Back in Thailand

It has been almost two years since I left Thailand. Things haven't been easy to come back: COE, vaccination certificate, 100k euro insurance, PCR test 72 hours before flying, ASQ hotel, another PCR test after arriving, T.8 form, on-arrival document... If you want to visit Siam, be prepared for a bureaucracy nightmare.

People don't want to pass through the whole process that has become to visit this beautiful country. The flight from Barcelona to Helsinki was full, but the one from Helsinki to Bangkok was at ~50% capacity.

Whenever I come back to Thailand, I notice how fast things change here. The country is moving into a digital economy. Street vendors (so dependable on cash in the past) are now receiving payments using QR codes.

They have installed screens into old buses, and now you can see its route in real-time (like if you were on the BTS). Furthermore, there is an application to geolocalize the buses.

Grab is the new norm to order food, and Shoppee is becoming the Asian Amazon.

Everyone is wearing masks here, even in the street. I wonder how they can handle it because there is a mix between high temperature, humidity, and contamination. The combination makes it difficult to breathe.

As in the west, prices are going up here. I remember the gas having a price of ~25 baht. Now it's ~35 baht, a 20% increase. But there has been a shortage of petrol, so maybe the price returns to normal eventually.

This increase in petrol prices hasn't changed Thai people and their taste for private transportation. Everyone continues to use their own car/motorbike in Bangkok. If you thought that the pandemic would make society responsible, Bangkok traffic jams prove you wrong.