day security requirements.
But with Covid it was nearly deserted. My plane was the ONLY arrival at 9:50AM. There must have been three dozen Thai Air planes sitting idle on the tarmac with algae growing on them. And no other passengers were in the arrival area.
At the first stop in the arrival hall I was directed to rows of chairs spaced apart with masked and gowned inspectors standing by to check Thailand Passes and review all the paperwork claimed in the pass – passport, paper copies of insurance, Covid test, hotel booking, etc. – and they checked my temperature.
The next station was a quick check of the same information. Then I walked past a thermal imaging camera to check my temp. Immigration officials already knew my quarantine hotel, but they wanted my hotel info after that which I had to dig for.
After picking up my bag and going through customs I was greeted by a small mob of protectively clothed people organizing hotel transport. Of course, everyone had to have this pre-arranged in order to get the Thailand Pass, so you didn’t need to find a taxi. A woman scanned my Thailand Pass, took my temp, checked for my name on her clipboard and directed me to a place to sit for 10 minutes. I used the time to buy a SIM card for my phone and hit an ATM for some cash. All of this was organized antiseptically.
Instructions from My Quarantine Hotel
After the short wait I was led to a car. My bag and I were photographed getting into the car, and my Thailand Pass was scanned again. We (my bag and I) were photographed and scanned again upon arrival at the hotel where I was promptly escorted directly to my room. The porter made sure my laptop could access the internet and showed me where my meals would be placed outside the room. He said I’d be called at about 2PM to go down for my arrival PCR test.
On schedule, the test was deep and painful. If they weren’t beforehand, all this nasal swabbing has created a class of clinical sadists. She even giggled at my pain. I suppose if your job is to stick swabs in people’s noses all day you have to have fun somehow. I was told the results would come back before 8AM. I went back up to my room overlooking the parking lot and tried to figure out when I should sleep and get used to the 12 hour time change. I still had some time on my Amazon Prime trial account, so I watched a couple of movies, hoping I’d doze off.
Lunch had been unimpressive. Dinner the same. It was about this time that I was beginning to regret my choice of hotels – The Royal President. I had stayed here 10 years before and it was getting a little shopworn even then. Two years into the pandemic the swimming pool was dark green with algae, and what used to be a nice breakfast area was boarded up. I was really hoping that my test would come back negative as I didn’t want to be stuck here for two weeks of quarantine. One day was more than enough.
At 7AM the next day I got the call that I was good to go. I was packed. I went.
I Was In, But the Testing Wasn’t Over
At the domestic airport it was full mask-up and masks on the flight. No nonsense. Deplaning was done 5 rows at a time.
The rules were quite strict. Everyone wore a mask, even on the street. They have temperature monitors and hand sanitizers in most, if not all, stores and restaurants as you walk in (Mexico did this back in April). The shopping malls generally had a guard who kept an eye on things. There are QR code signs in many places that you can scan with your phone to track where you’ve been or who you’ve been in close proximity to and report it on phone app tracking software. They used to require that you use an app, but no one seems to be insisting on it, anymore.
After day five I was required to have a second Covid test which I was able to do at the airport on arrival in Chiang Mai. The guy had a swift and painful “jam it in and swirl it 10 times” technique. Before my right eyeball had fully seated itself he said, “Other side, please….” Negative result in 15 minutes. Eyesight returned in 20.
Every flight or hotel wanted to see my Thailand Pass, but it wasn’t until the last week of my stay in Pattaya that bars and restaurants were requiring a negative antigen test taken within the last 72 hours. I think the rules were pretty fluid. An evening venue called Tree Town had been a virus hot spot at one point and was shut down. To celebrate their re-opening, the city was providing free antigen tests on the street. I drew a highly experienced sado-clinician. She demonstrated her skill by scratching the back of my head from the inside. My eyes spun for several minutes after that one.
Tree Town.The Covid Test Station is the Lighted Area at Center
Off to Isaan
Isaan is the easternmost region of Thailand. I was visiting a friend there while trying to shake off the jet lag. I’ve never been quick to adjust, but the older I get, the longer it takes for me to get synched to the local clock.
