Greetings from coastal Thailand, where rough seas necessitated rescues in the Andaman Sea, and the government has announced a “special tourist visa” to target long stayers. These stories and more are in this edition of the Island Wrap.
If you missed it last week, join me on ultra-relaxing Ko Phayam to take your mind off all of the crises in the world. Now that we’re looking at a return of unrestricted global travel no sooner than next year, if we’re lucky, I reckon that this is a time for self-preservation. If you’re stuck inside, take your mind to the beach.
This week I will not publish the usual Friday post because I want to devote the time to a couple of freelance articles that I’m been working on. I’ll share them here once they’re published.
A soothing dusk on Ko Libong during less strenuous times.
Stuart launched a redesigned Travelfish site and, I must say, it looks spiffy. For the new “long reads” section, Julia Winterflood contributed a thought-provoking story on the importance of listening to local voices as Bali “forges a new era.” (Many of the insights can be applied to Thailand as well.) Meanwhile, Stuart wrote about “quality tourists” and a “death highway” in Cambodia for his newsletters.
Pick of the week: CHARITY
Since 2010, the Good Shepherd Center has been providing opportunities, hope and primary education for low-income migrants on Phuket. Teachers and other staff work hard to help children and their families by way of a full-scale school, health care and an “empowerment program” providing skills training for women. With the pandemic currently devastating Phuket’s economy, there could not be a better time to donate. English teachers are also welcome to volunteer.
Take a tour of Good Shepherd’s colorful school in Phuket town. (Source: Thea Elisabeth Andresen)
Covid-19 update
Authorities have found no other infections related to the Bangkok-based DJ who tested positive for the coronavirus on September 3rd. If you’re still wondering how Thailand managed to suppress the spread of Covid-19 months ago, take a look at this rundown of the 1,004 people who have been traced, tested and/or quarantined after coming in contact with this single carrier of the virus.
Worry struck again when an Uzbek soccer player for Buriram United tested positive two weeks after his release from a 14-day quarantine that he entered upon arrival in Thailand last month. The footballer tested negative twice during his spell in quarantine and once before he left Uzbekistan. Thailand-based soccer writer Paul Murphy claims the test that showed an infection was a false positive.
Thai authorities continue to step up security along the border with Myanmar as Covid-19 cases there continue to mount. Drones, helicopters, boats, razor wire and armed foot patrols are all being employed along borders in provinces like Kanchanaburi, Prachuap Khiri Khan and Ranong, where three Myanmar nationals were caught trying to illegally enter Thailand by sea on Sunday.
Hopefully — knock on wood — there will not be a Covid-19 update in next week’s Island Wrap. Refer to the Dept. of Disease Control’s website for the latest on the virus in Thailand. And if you want to follow the impact of Covid-19 throughout Southeast Asia, including travel restrictions broken down by country, the Pear Anderson site is a great resource. Both sites are regularly updated.
This footage shows two rescues on a choppy Andaman Sea this past week. (Source: มาหยานิวส์ สื่อออนไลน์)
Weather news
Storms caused streams to rage in Trang, a road to collapse on Phuket, trees to fall on houses in Phatthalung, and flash flooding in Phang Nga and other parts of the Andaman coast. With a tropical depression now moving west across the South China Sea, next week doesn’t look any better for Southern Thailand.
A 58-year-old Bangkok man sadly drowned while swimming in strong waves off Hat Chao Samran, a popular beach in Phetchaburi province, last Tuesday. Meanwhile, several men were rescued when the engines on their longtail boats broke down amid three meter waves near Ko Phi Phi and Ko Maa in Krabi province. (Both rescues are shown in the video atop this section.)
The sea was calmer off the Gulf coast near Ko Samui, enabling the salvage of the Raja 4 ferry wreck to go ahead after it was postponed last week due to high waves. This Thairath report has several photos of cranes lifting the stricken ferry and exposing it to daylight for the first time since it sank on the night of August 2nd.
Wildlife and environmental news
A pod of 80 bottlenose dolphins had no qualms with dashing through the rough seas off Ko Libong, as captured in a video.
Near Ko Por between Ko Lanta Yai and the mainland, a fisher rescued a hawskbill turtle after spotting it struggling to swim due to a cut on its flipper. Marine scientists quickly arrived to whisk the turtle to a facility in Trang for recovery.
Wranglers wrestled a 3.5-meter python out of a drainage ditch near Krabi town. Yet even that wasn’t quite as thrilling as a 27-year-old volunteer yanking a king cobra out of the brush with his bare hands in Ao Luek.
Officials are searching for a crocodile photographed in a mangrove forest near Saphan Hin on Phuket over the weekend. “I think it is a saltwater crocodile, but I’m still not sure if it is a crocodile that has always been in the wild, or if it escaped from a crocodile farm,” Fisheries Chief Narin Meevong told The Phuket News.
A Chonburi family got a shock when an elephant toppled a bamboo fence and started “wandering around their house” at 2:30 in the morning, reports The Pattaya News. The story also includes footage of the marauding pachyderm.
