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No way anyone's coming to the sandbox with all those added rules and closed stores. I am fully vaccinated and will not do multiple covid tests again and pay higher rates for hotels or quarentine again. I'm headed to europe to spend my money for 3 months. Thailand govt has mismanaged this entire thing and is just burning any chance of tourism for the future.

Some say it is short for SHAm. Others say it means SHAmbolic. The Thai Government says it means the Amazing Thailand Safety & Health Administration Standard Certification for Hotels - those who have 70% of their staff vaccinated - or ATSHASC for short. If you Google that term you will be given: 'AGHAST:- struck with overwhelming shock or amazement; filled with sudden fright or horror' - sounds about right to me.

600,000 in 3 months, 6,666 per day equal to about 33 flights per day arriving in Phuket. So every day at the airport, 6,666 COVID tests will be carried out and the tourist must stay in the hotel until he receives the results. So quarantine ensured. Pure madness

So the one thing Phuket can sell at this point is now covered in tar. What’s next locust?

one PCR test before flight, 3 in Phuket and one more at leaving Thailand, which tourist will burn 20.000 baht for nothing ??? if Thailand wants tourists for economy than they should pay for testings !!!

Better than my balls hitting Patong Beach.

I'm pretty sure this is where they get the predictions of number of tourists that will go to phukets sandbox scheme

Not sure about Thai lions, but most other lions aren’t canines. Try feline.

"The plan would limit reopening to certain controlled areas in Pattaya, with careful restrictions and safety measures to minimise risks of Covid-19 outbreaks. The location and travel routes will be carefully selected and only tourists that meet certain requirements will be allowed to enter." you, guys completely lost me here, cause even ankle bracelets will not allow you to do that, must be some magic underground passages excavated right now. Good thing, they really allow some time for "sandboxes" to fail before this "sealed route" will be tried on.

I think best we refer to it as quicksand !

What documents will be used to verify vaccination? Is it a standard form for every country? or will any forgery do? Just curious

Tourists should never visit Chiang Mai in March or April. It's too hot and is the smoky season for all of the north*, not just CM. Feb this year was almost as bad due to 3 months of no rain leaving nothing but dust and tinder dry scrub. Luckily we had very early onset of rains end of March, most unusual, and April was clear of all smoke. Normally we travel March/April as it's off-season but good weather downunder but covid put a halt on that this year. *The band of smoke often extends from Pakistan > India > Bangladesh > Burma > Mae Hong Son > Chiang Mai/Rai > Laos > Isaan and further east. A temperature inversion can hold smoke, trapped in valleys, for days. No sea breezes here!

Best we refer to it as sandtrap, now eh? :-)

That was an internal LINK, or back link to our Parent. As for LINKS in general, the powers that be have asked for restraint with external LINKS and photo hosting at this point in time. More than that I cannot answer. Some may slip thru the system.

Cap, i got it, you love CM, i don't, if you live there, you can average on good and bad days as i could in BKK, but i was in CM on March 4-9th (sorry got mixed with dates earlier) and my Shangri-La room AIQ was 290-200 every day, i was taken to the Roof Top Bar at Hotel Yayee for a dinner to enjoy a nice view of Doi Suthep, which we couldn't even see. Yes, it was probably a fires and no breeze, but for me, it was a 100% crappy experience in that particular trip. I don't really care is on March 12th it was a perfect weather, nice breeze and a perfect view, my trip was ruined and i ain't coming back again to see those 8 wonders, it's my personal experience, my 2 cents, no more...

Quite a big post for when you may have a free five minutes Meanwhile, as all these nasty things are happening in and around the halls of power in Bangkok, the things that I maybe spend too much time grumbling about, out here, in rural Isan, it’s like I was on a totally different planet. Whilst we have to accept that there are things about the present powers-that-be that aren’t especially nice and whilst we know that there is far too much corruption within the government and its agencies – things that DO more than paint this pretty damning picture of what happens at Government House and in parliament – life, here, both in my small village and the nearby township of Phang Khon is so overwhelmingly happy and seemingly content that it always amazes me with its obviously happier tone than that which I read about, in ‘big, bad Bangkok’. Here, people just get on with life and nearly always with that Thai smile on their faces and with laughter resounding everywhere. Nothing is too much trouble for the guy that runs the electrical goods store or the cooking ingredients shop or even the motor-cycle store; they will all go that extra mile to ensure that you leave their shop happier than when you entered it. The guy at the cookery shop – of similar 70’s age to me – having once seen that I’d found and bought a bag of proper bread flour, on our next visit, reached under the counter and held up a carrier-bag containing four bags of Thailand’s very best bread flour and he had such a massive smile on his face as he pointed at me as if to say ‘specially for you, sir.’ And I have to say that I am blessed with one of the finest examples of this ‘give all’ spirit, in my wonderful Thai wife, Tas, for whom absolutely nothing is too much trouble. During most days, when she knows that I’m happy at home, writing and ‘talking’ to you guys, she’ll be at the village’s community store, managed by villagers on a six-month rota basis, helping her old school chum, Ceow, to keep the village supplied with seemingly everything. Tas, who’s good with numbers, sees to the book-keeping and going to the nearby larger village’s market for provisions and the two of them have such happy days together, nattering ten-to-the-dozen, when there’s a sales-free minute. Today, though, she has just gone that extra mile by returning home at lunchtime in order to bake some banana cakes to sell at the shop; not just the odd cake or two, but fifty of the things and they are delicious. Like when I had my wonderful birthday party on Saturday – the 4th one since my birthday, now a fortnight ago – when Tas and her friends gave me a few hours that will take a lot of forgetting and whilst I may have a lot of downbeat stuff to say about the Bangkok bureaucracy – sorry if that’s too much at times – I do love my life, out here in the sticks.

