Prologue

Up until mid-October, I was dithering on whether and where to go for my first pandemic era international trip. My first preference was Singapore because I hadn't seen my family in almost two years, and so I monitored whether Singapore would waive quarantine for vaccinated travelers. My backup plan was to go to Canada or Europe.

In September, Singapore opened up Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTL) with Germany and Brunei. I wasn't holding out hope that they would add a VTL from the United States in the near future because the Covid situation in the US was awful, and vaccination rates had stalled. But, rather unexpectedly, Singapore announced a VTL with the United States. Around the same time, there were also rumblings that Thailand may reopen. So, I decided to go to Singapore for a week to visit family and friends, and then head north to Thailand.

Truth be told, I preferred to go to Asia anyway because I knew that, as a whole, people there view battling the pandemic as a collective effort, and so mask usage would be high, and people would get vaccinated as soon as they could secure one. Surprisingly, I also managed to secure a booster shot before I departed, which I guess was a sad consequence of having excess doses available due to the stalled vaccination efforts in the US.Read more