I'm going somewhere tomorrow i just don't know where yet which is kind of living on
the edge i said i wanted to be spontaneous but i'm not sure i wanted to be this spontaneous
What is going on youtube? Greetings from my balcony here in beautiful Hawaii
no that wasn't clickbait it is 96 hours before my flight to Thailand and i have no idea if they're
even going to let me on the flight because i haven't been approved to enter the country yet
mind you it is a Friday and the embassy that i'm working with is only open for about another hour
then they go into the weekend they're closed and so basically i've got one hour today and a few
hours on Monday to figure whether or not Thailand is actually going to let me in the country
so i really have no idea whether or not i'm going to be in Thailand next week or somewhere else i'm
actually looking at flights online to croatia as a backup plan just in case i can't go to thailand
so i figured i'd turn on the camera because this is some drama and drama makes for good
youtube but let's go inside real quick and i'll tell you how we got to this point
all right so let's talk about why thailand first i won't go too in depth on this because i will i'm
sure in future videos but i know a lot of people are going to ask well if it's so difficult why the
heck did you even go to thailand there are two really specific reasons number one thailand is
one of my favorite places in the world and in the future i'm going to use it as my asia home base
it's why i got a long-term visa to thailand i have the thai elite visa so i can kind of come and go
as i please in a non-pandemic environment the second reason this is probably a once in
a lifetime opportunity to travel around thailand and see some of the beautiful spots basically in
pristine condition without all the tourists and i want to see them before people start going back
and that's going to be sooner rather than later i'm sure first let's talk about the process i went
to to get to the point i am right now so about three months ago i applied for a thai elite visa
and that took about a month to get approved so it was approved about two months ago once i was
approved for my thai elite visa then i had to figure out how to get in to the country to get
into thailand you need what's called a certificate of entry and it's basically thailand vetting
you to make sure you're basically a good risk during this pandemic to come into their country
getting a coe a certificate of entry is a two-step process the first step of the process is getting
pre-approved and that's a pretty easy process you basically register on the thailand embassy website
then you upload your passport and what visa you're going to enter the country with i submitted my
application for pre-approval towards the end of may and a few days later i was pre-approved
so i was like okay this is going to be easy once you're pre-approved you need to upload a bunch of
documents to get your final approval so those documents are your flight that's easy enough
i booked a flight i uploaded that the second is your hotel so right now in order to enter thailand
where i'm going bangkok you have to endure 14 days of quarantine which basically means you're in a
hotel room for 14 days there are only specific hotel rooms that do this they're called asq
or quarantine hotels those hotels are staffed with nurses and doctors you get three coveted
tests during your 14 14-day quarantine so i booked my quarantine hotel i uploaded that information
and the final requirement was you have to have insurance for the amount of time you're going
to be in thailand that covers kovid for at least a hundred thousand dollars i believe and i guess
that's so the thai government doesn't have to absorb the cost if for some reason you get sick in
thailand that's perfectly reasonable that didn't bother me i actually found a covet insurance
company through a friend of mine here on youtube she has a channel called retire in chiang mai
she recommended one and i uploaded that so i had everything uploaded and in the system about seven
weeks before my flight and i think that's where i made my mistake i think i uploaded all of that
stuff way too early waiting for final approval i'm sure somebody saw that my file was complete
opened it up and was like hey is flight's not even until july 13th we'll just put this one on the
back burner and we'll we'll revisit it a couple weeks out well i think somebody forgot about it
because like i said i'm 96 hours before my flight and i still haven't been approved unfortunately
it's almost impossible to get a hold of the thai embassy via email via phone call i reached out to
thai elite to try to help me out they've been trying to contact the embassy but so far i haven't
been successful in getting my approval let's see what time is it the thai embassy actually
just closed in dc so let's check and see if i've been approved maybe they got to it today
when you submit for final approval they email you back and give you a little code
to enter to check to see if you've been approved or not so you can download your certificate of
entry so that's what i'm going to do right right now i'm going to check and see if i've
been approved i'm going to put in my passport number i should probably blur this out here
and you put your name in and then the final thing is you put in the code they give you
waiting for approval so i have not been approved yet here's my dilemma right now so
it's a friday the embassy has closed i still haven't been approved the weekend is coming
up they don't work on saturday and sunday the the embassy is closed so i know i'm probably not going
to be approved this weekend so my last opportunity to get approved is monday which is the day before
my flight leaves i guess i could get approved on tuesday morning since i'm i'm on hawaii time
and the embassy will be open tuesday so i guess i might have one last hope in getting approved
but that's pretty stressful and it's even more stressful because i've already paid for a covet
test which is a requirement to do 72 hours before your flight so tomorrow i'm gonna go get my cova
test and i paid extra money to get a test that's expedited so i made sure i'd have it before my
flight left another little point of stress i mentioned earlier that i booked an asq hotel
well because they know people sometimes don't get approved or flights get cancelled the bookings
are flexible up into a certain point so you don't have to pay for your hotel until a few days before
you're supposed to arrive so for me that's this sunday this sunday i have to pay for
that hotel in full or lose the hotel booking thailand is a pretty inexpensive country but
those asq hotels are not cheap and sunday i've gotta pay for it and i'm probably not gonna
know whether or not i can even enter the country and use it and unfortunately after that point it
