This is my first blog since 2014. Wow where did those 7 years go! No excuses. I just found other things to keep me busy and I also got lazy. I do have a reasonable following on my Facebook Page (MYTHAIGOLF) but I haven’t exactly been prolific there either. What tends to happen is that I post on my FB page more regularly when I’m in Thailand rather than when I’m home in the UK. If you’re on Facebook and not already following me please check out and like my page. Not only will you boost my following but there’s some interesting and funny stuff on there and I promise I’ll endeavour to post more. I’ll tell you that just writing this blog has given me a lot of incentive to increase my output!
So in the last seven years I’ve been traveling to Thailand every January and February and staying for between 4 and 7 weeks, usually with two or three bases but always ending up in Hua Hin for three weeks of golf with my wonderful mates. I would have been there this year if it hadn’t been for Covid-19! My wife accompanied me for the first time in 2014 and has been back every year bar one up to 2020. She loves Thailand and we’ve traveled quite widely in Southern Thailand on each of those holidays.
When we were in Hua Hin last February (2020) there were two charming Chinese ladies (mother and daughter) staying at our hotel. I learnt that they were from Wuhan Province in China and were stranded in Thailand because Wuhan was in lockdown and they couldn’t go home. Up until that day (6 Feb) my knowledge of the virus and the implications of it spreading was limited. I was in holiday mode and I wasn’t clued in to the daily worldwide news. Meeting those ladies made me start taking a greater interest but I had no idea, like most of us, where this was all heading. When I arrived back in the UK on 3rd March we were only 3 weeks away from a full lockdown. I quickly learnt that I had flown out of Thailand just a few days before they closed their borders. One of my group found himself stranded in Thailand until June!
What a 12 months we’ve all just experienced! A year no one could ever have contemplated.
I recall clearly my first ever holiday to Thailand in late January 2005, barely a month after the Boxing Day Tsunami that took the lives of so many in Western Thailand, and across the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean. A tragedy of massive proportions that lead to the affected areas receiving aid and support from all around the World. There was a massive global response to help rebuild the lives of millions of people in Southeast Asia.
Now here we all are 16 years later in 2021, and now in the midst of a global response to a global issue that started in Asia and has killed so many worldwide. Countless people have been affected, and infected, across our planet. So now another rebuilding process is underway with the rollout of the vaccine in most countries. Step by step we are heading back to some kind of normal, whatever that’s going to be! This means that for many of us the urge to travel far and wide once more is giving us something tangible to look forward to. The light at the end of the tunnel will gradually become brighter!
My wife and I are determined to get back to Thailand and plans are already taking shape for the big return in January/February 2022. Okay so no green light yet but I can see it happening, as can all of my friends who’ll be going back there with me. Twenty golfers plus several partners have already signed up but I know that number will grow as quarantines are dispensed with and barriers lifted. Thailand needs tourism and we are ready to go and support all those Thai people we’ve grown so close to since our first tour to Hua Hin in February 2012, and before that to Pattaya from 2005-2011.
Forthcoming blogs will tell you about our plans for next year’s tour with information about golf, some wonderful days out in the Hua Hin area and info about other beautiful places to stay within a one hour drive of the town.
I aim to blog again in April. I hope you’ll catch up again then.
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