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ibtg68

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Everything posted by ibtg68

  1. It is, but as the Thais would say, “same same but different”. The way dual pricing works at State and National Parks in the US. and other locations such as ski resorts, amusement parks and some other attractions is that there is a set base price of admission which everybody, foreignor or not, pays. The tiered pricing comes in to play at a discount for senior citizens, children and disabled regardless of the status of their citizenship. U.S. military veterans and students with proper identification also pay a discounted entry fee.
  2. I wonder if Xi’s seen the videos of his fellow Chinese at Thai seafood buffets or the photo of the Chinese tourist taking his evening growler on the street in plain view of diners in Thailand. ????
  3. Both my girlfriend and I tested positive, first via ATK test, then PCR test at San Sai Hispital. They wanted to put the “grabbus” on me, but since my symptoms were mild, I refused. I signed an AMA waiver and bailed out with the medications they provided me. I’ve been at home since then and will be free to leave self-quarantine on the 11th. A friend of mine was not so lucky. He decided to check out Hua Hin before flying back to the U.S. Prior to his flight home he took a PCR test. That’s when he found out he had the crud. Since he’s a tourist with no residence in Thailand, he’ll be spending ten days in a hospitel setting before he’s released to go home.
  4. I’m not sure which part of Samui your friend is referring to, but it’s not dead. I’ve been here a year now and started noticing an increase in tourism beginning in October. Here in Lamai where I live, restaurants, bars - some with live music - massage shops and gyms are open. Some bars are open until 2:00 am and these places aren’t even trying to pretend they’re restaurants. Even the police make the random appearance on foot patrol, smile, take a few selfies and move on the next soi. Not every place is open, but it’s far from dead.
  5. With or without the valve, none of the surgical masks or the typical masks you typically see people wearing, with the exception of something like a filtered respirator type mask is going to keep a person’s breath from exiting the seal between the wearer’s face and mask unfiltered. The restriction on valves masks is nothing more than an example of some official trying to “outstupid” some other other official for yet another useless feel-good measure. As for keeping your glasses from digging up, if you wear your mask so that the top edge of the mask rests between your face and the bottom frame of your glasses, your breath which escapes your mask will act like a defroster, keeping the fog off your lenses. Keeping your lenses clean also helps. You could also switch to contact lenses or if your vision is not that bad, just don’t wear your glasses unless you really need to. Luckily for me, my vision is not that bad so I don’t wear glasses while I wear the mask.
  6. At one point I became the unofficial half owner of my girlfriend’s bar in Chiang Mai. She already owned it when I met her. She was fortunate enough to sell it a few months before the Controlla Virus lockdown. As the months passed and various alcohol restrictions and varying degrees of enforcement came and went, the thing I noticed about the bars was that all the tourist / falang bars had to close, whereas it seemed that the jungle bars were operating more freely. All the tourist bars in the area where she owned hers are now gone. Even before the lockdown, I saw the business for falang / tourist bars declining because of decreasing numbers in tourism. The Jungle bars didn’t have that problem because their sales numbers are not dependent on tourism, but the local population. It’s no secret that if a Thai has a thousand baht in his / her pocket, it will be spent before the night is over. Add to that, difficult times and most people for that matter will spend what they can to make themselves feel good if even for a few hours. Even now that restrictions are easing a bit, the jungle bars are still going strong with their Thai customer base and the tourist bars Thad managed to survive to this point are slowly showing signs of life. Unfortunately there are not a lot of tourists to bring back the money the bar owners in enjoyed. If we were to open another bar it would be a jungle bar. Definitely.
  7. Looks like this covert operation did fairly well. Here’s some more information regarding AN0M. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM
  8. Interesting you mention Chinese New Year. I agree with you, but something tells me that if China were to allow its people to travel internationally, we’d start to see these restrictions truly be lifted.
  9. I have a US PayPal account. A few months ago a friend shipped a few things to me and I reimbursed him via PayPal. My transaction went through but when I tried using PayPal to buy something on eBay, my PayPal was temporarily locked for what was deemed “suspicious fraudulent activity”. I had to answer questions regarding my previous transactions and essentially reset my account. After jumping through those hoops I again tried using PayPal and again, it was locked. Once more I jumped through the hoops and reset the account only to have it locked again when I tried to use it again. The last email I received from PayPal informed me that I could withdraw my money and transfer it to my bank account but not make any purchases until I jump through yet more hoops and reset my account yet again. I’ve withdrawn my money and pretty much written off PayPal.
  10. Heinecke has a valid point and although he might directly represent hotels in Bangkok, he also points to other hotels that are part of SHA+ and restaurants which should be allowed to sell alcohol. It makes sense. Unfortunately I don’t think the Thai government is going to pay much attention to him. I’ve had friends and family back in the US ask me about whether or not they should book flights to Thailand. When I explain the obstacles they have to deal with and the current state of prohibition, they would rather go somewhere else. I can’t say that I blame them.
  11. You’d be surprised. I retired from law enforcement and it wasn’t uncommon for me to have someone ask me if it was safe for them to carry on with their lives after they heard of some terrible crime that happened nowhere near where they lived.
  12. I’m not one of these argumentative a$$hats looking to poop all over everybody’s post but I just checked the exchange rate for the US Dollar. At the moment it’s trading at 32.93 Baht. Here’s a look at what the exchange rate has been over the last year. The £, € and Dollars of Canada, Australia and New Zealand all appear to be doing better now as well when looking at their values over the course of the last year. Maybe it’s not a lot of movement for some but the exchange rate is moving more to the favor of Westerners here in Thailand.
  13. I was going to fly back to the US to visit family, handle personal matters and get vaccinated. Unfortunately my flight was cancelled by the airline and I will need to find another flight. In any event, there are many locations throughout the US where you can receive your vaccination of choice without the need for an appointment. Here is a link to the CDC website. Select the second link for information regarding available locations for vaccination. https://www.cdc.gov Here’s a link for the US State Department where you should be able to find information regarding travel to the US. Quarantine restrictions will vary from one state to the next, but for the most part, not required as of when I was planning on going. Things may have changed by now. https://www.state.gov I hope this helps.
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