I’ve Arrived in Thailand… with COVID

Plus: A Unique VIP Residency Program.

Rain on your wedding day. A good sign, according to old wives and their tales.

But COVID on your holiday?

I’m hoping it’s just as auspicious, given that I’ve spent the first week of our six weeks in Asia down for the count with the voodoo from Wuhan. I’m better now, evidenced by my sitting upright in a villa on the southern tip of the Thai island of Samui… and thanks to a Thai doctor who made a house-call on Sunday to diagnose me and bring me a sachet of COVID-fighting meds, decongestants, and something that’s possibly a local version of wing of bat and eye of newt…

It’s partly cloudy this morning. A light ocean breeze flirts with a small grove of coconut palms just outside the wall of windows. My wife Yulia is lounging by the pool, recovering from her touch of COVID as well.

But we move past the illness and into the meat of today’s dispatch: Thailand itself.

I chose Thailand as a summer destination for two reasons:

1. We were moving apartments back in Portugal, relocating from a bit-too-small-and-quiet Cascais to Lisbon, and we hadn’t found anything we liked yet, so…
2. I knew that Thailand was in the midst of an aggressive campaign to attract foreign residents through a visa/residency program the country recently revamped, and I wanted to spend some time here to build a broader knowledge base of life in Thailand outside of Bangkok for the stories my alter-ego—El Jefe the Wanderer—writes for International Living.

Samui seemed a great place to gather some of that knowledge.

It’s the opposite of Bangkok—quiet and languorous, a modern-day Gilligan’s Island vibe in many ways.

And it’s not Pattaya or Phuket, both overwrought tourist Meccas bursting with too much of everything.

But I guess the real purpose of today’s dispatch is to tell you that I am not alone in my thinking.

A few minutes’ taxi ride out of Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, a dystopianly large billboard rises like the Eye of Sauron, announcing to all 12 lanes of traffic that for just $400 a month, one can obtain residency in Thailand and live like minor royalty.

Though midday, I was groggy from the long (five-hour delayed) flight and the time-zone hopscotch, but that billboard captured my attention. I was alert enough to jot down the website: Thailandprivilege.co.th.

I told myself I would check it out, then fell asleep against the taxi window…

When I found internet later at the hotel, I headed to the website. With a name like Thailand Privilege, and given the pictures of golf courses and limos and beautiful people on the go, I suspected that this might be a private business pushing some kind of investment scheme.

Turns out… it’s a government project tied to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports, and it’s one of the most-unique residency plans I’ve come across in my years of writing about these things.

Not only is residency available for purchase, but that residency comes with a pretty cool collection of perks, such as:

• VIP greetings at the airport when you travel abroad and return home to Thailand.
• Fast Track Immigration services so you’re not stuck in the long queues that are common at the airport.
• Limousine services to and from the airport.
• Various lifestyle opportunities including discounts and benefits at numerous hotels across Thailand for those in-country breaks you might want to pursue (and you’d definitely want to pursue those, because Thailand is enticing from the mountainous north to the beachy south); special banking services; discounts on medical care; all sort of leisure privileges at golf course, country clubs, and even discounts on private-school admission fees.

If I weren’t so hellbent on earning a European Union passport—and if I was certain Yulia wouldn’t kill me in my sleep—I’d be thinking about trading life in Portugal for a tropical Life of Riley in Samui. But I am quite certain Yulia would kill me in my sleep, which is why she is not allowed to read this dispatch. Can’t have her thinking I’m harboring such thoughts…

The one caveat is that it’s not really $400 per month that gains you residency. It’s more “the equivalent of” kinda thing.

The program functions a lot like high-end credit cards, where you can level up from gold to silver to platinum delivering an enhanced set of goodies for a higher annual fee.

Thailand’s plan offers gold, platinum, diamond, and reserve levels.

At the bottom rung—gold—the membership fee is 900,000 Thai baht, or about $24,720 at current exchange rates. That’s buys five years of residency. Meaning you’re paying the equivalent of $400 a month for the right to live in Thailand for half a decade. (Reserve level is 5 million baht, or about $137,000 for 20-plus years of residency access.)

Question is: Would one want to reside in Thailand long-term?

Well, one will just have to wait for my upcoming story in International Living, where I’ll be writing about my month of living like a local in Samui.

Now, I think I’ll bring this dispatch to a close and step outside and nap by the pool with Yulia, and see if a dose of Thai sunshine and tropical heat can disinfect this last bit of COVID out of me.

More soon from Samui…