There is great food in Isaan, and Ann took me to some of the local spots – local BBQ twice!! At Pha Taem National Park, the easternmost point in Thailand, there is a rock outcropping overlooking the Mekong River and Laos to the east. Ancient pictograms painted beneath the overhanging cliff are estimated to be 3 to 4 thousand years old. They are very reminiscent of those in the southwestern US.
Ubon Ratchathani is the regional center for this part of Isaan. It has a beautiful and unusual temple complex – Wat Nong Bua in the heart of town.
So So for Travel
It was a little bit depressing to travel around. I estimate that 50-75% of hotels were closed. Same for restaurants. Along Chaweng Road (the “beach” road on Koh Samui, though you can’t see the beach from the road), I estimate that 75% of the businesses were gone – the buildings were vacant. (I suggested it was a good time to tear them all down so you could see the beach.) It was surprisingly empty since this area was one of the few “sandboxes” that allowed easy access to foreigners. But as inconvenient as that was to me as a traveler, it was a sign of the devastation to the tourist industry that Covid created.
To the North – Chiang Mai
One of the great reasons for visiting Chiang Mai is the night market. It covers an area of, I dunno, 6 or 8 square blocks. It’s usually full of people shopping for souvenirs and there’s a great outdoor food market – pick your seafood and have it cooked. It’s wonderful (my mouth is watering as I write this). There are usually traditional Thai dancers, as well. Now, the place was completely shut. There were some souvenir carts along the street, but that was it. The bar street was vacant. No alcohol served after 9PM.
On Sunday, they did block off one of the main streets in Chiang Mai and made it a “walking street” full of souvenir and food vendors. I saw more tourists there in 30 minutes than I had seen in a week.
Of course some of the main sights were open, particularly the temples. Wat Phra Singh is the primary temple complex in the center of the old, walled city and is always worth a visit. The principal stupa features elephant heads facing in each of the cardinal directions. This year I discovered there’s a little concession on the grounds where I enjoyed a mango shake while sitting in the shade.
You could find some things to do, but the availability was tight. Excursions weren’t offered every day – there just weren’t enough tourists to justify it. I managed to do a cycling tour of the countryside followed with a kayak float down the river.
Vanee Cooking School was operating and I had a fun afternoon going to the market and preparing a few tasty dishes. We made mango with sticky rice for dessert, but since I’m allergic to the skin I always have to rely on finding a mango maiden to peel them for me. Fortunately, they are in plentiful supply.
Morning glory (pad pak boong) is one of my favorites, and it was a much more exciting dish to prepare than I ever imagined. The video is too large to include here, but here’s a link to it on flickr: Don’t Try This at Home
I also visited one of my favorite places in Thailand, the temple of Doi Suthep that sits on a hill above Chiang Mai. The normal way to get there is to hop on a songthaew – a pickup truck made into a bus with bench seats along the sides. They normally run fixed routes, though they will take you anywhere for a negotiated fee. They weren’t running at all on the route to Doi Suthep and wanted too much for an individual trip. So I did what I’ve done in the past, anyway, and rented a motor scooter to get there. I think I hit it on a Sunday that drew a lot of other people… and the songthaews were running that day…. I’ve been here a few times and there are normally groups of young girls doing traditional dances to raise money for their schools. They weren’t here this time. Bummer. (Pics from previous visits https://www.flickr.com/photos/becklectic/sets/72157626111762623)
To the South – Phuket
From Phuket I wanted to do a multi-day sea kayaking trip in Phang Nga bay. I had done this during my first visit to Thailand in 1997 and it was an exceptional experience, but there weren’t enough customers around for the operator to offer it, so I had to satisfy myself with a day trip – still pretty nice. The limestone tower karst formations here are similar to a few places in Asia – Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh in Vietnam, Guilin in China and somewhere in the Philippines I’ve never been. (Search my photos on flickr..)
I don’t know if it’s unique to Ao Phang Nga, but there are sea caves that you can negotiate during favorable tides that go into hollowed out areas within the karst towers – they’re called hongs. It’s like it’s own little ecosystem inside.
Also from Phuket I made a (very long) day trip to the Similan Islands which are in the Andaman Sea (the Indian Ocean side of Thailand). It made for a nice outing, but was just too long – 5 hours roundtrip in a van, 3 hours roundtrip in a speedboat to get to/from the islands. There were tons of Russian tourists here (escaping the winter just like me, no doubt).
