Whoop, whoop – Cambodia leads the way, scraps all tests
WOKE up this morning with messages pinging from Cambodia – friends there all excited about the latest news. No more pre-departure PCR test needed to arrive, no more on-arrival ART test, and visa on arrival re-introduced for all air, sea and land travellers, just recommended self-tests.
This makes Cambodia the first country in Asia to fully open unconditionally to vaccinated travellers – marking a landmark moment in the reopening of South-east Asia. The country has been opened about four months and clearly has gotten confident enough to fully welcome back travellers. Local cases have remained below 200 for the past week, according to Phnom Penh Post. (Non-vaccinated travellers will still have to undergo 14-day quarantine.)
Kulen Elephant Forest, Siem Reap: No pre-departure PCR test, no on-arrival test, visa on arrival reinstated for travel to Cambodia, which is leading the way in reopening.
That this happened the morning before I am due to fly from Singapore to Penang on the newly-opened Vaccinated Travel Lane drove home the point that conditional openings, based on tests and tons of paperwork and form-filling, are unsustainable if the region is to truly welcome back international leisure travellers, as well as intra-regional visitors.
What I have had to go through to fulfill the conditions of my entry into Penang would fill a book – I cannot imagine any traveller who has a choice of leisure destinations to pick from would put themselves through the rigmarole of downloading apps, filling in online forms again and again, and then, as a backup, to print everything out and have them ready in case …
Till today, my profile on MySejahtera (Malaysia’s Covid and contact tracing app) shows me as a “Person Under Surveillance” even though My Safe Travel app, applicable to Vaccinated Travel Lane travellers, advises me that my vaccination certificate and pre-departure test have been verified (with the proviso to bring along a hard copy).
Today, even though I am not yet in Malaysia, I was asked to submit my health report, which I did, and it thanked me for my cooperation. What else can you do but to cooperate with bots? They really do try to be helpful – I have been communicating with “them” through the help desk but there is only so much a bot can do without making you go ballistic.
And what else can you do but cooperate with governments who, on the one hand, want travellers back but, on the other, put barriers in place that would put off the most determined travellers?
Anyway, I have booked my on-arrival PCR test at Penang airport – which, by the way, for a party of two, costs more than the airfare, not counting the pre-departure PCR test you have to do in Singapore.
My point is, I don’t want to make a big point about the processes and the failures of tech – I am truly grateful for the ability to travel to my neighbours at last and granted I am travelling into Malaysia before its full reopening on Apri 1 after which I hope it gets better – but right now, with the different reopening procedures across South-east Asia – from Vietnam to Bali, planning each trip is like doing it for the first time all over again. (Read this article in Travel Weekly Asia on the different openings across the region.)
The different openings across ASEAN: Credit: All Dreams Cambodia
Every country is different – it’s like playing Snakes and Ladders, if you remember the game. You do something wrong (by the requirements of the system), and you end up at the bottom, and you have to do it all over again – that’s how I felt filling in the forms for Malaysia. Why can’t every country in ASEAN play the same game so that we can truly revive intra-ASEAN travel?
For my brother who is travelling with me, his first trip since the start of the pandemic, the form-filling has been so overwhelming that he delegated it to me, saying, “Why would anyone travel like this?” Imagine travelling with a bigger family …
Within North Asia, South Korea is the first country to reopen – from April 1, vaccinated travellers will be able to enter without quarantine. You still need a pre-departure test 48 hours before arrival and an on-arrival test at the airport but I’ve been advised, “the Koreans are super efficient”.
But beyond efficiency, Cambodia’s removal of tests eliminates a key anxiety point of travellers – what if I test positive before I fly? What if I test positive while I am abroad? These are real worries for travellers, especially if they are travelling far from home, and cannot be taken lightly by governments who want tourism back as an economic contributor for its people.
As long as these are in place, discretionary leisure travellers will not head our way – they will go to places which welcome them fully and there are more and more of those these days, with the US, Europe and Middle East leading the way.
Catching up with a friend, who used to live in Singapore and who’s travelled here via the Vaccinated Travel Lane from Barcelona this week, I sensed his frustration with the travel conditions and social restrictions still in place. “It’s like a different world here,” he said. He’s here so he can travel to Bangkok to sell his property. “Time to cut down unnecessary fat,” he said, as we tuck into a sumptuous meal of “nasi padang”.
A nasi padang feast that reminds you that next on the travelling list is Indonesia, Bali, to be exact.
Yes, there are some things you just don’t want to cut but then, there are some things you absolutely must – like, all the paperwork to travel at this time. One certainly hopes that things will ease up as governments become more confident.
Meanwhile, Cambodia, thank you for leading the way. And imagine all the necessary fat I will be consuming in Penang.
• Featured image credit: Daria Yudina/Getty Images