Another video from Samui Elephant Haven spotlights the story of Dow, a 50-year-old jumbo that’s one of many elephants given up by their owners due to a lack of tourism revenue at elephant camps. The problem is that many of the sanctuaries which take in old and sick elephants are now underfunded as well.
Officials plan to build a 300-meter barrier to protect a village on Ko Libong where the incoming sea has badly damaged 11 houses. The Nation also reports that trees and power poles have been downed and roads washed away on the island, one of many in Thailand that are increasingly threatened by erosion.
Over on the Eastern Gulf coast in Chanthaburi, 1,500 locals rallied and submitted a petition signed by 157,000 people in opposition of proposed gold exploration in Kaeng Hang Maew district. They fear that runoff from gold mines could enter the river systems and degrade the forests and fisheries.
Social media corner
A widely shared video tweeted by @Citizen2600 shows Chaweng, normally the loudest and crowded place on Ko Samui, looking like a ghost town. It was a similarly somber scene when @Global_Gaz made this video there last month:
Please wake me up when this Covid nightmare is over. (Source: Global Gaz)
Tourism industry news
The Thai government — yes, the horse’s mouth itself — announced that a new “special tourist visa” (STV) will soon be made available to tourists who don’t mind paying for a 14-day quarantine in an approved hotel and jumping through some hoops before leaving their country of residence. Approved applicants will get a 90-day initial stay with the option of extending the visa to obtain another 180 days in Thailand. There’s much more to it than this and all of the details have yet to emerge. For now, Richard Barrow has an informative thread on what is known.
Bangkok Post captured some of the nuance in the ongoing debate between people who support a wider resumption of foreign tourism, and those who oppose it. The report delivers sobering data on hotel occupancy rates to go with several quotes — including some boneheaded ones if you ask me — from prominent voices in tourism and government.
Interviewed by Thai PBS, tourism workers on Ko Phi Phi and in Bangkok said they’re afraid that a return of foreign tourists will lead to a return of Covid-19 and a related lockdown. Many foreigners assume that virtually all business owners and workers involved in the Thai tourism industry want foreign tourists back quickly to ease the economic stress, but the reality is far more complicated.
On Phuket, members of the private and public sectors urged the government’s powerful National Reform Committee “to ask the Ministry of Labor to provide help to at least 1,000 unemployed in Phuket; issue a moratorium on all outstanding debts for business owners and employees; (and) relax soft loan conditions so that business owners can actually access the loans,” reports The Phuket News.
The worst economic downturn in modern Thai history continues to grind on in places like Pattaya, where hundreds lined up for free meals over the weekend. To learn more about how the pandemic is affecting people in Thailand economically, check out this comprehensive report from The Asia Foundation.
In other news
A video and story by Bangkok Herald recounts how late last year, a group of foreign technical divers discovered the wreck of a submarine that they’re “95% certain” is the U.S.S Grenadier. The sub sank 83 meters to the seafloor after being attacked by Japanese forces near Phuket in 1943. The divers relied on research and interviews to find the wreck, returning on five more occasions between last October and March to explore the wreck after their initial discovery. Well done.
This video takes you on a dive to a previously undiscovered submarine wreck. (Source: Bangkok Herald)
More chatter about digging a canal across the Kra Isthmus in Southern Thailand made headlines this past week. The project was first floated centuries ago and, as a detailed report by Yan Naing in The Irrawaddy made clear, is unlikely to ever materialize. Much more feasible is a “land bridge” that would link ports on the Gulf and Andaman coasts via a proposed dual-track railway and motorway.
Moving on to infrastructure that might actually get built, authorities aim to construct a new bridge linking Ko Lanta Noi to the mainland over the coming year. If it joins the 2016-built Sri Lanta Bridge, which connects Ko Lanta Noi and Ko Lanta Yai, this pair would join Phuket as the only Thai islands that can be reached by road. As it stands, a car ferry is used for the first leg from Hua Hin Pier to Ko Lanta Noi.
Buses connecting Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport directly to Hua Hin and Pattaya have resumed service for the first time since March. Staying with Chonburi province, The Pattaya News has the complete story behind an abandoned, partly finished condo that towers 53 stories above the Bali Hai Pier area.
Authorities in Phatthalung province visited the Mani people of the Ban That mountains, enabling some members of Thailand’s only native Negrito group to obtain I.D. cards and a path to citizenship. In nearby Trang, an elderly builder of hua tong, the type of wooden banana-shaped boats commonly fitted with longtail engines, worries that young people are not interested in learning the craft.
I’ll leave you with two of the quirky yet traditional ways that people of Southern Thailand mark the 10th Lunar Month Festival.
In Thanon Mai, Phang Nga province, Urak Lawoi people spent a full night eating and sleeping on the roadside in front of their homes, believing that bad luck will befall them if they go inside. And in Nakhon Si Thammarat, elderly samlor (passenger tricycle) drivers competed in a race dubbed “Formula One.” At the age of 80, this year’s oldest participant couldn’t catch the 71-year-old victor. 🌴