I’m currently typing this blog post from Luk Hostel in Chinatown, Bangkok where I’ve been laying low for the past 2 weeks! It’s one of the only safe havens still open in the entire city. I never anticipated to be living in Thailand for over 3 months, but then the Coronavirus outbreak happened and I just decided to stay here rather than return to my normal boring life in America. You can read my previous blog post entitled Why I Decided To Extend My Visa in Thailand.
The Thai government recently announced they will be offering a second automatic visa extension to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Thankfully, I already qualified for the first automatic extension until April 30th and now I will be allowed to remain legally in Thailand until July 31st without another tedious visit to the immigration office to wait in long queues with hundreds of people and additional fees to renew my visa. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll stay in Thailand for another 3 months or buy a one-way plane ticket to Philippines, Vietnam, or Indonesia. It all depends on the lockdown situation in these countries and when they open the borders to foreigners again.
I’m going to be brutally honest with you. This is a very challenging time to be a digital nomad and expat living in a foreign country. The majority of my traveler friends have already returned to their home countries. I chose to take an unconventional counterculture approach by remaining in “The Land Of Smiles”. The entire nation of Thailand has reported 2,811 cases and 48 fatalities at the time of writing. Contrary to common practice, we don’t have a mandatory lockdown over here during this world pandemic.
The Thai government has enacted a curfew in which you’re not allowed to go outside between the hours of 10pm - 4am or you could face large fines and possibly jail time. Regardless of multiple offenders, this curfew will most likely be lifted on April 30th if the number of COVID-19 cases per day continues to go down. Good news is the economy is finally starting to come back online. I went for a walk around Chinatown yesterday — businesses are opening up and people are going about their daily lives in the outside world. Or so I thought until the adventure I’m about to share with you.
I encourage my readers to get out of their comfort zone, even during these dystopian times of mass incarceration on a global scale. Today, I was walking around Bangkok City for over 3 hours looking for another place to rest my weary head.
Why, you might ask? I recently decided to make a reservation for 5 nights at Prince Palace Hotel. Rooms are normally $250 and I found a really cheap deal on Agoda for only $23 per night! You’d be lucky to find a private room on Airbnb for such a competitive price. I figured this would be a huge upgrade from my current hostel living quarters.
The next day I woke up in the morning all excited about moving to a luxury 5-star hotel. I hopped on the nearest subway to downtown Bangkok. You’re not allowed to ride the tracks without wearing a face mask. A bunch of tuk-tuk drivers approached me at the train station asking, “Where you go?” It was a relatively short distance of 1.5km to the hotel in the scorching heat with my hiking bag and camera equipment. I sometimes feel like an alien walking around since there are so few foreigners and tourists during this world pandemic. It’s a very surreal and chaotic time to be an expat living in a foreign country.
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
-Steve Jobs