Random Thoughts - Still At Square One
So, here I am. On a Saturday afternoon and still sitting in my work chair at my home office working away on my laptop, having just downloaded a bunch of work emails from my clients with lots of pending-to-do stuff requests.
With borders thrown open, albeit with some rules and the usual terms and conditions attached, why am I not travelling the world but still stuck in my little man-cave working away? The simple answers are rules (and more rules) and budget.
Let's first get to the "rules" part. Many moons ago, I had mentioned in more than just a few posts on this blog about travelling to a neighbouring country now that travel rules are more or less more relaxed for leisure travel. Well, rules have certainly been a lot more relaxed than say, a couple of months back. But still, there are red tapes to cross and bureaucracy to navigate. Ever sine the dawn of the Covid era in March 2020, almost every country and territories in the world have their own version of a mobile app meant for contact tracing as well as proof of Covid vaccination. Thus, to travel to any country or territory nowadays, one has to download the app that the destination is using and upload our individual vaccination records so that the app can be likewise updated to reflect our latest vaccination status. This takes time because (okay, I am assuming this), a human is required to be at the receiving end of all these uploads to eyeball, confirm and then manually update the verified information into some kind of database so that the correct vaccination status of each individual can be accurately reflected in the app. And we all know, this process takes time to complete. So, its not like in the days of the pre-Covid era when can simply grab one's passport from the drawer, pull a few pieces of clothing into an overnighter bag, make some clicks on an airline website and off one goes to the airport to catch one's flight. Gone are those good old days.
As I typed this blog post, I had just made my submission to have my Covid vaccination status updated in the app that my planned overseas destination is using and was informed with a pop-up message that this will take at least 5 working days to be validated. Honestly, I am not hopeful that I will get my vaccination status updated in the app by next Saturday. But because that is a prerequisite for me to be allowed to travel to that destination, my travel plans are now on-hold until that gets done. For now, all I can do is wait, and hope.
On a side note, if one wishes to travel to 20 different countries, does one needs to have 20 different mobile tracing apps downloaded and updated in one's mobile phone? The short and sweet answer seems to be a resounding "YES"!
Next is the question of budget. There are of course a few countries, mostly in western Europe, where travel is almost as seamless as it was before March 2020. But as with all things in life, the easier it is to travel to these few countries, the more people will want to do so in order to escape the hassles and roadblocks that other countries have imposed on themselves. The basic rule of supply and demand now comes into play. When more people wishes to travel to the same destination, then naturally, the price of travel to these destinations will rise, most notably, prices of air tickets. This was confirmed when I started to search online for air tickets to western Europe from my part of the world. I realised that prices are now at least 3 to 4 times more than what they used to be. Thanks but no thanks. I certainly am neither rich nor generous enough to pay so much just to get my butt onto an airplane sit.
Rules and budget have conjoined into a confluence that continues to bind me to my work chair in my home office, both weekdays and weekends. Welcome to my humble world!
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