Thailand too strict? Cambodia too lax?

It is interesting to see the differences right now between Thailand and Cambodia. While Thailand is up and down like a whore’s pants with constantly changing rules and regulations, Cambodia has thrown in the towel and is letting Covid run its’ course.

There is no quarantine upon arrival in Cambodia, only a quick antigen test which was free and took only five minutes. They also got rid of the mandatory insurance for visitors.

All bars, restaurants, KTVs, clubs, massages, gyms and cinemas have been fully open since mid-December. People still wear masks in the shopping malls and shops but that’s about all. The local newspapers say nothing about the virus anymore except to say what a fantastic job the government has done to stem the tide. It’s all BS, of course, because they’ve just stopped any testing. It will be interesting to see if the shit hits the fan later this month with the omicron.

All venues I visited on New Years Eve were quite busy though not like in previous years, due to the lack of tourists. Toolbox had a fun gogo boy show, Spacehair had their usual hunky muscle boys walking around and Blue Chili was full of straights and faghags watching their drag show. Later we went to Heart of Darkness which was packed like sardines with gay guys until 4am. So much for social distancing. It was a fun night out.

The lack of tourists is really affecting the businesses - and the boys. There were easily over 15 boys in Toolbox looking for someone to buy them drinks, many of them familiar faces in Pattaya. Some told me they really want to get back to Pattaya, where there are more customers, but they cannot because the Thai border police now want between $300 to $500 to sneak across the border, whereas before it was only $100. So they won’t be going back any time soon.

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Cambodia is doing exactly what Thailand should do.

Perhaps there is more risk in Cambodia, due to a higher percentage of Chinese vaccines, but that may be offset by a younger average age and less obesity.

The one thing they should have done better is announce this a couple of months before it happened,ie September.
If my airline would switch my return ticket to depart from Phnom Penh, I'd happily tack a trip there on the end of the holiday.

Congratulations on making it to Cambodia and enjoying your time there. When I left Phnom Penh on 10dec, there was little activity in gay venues, and some closed altogether. In public life, however, iIt was quite a contrast coming from a bustling Phnom Penh to a where-is-everyone? Bangkok. But I have other reasons than gay venues to be here, and I'm glad I made it to Thailand before test-and-go was suspended.