State Department Warning
 

We have a three-week trip planned to Vietnam and Thailand beginning in the middle of December and have recently learned of the State Department Warnings for Southeast Asia. We are not really concerned about Vietnam but has anyone hear of problems in Bangkok and Northern Thailand (We are not going to Puket)? Please advise quickly as we must reconfirm our trip. Thanks. Are we crazy to go?<BR>

I guess if you didn't go that would mean more beach for me! The advisory is a blanket warning for all of SEA including Vietnam and Thailand. It's really up to you - will you enjoy your trip knowing that there is a terrorist threat? I think the threat is mild - and I'm going anyways, but who am I to say??

Contact the State Department of a more detailed report. Due to the Iraq sitting on the question of UN intervention this week may not end the best of ways and even today there was more news out of SEA which showed that there has been more activitiy there of late than Governments would have had us believe - they did have prior warning with Bali you know!!!!!<BR>I was there last week and was not feeling all that comfortable, was glad when I got home actually.

Bob, by all means GO. The north of Thailand is one of the safest places I can imagine traveling to. Just avoid large gatherings in the touristy (and more Muslim) south. You may want to contact our American friend in Chiang Mai for his thoughts, his web page is at &lt;http://www.harleyh.com/&gt;. You can see lots of his photos at that site also. Have fun.

Go to the state department website and read the &quot;Public Announcements&quot; which is where the comments on SE Asia are. Right now there is a worldwide &quot;be cautious&quot; announcement, and that's the level of the announcement about SE Asia. There are official warnings, meaning &quot;don't go&quot; but that's not the level of the comments on SE Asia. <BR><BR>There was an excellent article on the warnings ion the NY Times in the last week. You can go to their website and search for it. It actually gave more information than the State Department Website. The NYT also wrote about the lack of warning on Bali. The state department warnings about Indonesia had long had a sentence about Bali and other tourist destinations being safe. All the State department did was to remove that sentence. So even if you were reading the advisories regularly, you probably wouldn't have noticed a change.<BR><BR>Given the vagueness of the warnings and the failures of intelligence around terrorist activities, all each of us can do is to be as well-informed as possible and to make our decisions based on what feels comfortable to each of us. Remember that there are currently worldwide cautions, and cautions in the US as well.<BR><BR>By the way, I have a trip scheduled for the end of November - December to Thailand and Laos, and I am still planning to go.

Gee you must be dumb to belief Everything the State dept says. Would you feel safe in Capitol Hill/ empire state building/a russian cinema/ a bali bar/ an american airplane?<BR> The bottom line is &quot;Nowhere is safe!&quot; Just use your commonsense and dont go near where large american crowds gather!

There was a travel warning about ships crossing the channel between Britain and France, almost immediately they then said it was nothing specific once they realised people might start cancelling trips, and that people shouldn't change plans.<BR>Amazing the total different attitude.<BR>