The highlight of the trip was ripping my big toenail half-way off getting back in the boat from a snorkeling stop. On balance it was a much more pleasant experience than a nasal swab. It gave me the chance to utilize the excellent and inexpensive medical care available in Thailand. The ER service included numbing my toe, complete removal of the nail, stitches, bandaging, a tetanus booster shot and drugs for US$300.
The odd thing about the trip was passing through security upon leaving and entering the island of Phuket. Since it was one of the “sandboxes” they should have been concerned about people leaving the island before completing quarantine. But they didn’t check my Thailand Pass leaving the island, only when I entered.(?) I can only assume that the transport company had cleared all the pax beforehand. (As an aside, there were a couple of instances in the news of people escaping from their quarantine hotel. Notably an Israeli guy and two Indians in separate instances. There was a manhunt for them and they were found. I can’t imagine what their plans were if they ever intended to leave the country they would have had to provide their passports … I would personally rather spend the time in The Royal President Hotel then in a Thai prison.)
Avoiding the Crowds at Beach Resorts?
It was sometimes difficult to do the things I wanted to do just because of a lack of tourists. But in another sense the lack of people was a real plus. Places that are otherwise overly crowded were quite nice. The beach at Patong on Phuket was a case in point.
But Koh Samui was just too dead. As I mentioned, most of the shops were completely vacant. My toe wasn’t ready for beach fun either, so I didn’t stick around. I did run into an old friend there.
Pattaya – Not Normally a Scene of Quietude
A merchant I talked to in Pattaya told me that they estimate there were only about 30,000 visitors there on any given day. In normal times the number would be closer to 1 million (Pattaya is a pretty big place). Not to mention all the service workers who would normally be there. So in looking around I figured that, on average, wherever I was there would normally be 30 times as many people as I was seeing. This wouldn’t hold true for hotels and restaurants since so many were completely shut down and the lower number of tourists would be concentrated in fewer places. But figure 10 to 15 times as many people? It must have felt like a ghost town to the full time residents. And would have been horrifying to me in normal times!
I hooked up with a guy I met on the flight over who lives in Pattaya. Bill had a motor bike, so I rode bitch as he showed me around to some of the local sights. He confirmed that it can be very crowded during peak times. But he also knew some quieter spots to visit like this little beach restaurant away from Central Pattaya.
We also went to one of the near islands for a day, Koh Larn, taking a speedboat out and the ferry back. (I recommend the ferry.)
Treat Your Feet Well
There were a lot of foot massage places begging for business, and I tried to support the industry as much as I could.
I decided to see if it is possible to overdose on foot massages. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me when I was living in China where there were at least twice as many massage places within a 10 minute walk of my apartment as there were Starbucks (there were 3 Starbucks). But then, many great ideas sometimes take years to develop. (It took Einstein several years to tie up the loose ends before publishing his General Theory of Relativity, for example.)
But back to the important matter at hand, err, foot. Foot massages….
If you’ve never had one, you should. Some people are wary and some don’t like to have their feet touched. All I can say is, “Get over it. If God didn’t want you to have your feet rubbed, he wouldn’t have given other people hands.” Back in early 2010 Alice and I were on a holiday from Shanghai and traveling in SE Asia. My buddy Doug from Pittsburgh was on a tour of the region, so we contrived to meet up in Siem Reap, Cambodia (jumping off point for explorations of one of my favorite historical/archeological/mystical places in the world – Angkor).
We met for dinner at the Dead Fish Restaurant, noted for live crocodiles swimming around in channels in the floor. On our way over there, we noticed a foot massage place just up the block from the restaurant. So after dinner I suggested we partake. Doug looked a little skeptical, but was willing to give it a try. I’m pretty sure we opted for the one hour treatment. As we stumbled out, Doug proclaimed, “That’s the best six bucks I’ve ever spent!”
Indeed.
Long story short, after a day in Chiang Mai, and with much less thought than Einstein devoted to his questions, I determined that it is indeed possible to overdose on foot massages. Einstein finally reconciled gravity as a geometric consequence of the curvature of the space time continuum. After four foot massages in one day I was perilously close to the Event Horizon. I could barely walk.
Travel is enlightening.
becklectic Tales 