Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing traffic lights and sandboxes. For some context on what I am talking about, let's go over to the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: "Hundreds of Thai Visa holders Unable to fly to UK. Quoting directly: "The UK government's decision to move Thailand from neutral amber to danger red in its idiosyncratic traffic lights travel system has doomed the immediate travel prospects of Thais with valid UK visas needing a flight." Quoting further: "Under the red signal which came into effect on 30 August, only British and Irish Nationals and Thais with Permanent Residency, not a temporary visa, are allowed to enter the UK." Quoting further: "The red signal news was announced late last week and led to a panic amongst British vacationers on the "Sandbox" initiative in Phuket who tried to book emergency flights back home to avoid the GBP2,285 fee for the 10 days compulsory hotel quarantine on landing in the UK. However, they found that rebooking at short notice incurred extra flight charges running into hundreds even thousands of pounds." This is a great article. A lot of insight especially for folks from the UK. Again that is titled: Hundreds of Thais Visa holders unable to fly to UK. That is Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com. 

I just find this rather interesting. First of all I would like to point out, it is nice to see, not nice but maybe misery loves company, to see that not just the US and Thailand which I am relatively focused on more than other countries, although we do keep an eye on Australia Canada as well, but it is nice to see that different countries have different nonsensical or Byzantine approaches to dealing with the response associated with this. This red light green light whatever scheme out of the UK. I will not claim to understand it. I haven't gotten into that much detail because frankly it doesn't really pertain to me directly. But yeah it does seem pretty strange especially, it seems to change every two weeks or something. Yet again I mean Thailand can change on the drop of a dime and the US has certainly done a lot of crazy things in the past roughly 18 months so I am not just poking fun at the UK. Yeah it is a precarious position for expats to be in where all of these different travel rules can just be in a state of flux all around them at any given time. Quite frankly, I personally think a lot could be said for let's get together, I mean it seems like everybody can get together and set the uniform rule that COVID is terrible and one would think we could all get together and maybe have some uniform rules about travel or something. That being said, I mean that may be too much to ask for at least at the present time. 

I do find it interesting, and I think it this should be used as an insight for all expats that the situation can change pretty quickly and these different countries; we lived in a pretty good time in quarter one of 2020 and before especially for international travel where you can just presume that yeah you can just get on a plane and go where you needed to go for the most part. I mean there were exceptions to that rule but yeah that time I will not go so far as to say it is gone. I do think cooler heads, reasonable thinkers will prevail and if nothing else politics may prevail. Folks that make some of these more arbitrary and capricious decisions and create these arbitrary and capricious schemes may not find themselves in the same seats that they found themselves in when this all began. So from that perspective I don't believe this will last forever. That said, we are dealing with it now and it I think this article provides a lot of insight with respect to just how precarious things can be traveling at the present time.