Ottawa, April 18, 2022

 Hello All; It has been quite some time since I updated this site, but there were BIG reasons why. What was said in the last blog posting has been vastly changed, and the final situation only became clear two days ago. After being advised by the Thailand government office of tourism in Bangkok that Canadian tourists now did not need a Visa to visit for stays of less than thirty days, I booked the flights mentioned in the March posting. The Thai government then initiated a Thailand Pass, which was much more complicated to apply for than the Visa. The material requested has never been asked for by any other country as far as I can determine. When  one goes on the government website, and  tries to complete all the application requests, such as copies of all Covid Vaccination certificates, (not just one with three dates and all information), and so forth, you then are routed to a Hotel booking company. There are around 20 Approved hotels in Bangkok for this program, and all are expensive to book. A hotel that is normally say 50 dollars a night is now 450.00. This includes the hotel for one night, pickup at the airport, a PCR test (165.00 U.S.D.), taxes, etc. One must wait until a negative test result is received before you can leave the hotel area. This is all fine and good if you are determined to go. BUT...the government has apparently given those hotels the authority to accept or deny applications. In my case, a day after receiving a thank you for my interest in Thailand, and acknowledging my application, I received an email from Thai Tourism advising me that THE HOTEL HAS REJECTED YOUR APPLICATION, and for more details, contact the hotel. For the next two days, there were many emails between me and the hotel, Thai Tourism and the Hotel Booking company which I will not name.  That booking company is a great firm, but they had to advise me that they had tried to contact the hotel in question, and, "They are not answering their phone, and we have sent them an email." Now, five days on, still no information as to why my application for a THAI PASS was rejected.

I have advised my travel agent friends of the problems for any future clients they may have.

Now, I depart Ottawa on April 20 at noon, take a VIA train to Montreal and fly to Istanbul with Turkish Airlines flight 36 that evening. I return to Montreal on May 29 from Istanbul, where I will spend 40 days with my friends.  I will report in after getting settled at  the Ramada hotel in Istanbul