Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing COVID, the Middle East and Thai Immigration. This is just kind of a video I'm making more or less, I don't know, to just sort of air some of my own opinions on where we stand right now because I think things are far more precarious than perhaps people understand. 

The situation in the Middle East, and I'm not going to sit here and comment on that - the fog of war is all over that area - I don't know what's up from down, left from right over there. I've never been there, I don't have any great insight into the place, but clearly, major kinetic activity is happening there, and it is having tremendous impact on, for example the ability to travel, which got me to thinking recently about Covid. We went through Covid; it lasted really March of 2020 is when the Emergency Decree was invoked. I think we were done with that by June of 2022. I won't say that was the most harrowing time I have ever lived out in Southeast Asia but it was pretty weird and it was very different, and we had to get used to a very different set of immigration policies and rules over the course of the Emergency Decree, most notably, initially the creation of Certificates of Entry which then evolved into the Thailand Pass which basically from where I sit, evolved into the now E-Visa system that we are dealing with in the aftermath of all of that. 

However, the point in making this video is I think it's important at this point for the Expat Community or the would-be Expat Community, start looking at getting your Immigration house in order if you haven't already. If you are looking to be here long term and you are thinking Border Runs are going to be a way to make that happen, I don't think that that is a wise or a prudent way to think if for no other reason than the spike in energy costs. I can see a situation arising at least in the immediately in the future, where it becomes exceedingly expensive, like cost prohibitively expensive to travel. It's not going to be the easiest thing in the world to just get on a plane, fly to Kuala Lumpur, fly back. I am not saying that there is going to be anything that happens in the region in any way, just the costs associated with travel are likely to rise. I mean anytime you see inputs associated with petroleum go up, everything seems to go up, so there's that side of it. 

Also, look if this thing continues to sort of, for lack of a better term, metastasize and the conflagration gets more broad and becomes increasing, as of now and the reason I thought of making this video - I've been chomping on it for a couple of days - I was talking to an old friend. I was down in Pattaya, and I was at his pub, and this person was saying, "yeah, everything's all right right now, but people that usually flew in over the Middle East, they are not looking to come right now. And he's happy enough for the business he's got at the moment, but he's rather worried about what things are going to look like in a month. He is probably right. This is a time to - I'm not saying panic, I'm not saying freak out about everything - but for example, if you're not in long-term Visa status that you're willing to live with, probably a good idea to seriously consider getting into that status, because failure to do so, especially as things continue to evolve in the Middle East, could lead to a situation where a person finds themselves in basically an untenable position from the standpoint of Immigration. Again, some of this reminds me of the opening days of Covid - although in the opening days of Covid it was far less streamlined - Thai Immigration immediately came out said, "look, we're going to take care of folks that went into overstay because of this, but they also said as time goes on you may have to certify with your Embassy that you can't go back to wherever you're from. We saw that during Covid. That can be a rather difficult process especially if as time goes on, this thing goes down to like a low boil and it becomes at least theoretically possible to be able to get back to one's home country. Again, these are the type of changes that can have significant implications for foreigners living in the Kingdom of Thailand.