Cost and comments on my Thailand Trip--2022

The 60 day trip to Thailand was filled with boat rides to many of my favorite islands including Ko Samet, Ko Samui, Phuket plus Ko Tao which my Thai dentist, Dr. Pacharee Soonthomsawad, had recommended.

This is the first of many dishes I had while traveling throughout Thailand--more to follow below my cost and comments on this latest trip to Thailand.

The cost was $3,945 for a daily cost of $66.  Food costs were $1,440 for a daily cost of $24 per day.  Lodging costs were $1,885 for a daily cost of $35 per night. 

Travel and tour costs were $620—$54 of that was for my round trip flight from Seattle to Bangkok where I used 88,000 United Air frequent flyer points, and $60 was for my taxi and flight from Phuket to Bangkok.  The remainder of my travel/tour costs were for bus, train, boat, SkyTrain, Metro, songthaew, and moto-taxi rides.

When I travel internationally I always take about $300 in USD and then rely on ATMs for funds.  I recently got a Schwab ATM card which reimburses customers for all ATM bank charges and exchange fees.  For this trip, Schwab reimbursed me $77.17 on these charges.

The toll roads leaving Bangkok were generally smooth and well maintained. For these two months, I saw no tent encampments and very few homeless who were sleeping in the streets unlike what is prevalent in the US. 

Since 2002 Thailand has had universal health care which is considered among the best.  Their health care addresses the problems of drug abuse, alcoholism, and mental health unlike here in the US.  

For the first 7 nights, I was quarantined at the Ambassador Hotel which costs were $90 per day which included a private taxi from the airport, 3 meals per day, two COVID 19 PCR tests, and an on-call nurse. By excluding those 7 quarantine days, the average lodging costs were $27 per night instead of $35 per night.

I was able to stay at nicer and more expensive hotels since occupancy rates were around 30-40% and those hotels that had not shuttered were offering discounts of up to 80% during this high tourism season.

This was my 4th international trip during the COVID 19 era. The COVID 19 documentation requirements have really made travel much more difficult.  The documents I needed for travel were many and continued to change as I started my travels.  

For example, I had booked the flight through United Air for January 6th only to be informed that that flight had been canceled.  So I rebooked it for a day earlier which turned out to be the first United flight from San Francisco to Singapore in 2 years. My connecting flight to Bangkok on Thai Airlines on January 8th was not changed.  However, when I arrived in Singapore the reservation agent told me that Thai Air was not authorized to fly under the Singapore Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) so they were going to change me to a Singapore Air flight.  Then the reservation agent told me the QR code on my eVisa was not the Thailand Pass.  She showed me how to file for it.

When I started filling out the Thailand Pass I was shown that my planned one-night Test and Go reservation program had been suspended in December so I had to change to the 7-night hotel quarantine program.  The one-night Test and Go hotel would not refund my booking.  I was also worried that the Thailand Pass website informed me that it may take 3 to 7 days for processing.  Fortunately, it took just an hour to get a response.  Here is the Thailand Pass saved on my iPhone.

Here is where the QR link is routed.

I first went to the Agoda booking site for the Ambassador, but when I entered that information, my application was rejected.  Instead, I was informed that I had to book directly with the Ambassador Hotel.  I had to completely refile the extensive Thailand Pass questionnaire which included uploading my passport, insurance information verifying that it included $50,000 COVID insurance, hotel information, permanent address, emergency contact, and COVID 19 PCR test within 72 hours of flight.

Because of the one-night stay at the Singapore Airport transit hotel, I was concerned that my COVID 19 PCR test had expired and there was no place inside the airport to retake the test.  Fortunately, the reservation agent chose to ignore that and gave me a boarding pass to Bangkok.  She might have figured if Thailand had a problem with that, they would retest me at the airport or since I was doing a 7-day quarantine with 2 COVID 19 PCR tests, my expired PCR test didn’t really matter.

The COVID 19 procedures were varied as I traveled around Thailand.  There was mandatory mask-wearing everywhere, except while eating or drinking or swimming in the sea.

Most hotel pools were closed for swimming.  Almost all restaurants and bars required customers to take a temperature test and use hand sanitizers to enter.  A few even required on-site COVID 19 antigen tests (ATK) to enter. Initially, there was a 9 PM curfew and later extended to 11 PM at all restaurants and bars.  I had to take a COVID 19 antigen test to take the boats to Ko Samet Island.

These practices have resulted in just 0.4% COVID 19 deaths in Thailand which represents 0.8% of the world population.  By comparison, the US has 16% COVID 19 deaths which represent 4% of the world population.  In Thailand, it is a public health issue and not a political one.

As you can see, one of the major trip expenses was food.  Here are some of the meals I enjoyed:

Seven days of quarantine food like this.

Fish Dish

Eggplant Casserole

Curries of all types

Omelets for Breakfast

Other Thai Stir Fry Meals

 

Western meals with pizza as the most popular food offering.

I have recently uploaded all of my travel videos to YouTube now that they allow longer uploads and you may want to see my Peru Adventures there as well as my other travel videos.  That link is https://www.youtube.com/c/huntforgold  

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