is non-refundable so yeah that's where we are right now in this video i have no clue whether
or not i'm gonna be able to go to thailand but yeah so i'm stressed out a little bit
okay so it's saturday my flight leaves on tuesday i still haven't got the results i'm actually going
over to get my covet test right now i have two token tests scheduled i have one schedule for
today and one scheduled for tomorrow as far as the covet test goes i know people are going to ask me
they don't really bother me if you remember my mother got sick she got coveted i was taking
care of her so i was getting a covet test like every two or three days just to make sure that
i didn't have it so i'm so used to getting these things they don't really bother me so much anymore
this is the place i'm getting my first combat test today let's go in there and get this done
so this is the nasopharyngeal test that means it's going to go pretty far up yeah i'm sure you know
yeah this isn't the fun one okay here we go first side going up okay great job next side going
and all done ah thank you i always tell people it's like
like going into a pool and like having water go up your nose okay that was um most of the tests i got
previously were the rapid tests and they don't go so much up in there but i have another test
scheduled for tomorrow that's supposed to only take 12 hours on the way here to hawaii if you've
been watching my channel you know that i had issues with my covet tests on the way over here
and it actually arrived while it was on my flight even though i got it like way in advance
as early as i possibly could through a recommended provider that hawaii vouchers will have it in time
and it was just super stressful and so i was like you know what i'm just gonna go with two companies
that are supposed to turn around quick and hopefully one of them will okay so it's sunday i
believe the 11th of july yeah because my flight's on the 13th so we're 48 hours from the flight we
still don't have um a certificate of entry but i'm headed right now to get my second covet test
this one has a turnaround time of 12 hours so i did this one as kind of my main covet test and the
other one's kind of a backup that i did yesterday so yeah that's where we're at let's see if this
covet test is any different than my last one okay so they wouldn't let me film in this place
it is it's a test geared towards japanese tourists there was only one guy in there that
spoke english which is good though because not the stereotype people but japan is very efficient
so i'm not like worried about not getting these results in time but they wouldn't let me film it
it was much different than any cova test i've ever done number one i did it myself you swab
your gum line on each side for 10 seconds and then you put the little swab in some liquid and mix it
up and then put it in a biohazard bag so it was much less intrusive than the ones i'm used to so
oop i went the wrong way so that's what i so that was a pretty cool test i'm actually
glad i got the other one now because i'm a little worried that maybe thailand won't take that test
because it's different it's still an rt pcr which is what they require
so we'll see i'm just glad i have both the tests hopefully they both come in
so now the two points of stress are getting the certificate of entry obviously i can't
get in thailand without that but now waiting on my negative test results so two points of stress
hopefully we make it to thailand if not we'll go somewhere else cool right now i'm thinking croatia
or alaska okay so it's monday i've got good news and some not so good news so we'll start with the
bad news first so the embassy is closed and i still don't have my strip cut of entry so
i fly out tomorrow but not till two o'clock so i'm hoping tomorrow morning when i wake up
in hawaii time it'll be like afternoon uh in washington dc so i'm hoping i have the
certificate of entry by then i did get my covet test back one of them
and it was negative so that's awesome so i'm going to print that out right now actually
so i don't know we'll see i'm going somewhere tomorrow i just don't know where yet which is
kind of living on the edge i said i wanted to be spontaneous but i'm not sure i wanted to be this
spontaneous okay it's tuesday the 13th it is 8 a.m in the morning so i am six hours from my flight
actually four hours from the drop dead point to check in and i still don't know if i can get into
thailand i did have some good news this morning though i got an email from ty lee saying hey
we got in touch with the embassy keep checking you should be getting your certificate of entry
anytime now so as soon as i got that email and i read it this morning i checked at six a.m it had
not come through yet i haven't checked since this morning at six i decided to go ahead and pack take
a shower clean up the airbnb a little bit so i can you know turn it over in halfway decent condition
it is 2 p.m at the embassy right now so i'm hoping this check right here will have the certificate of
entry this is kind of like do or die right now to be honest with you i think i'm going to book
a flight if i don't have my co e so let's go let's check it here all right passport number
name and the code okay
here goes nothing yes okay i gotta download this thing all right yeah i gotta download
this thing and go get it printed actually the xerox place just opened they open at eight
so i'm gonna run over there get a couple copies of this so this adventure is still not over so i
still gotta go get a copy of this then i've gotta go to um i'm so happy right now sorry oh my god
all right so i've got to get to the airport obviously get on my flight
my first flight is to japan i thought it was going to be a seven hour layover that's what i remember
when i booked it it's actually a 17 hour layover that is insane i've never had a layover that long
i don't know what i'm gonna do with myself maybe i guess edit this video after that
then i fly into thailand i've gotta get through immigration hopefully all my paperwork holds up
you know the kova test is good to go all the stuff i need to do and then i'll be picked up
by the hotel and taken to my quarantine hotel which which should be an interesting process
but i think this video has probably been too long so i think we're gonna make all of the next video
all that stuff me getting on the plane here in hawaii headed to japan hanging out in japan for
17 hours hopping on a plane to thailand and then showing you that whole process and probably a
tour of an initial tour of my little asq hotel that i'm going to be staying in for 14 days
but i appreciate you watching this video it was stressful for me hopefully it wasn't too
stressful for you just entertaining but if you want to make sure you get notified of that next
video make sure you hit that subscribe button and that notification bell and you get an email
when i put out a new video thank you for watching see you in thailand