One of the things that has been keeping a lot of our members from returning to the Hash in Chiang Mai is that there are still a lot of things getting the way of people being easily to travel to Thailand.   First there was the mandatory quarantine, then there was certain parts of the country that you could isolate but still be outdoors - I think this was called the sandbox program, then they thought they were doing something nice with the test-and-go program that was a nice idea in theory but the problem was that people were getting trapped in an approved hotel for sometimes 12 hours, while they waited for the results.   If they were negative, they could go on their way.    This sounds a lot nicer than quarantine, and it is, the problem was that it was meant to only take an hour or so and this quickly fell apart like most programs the government here tries to do.   If it was taking this long with the few people that were actually coming here, imagine what it would be like if the country were to return to its much higher levels of tourism. 

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Another big problem for us was that none of these approved locations were anywhere near Chiang Mai, so if Hashers wanted to come join us it would incorporate days of staying somewhere that they don't want to be just to get up here.   While most of our members stay for months at a time, some of them pop back and forth to their home countries because of work and adding another potential 5 days to their trip was not an option.

Thankfully, the government entities that control the rules have decided to scrap some entry-requirements and ease up on a lot of other ones.  The main thing that is making everyone happy is that they are doing away with testing of vaccinated travelers entirely.   If you have been vaccinated, you do not have to do any testing and you can be on your way to wherever you want in the country right away.

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This all starts on 1-May and we have already received word from many of our out-of-country members that they have now made plans to come and join back in.   

Unfortunately the mandatory Covid insurance is still in place and a lot of people, including me, think that this is just a money-making scheme on the part of Thailand - which is common.   Also the "Thailand Pass" will still remain in place which I think is stupid and it will likely be the next thing to get thrown out.  



Statistics have shown that the test-and-go program is rightfully being tossed out seeing as how they experienced a less than half a percent of Covid infection detection during the 5 months or so that they have been using it.   

The Thailand Pass is a silly requirement because it is just another one of those QR code tracking things that is meant to be mandatory all over the country to "check in" wherever you go but it has been my experience that almost no places of business are actually enforcing this.   The only places I have ever even been asked to do the QR code thing in the past 2 months was at airports.   

Hopefully, Thailand will continue down this path of eliminating barriers to entering the country because we just want to run and drink beers guys!   

It's a step in the right direction though so I consider this a win.   

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