Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are posing the question “Is the Philippines harder to get into than Thailand at present?” I talk about other Southeast Asian countries with respect their Immigration rules and things sort of in a broad base manner, broad strokes. I don't get into a lot of detail because quite frankly I don't have the expertise to do that. We just kind of compare it based on anecdotal evidence, kind of what we are hearing, what different people have told me and correspondence and then sometimes I will read things and it sort of all comes together and we decide to make a video. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Thailand streets-ahead of competitors in the popularity stakes. If you recall just before we get into this, going back even just a few months ago it was really rather worrisome, I mean I brought it up quite a little bit that other countries were starting to open and Thailand did not look like it was moving in that direction or it looked like it was moving quite slowly. It seems like priority shifted and now it is clear that economic activity is really the name of the game and so I mean especially in the past couple of months you have really seen things turn around a lot, I mean especially when you compare to this time last year 2021, oh my gosh it is like night and day. Anyway back to this, it is a good article, a lot of information in here. I urge those who are watching this video go check that out for themselves. Quoting directly: "UK travel agencies Dream Travel and Luxury Hols say the main limiting factor for travel to Thailand right now is shortage of flights rather than disinclination to take to the skies. They also point out that extending Visa stays in Thailand without leaving the country is a good deal simpler than other competitor countries for example Vietnam makes it hard to stay longer than 30 days whilst the Philippines hasn't yet dismantled its anti-Covid entry bureaucracy like Thailand has.” Yeah if you go back I mean even what 8-10 weeks ago we were still dealing with Thailand Pass, well it might be a little longer than that, roughly 3 months I guess, two and a half, three months ago we were still dealing with Thailand Pass, we still had a lot of cumbersome requirements associated with trying to get into Thailand. It was just really not the most pleasant thing, not the smoothest thing in the world to deal with. A lot of that has gone, I mean it has virtually all gone to the best of my knowledge and I think it's all going to be gone especially when we get over here into October, I think we are going to see a lot of things change quite rapidly with respect to all these regulations. The thing to take away from the video is yeah, I've heard this also. The Philippines is still rather difficult to get in to. It has still got, it is my understanding, something equivalent to the Thailand Pass, it is still pretty cumbersome to get in over there and it is my understanding their lockdowns were really quite over the top. Now again, I wasn't there, I don't have direct first-hand knowledge but this all kind of came together; I thought of making this video, it was kind of a confluence of things. When I hear enough about one particular topic from enough different people and then I start kind of seeing it in stuff I am reading online, I say “yeah probably that is something worth talking about”, because yeah just apparently right now it just is harder to get into the Philippines than it was to get into Thailand.

Now what is interesting too is if you do go back over the course of this whole past couple of years, Thailand fundamentally, and this is why for those who are looking to be an expat maybe in the more long-term context, Thailand fundamentally stayed open, or it was open much more than many other countries. I mean at one point, Thailand was really the only game in town if you want to be any kind of tourist in Southeast Asia. Now there were a bunch of requirements associated with that; it was pretty over the top; it was rather cumbersome to deal with but it was there. There was an option and in many of these other countries there was no option. Cambodia was completely closed, Vietnam was completely closed for a while. I think at one point Malaysia was even completely closed or it was very difficult to get in. So again it depends on what you look at but long story short, yeah I think overall Philippines is probably more difficult to get into than Thailand at the present moment.