Break out your footballs, reading glasses, and – yes, finally – swimsuit! The governor of Bangkok has just approved the reopening of 8 categories of businesses and locations, with previous Covid-19 safety restrictions being lifted. And you’ve only got to wait a few hours for the ban to be lifted as the order goes into effect Monday. This afternoon, Bangkok Governor Asawin Kwanmuang signed official order issue number 33 of the orders to temporarily close business and places. The paper signed officially relaxes closure orders and lefted restrictions for 8 businesses and venue types in Bangkok and is set to […] The post Bangkok restrictions lifted on 8 categories, including swimming appeared first on Thaiger News. Read the full story

So we have to take a SHA+ transport to our hotel and stay in our rooms until we get the test result. Do they really expect people who are traveling to Phuket for five or six days to waste time waiting in a hotel room for a test result? Isn't that a friggin quarantine? Also, that means we can't rent a car? Do we have to travel back to the airport to rent a car after our test result? What a waste of time and money. Meanwhile, domestic travelers who are not vaccinated and are far more likely to transmit COVID only need a PCR test within seven days of travel and don't have any other restrictions. Only fools will travel to Phuket.

Those are part of the 600,000 domestic tourists that are supposed to arrive there.

welcome to Guantanamo in Thailand

Why would your think that? Phuket to date has struggled to get more than a trickle of domestic tourists over the last year. Now they expect 500K over three months in the low season. You do know the definition of insanity right? Even just the 129K in foreign tourist while incredibly low is questionable. That’s just over 1,400 per day yet in other articles Thailand only expects about 100 in the first week. In addition, there is only about 7K signed up to date for the entire 3 month period. To be fair most people might still be waiting, but packages have been sold for for quite some time. Personally I’d rather just wait till mid October when the entire country will be open with few restrictions. Why jump all the hoops and pay extra to sit on a beach and get rained on when October is right around the corner?

@Stan do you really belive that thai government can understand european union, stay 21 days in Berlin before or go to Spain

It's their job to report what is officially being said. Then they can add their opinion.

And how many would come, with Hotel Prices 10 times higher than normal, and to be locked in in a place where you only are able to move around in a small area, even if you are Fully Vacsinated, and waste 2 weeks holliday,before you maybe can go home to the Thai Family. This is crazy, if you are Fully Vacsinated.

This is a link to entry restrictions to each country, not their risk level and isn't completely accurate. ALMOST any country's citizens can enter the USA with a visa and negative Covid test taken 3 days (not 72 hours) prior to travel. Example: If the test is on a Tuesday, your last day of travel can be on Friday. Go to CDC site for explanation.

Can we find the gazetted approval on the Web

Why are none of the news articles since the June 18 announcement not talking about alcohol in restaurants in Phuket? Is the ban lifted effective June 22 or not?

I was told by my travel agent that my flight with Emirates would cause me £1750 quarantine on my return to UK as gulf states were on red list. Now considering Thai Airways London Phuket direct, may cancel if this wristband goes ahead. Love the show

That's it. I'm done. I am cancelling my month long vacation to Thailand. My Thai wife can meet me in another country and she can stay in the 14 day quarantine when she returns to Thailand. She doesn't mind. The Thai government is absolutely retarded.

Question Is my understanding correct? I cannot leave Phuket for 14 days (unless I take an international flight to another country) but from day 15 onwards I can travel to other parts of Thailand (assuming I am nCov-19 free). Would I then be able to take a day trip (days 15 onwards) to Phang Nga Bay returning to Phuket same day? By the way I saw on another post the suggestion that RT-PCR tests mean "Real Time". I believe RT in this case refers to "Reverse Transcriptase" rather than Real Time. Depending on the location of laboratories and other factors RT-PCR test results may be available in as little as 8-10 hours but could take longer.

