Travel preparation - a book with 7 seals and more seals

Traveling during the time of COVID-19 is a whole different story - I have never embarked on a trip that required so much preparation, not only because you had to obtain and submit significantly more documents, but also because the conditions and requirements changed several times and a lot of time was needed for research.

Flight and visa are normal when you want to travel to Thailand, but even for that, documents were required that you don't normally need. Fortunately, everything could be done online by taking photos of all the requested documents, transferring them to the PC, and uploading them (after I had edited and cropped them). However, the visa took a long time to arrive. Darshi, who had submitted his application in Berlin, had already received the confirmation after 3 days. I searched the website of the consulate in Frankfurt, where I had submitted my application, for their email address. Since I hadn't received any response or visa after another week, I searched the consulate's website again for possible other contact options and found a direct email address for visa matters. I received a response quite quickly to my email stating that all the documents were available and that the application was on the desk of the consul. At least now I had the certainty that my application had arrived and that I had submitted all the required documents. Now it should go quickly, I thought. But after 3 more days and still no progress, and with only a few days left until my departure, I emailed again and emphasized my deadline. Finally, there was some movement. First, the consul contacted me and requested a booking confirmation from the hotel where I planned to stay after the quarantine hotel. This confirmation had not been mentioned at all during the visa application, but okay. I immediately sent the requested document, after which the employee who had been responding to my emails contacted me again and requested proof of my place of residence. The ID card that I had sent as a photo had expired... Okay, that was stupid of me, but it could have been noticed earlier as well. I was briefly confused because I had received a new ID card recently, so it couldn't have expired. And it hadn't, as I immediately noticed. I had probably sent a photo of my old ID card, which I promptly corrected. One day later, I had my visa, which allowed me to stay in Thailand for 60 days, 3 days before my departure.

In addition, a so-called Thailand pass is required, for which you have to fill out various questionnaires and upload documents regarding your vaccination status. After that, you will receive a QR code that you have to upload to a Thai COVID app. One day after I received this code, Thailand stopped issuing new Thai passports due to Omicron - so I was really lucky.

Another requirement for entry is the booking of a specific certified hotel, including pick-up from the airport and a subsequent PCR test. You are not allowed to leave this hotel until a negative test result is available, which should be the case after one day. By the way, it should be mentioned that a PCR test, which is no more than 72 hours old, is required before entering Thailand.

I have just submitted this PCR test, and the result should be available tonight - only with this test can I board the plane tomorrow evening, fingers crossed.

Our preliminary travel plan, my friend Darshi and I, is that after hopefully only one night in the expensive quarantine hotel, we will stay in Bangkok for another 2 nights (in the cheaper Rhambuttri Village) and then take a night train to Suratthani in the south, where we will be chauffeured from a bus to the port, from where a ferry will take us to Koh Pangan.

We have already rented bungalows for the first 10 days - initially in Mae Haad and later in Srithanu. I would have preferred it the other way around, it would have also been more convenient in terms of transportation, but the occupancy of the bungalows did not allow it. Overall, I am curious to see how the rest of the bookings will go. From here, it seems that almost everything is fully booked, which surprises me given the significantly lower number of tourists. But it may also be the case that many hotels are closed precisely because of this, like the resort we stayed at 2 years ago. So it remains exciting...