I couldn't agree more. As desperate as I might be to return to Thailand (Chiang Mai and Koh Samui) in particular, I'm not that desperate to present myself as a guinea pig. Despite 5 cancelled/rearranged visits over the past 15 months, one booking is still 'live', namely December this year. Hopefully things will be clearer by then one way or the other.

"If 70% of the residents of a province are vaccinated and there is no more than 20 to 30 Covid-19 infections per day, that province will be eligible for reopening in October." Wow - they start locking down whole cities here in Aust if 5-6 new infections are reported on any given day. Clearly the Aust Gocvt will not permit Aussies to travel to Thailand for some time yet. Mid 2022 maybe.

Bloomberg article December 15th, 2020, China orders 100M doses of Pfizer. Not really hard to prove. Do you want to pretend the CCP would pay extra to supply doses for someone other than themselves?

Fair point, Alex, but why not let's all try to do without images in our chatting and debating? I know they say a picture can paint a thousand words but I like to try the opposite and make a few dozen words paint a picture. Just a thought . . . especially with you being so good with words!

Thailand got a full punch into the face because of their education system and level. For a crises management you need crytical thinking, logic and a common sense and for a development, too. They teach them don't think and talk only take orders and be a empty head. Many outside of Thailand or with a proper education are thinking how is it possible that a society let their country ruled and managed by incompetent clowns.

They are acting like little babies,children and headless chicken. They have no competence in managing crises . It shows Thailand has no capable people and experiences for such times . In Europe they had 2 world wars, many wars already before that and managed many crises til today. Thailand really doesnt know what to do like it is their first crises and they could be lucky they had no war because it will take a few hours only with their level of competence.

In Junta countries the organized crime always rising like drug smuggling, human trafficking and all other bad crimes. The Narcos have their positions established well . And we can see the Thai courts protect all high level criminals.

Ironic, isn't it? they focused on private pools, gyms and restaurants, but left prisons, factories and dorms operational as normal. Party of 9 were busted by breaking the law and having a birthday party at the private house. You can teach the dog to draw saliva by ringing the bell, but is it too much to expect this government to learn a common sense?

I think we need another committee to discuss this change in plan and it should be run in Phuket for 14 days when the PM arrives ... but then we would need another committee to arrange the new committee first.. ah stuff it just get 20 shots per vial and number of doses administered will sky rocket!

@AussieBob Your overall comments are 100% correct except for 'laying blame' on the Junta. As you may recall, the World was already feeling the effects of recession since approx 2010 and tourism, especially from Europe, was dropping off slowly. By ~2015 there were far ffewer Euro, Aus, or US tourist arrivals. This demographic never improved. Meanwhile, Chinese were spreading their wings. Factory workers and others who never normally traveled abroad, arrived in group tours on annual holidays and special occasions. They came by the plane load and were ferried around by the 52 seat busload, often in convoys of up to 6 vehicles. You are correct, they stayed in Cn owned hotels, ate buffets (mainly) at Cn owned restaurants and went on Cn operated tours. This travel phenomena cannot be blamed on the Government. Allowing them to buy land and houses via Chinese/Thai law* firms for use as Airbnb, can! * Technically illegal transactions but a loophole easily manipulated by $ome.

He is like a "made man". Untouchable. Makes one wonder who he was buying and selling flour for. Perhaps reign was a Freudian slip.

@King Cotton And here too.

@King Cotton Spam...

Yawn. Another day, another plan. The plan changes faster than the weather. I'm going to tune out of this "thread" and come back in four months. Bye.

At this stage is like rent a jet ski at jet ski mafia. Can I ask you if you were in Thailand before, because this is very risky and like gambling before all restrictions and traps are official

? The Sandbox is not aproved yet and not before it will be in the royal gazette. So I wouldnt take that risk package with bad surprises! There could be many changes and then you have no escape any more!

I just looked and the site is up, appears to be working although it took a while to get beyond the splash page (in Chrome). Navigate to TM47Action page and scroll down, agree to all the conditions, then click ACCEPT. If you haven't ticked the agree box the next page will not load. The site has it's ups and downs, more downs unfortunately. Frustrating.

After a lengthy working holiday in UK I returned Downunder smoking Gauloise or Gitane, maybe 10 a day. Following the French attack and sinking of the Green Peace vessel there was ban on French imports and I took up small cigarette-sized cigars, eg: Henri Wintermans at ~ 5 a day and almost always when enjoying an evening beer. Came to Thailand and met a beautiful lady who refused to have anything to do with a smoker so I gave up. 11 years cold turkey now and I'll never take up smoking again.