Sunday 24 May 2026

Good morning Bangkok. Happy Sunday.

🌡️ Weather: 29-35°C (84-95°F). Warm and partly cloudy with scattered showers possible from mid-afternoon. A comfortable Sunday morning to be outside before conditions build. TMD forecasts rain increasing across Bangkok through mid-week.

🌫️ AQI: 68-122 (Good to Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups). The cleanest range we have seen in weeks. At the lower end, this is genuinely good air. Morning is the best window if you want to make the most of it.

Deputy Prime Minister Songsak Thongsri, acting for the Minister of Public Health, signed a Ministry of Public Health Notification on May 20 under the Communicable Diseases Act 2015, formally designating both countries as infected zones for Ebola Virus Disease. The notification came one day after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak in Ituri province, eastern Congo, on May 19, citing rapid and widespread transmission with a significant number of infections and deaths. Deputy government spokesperson Ploythalay Laksameesaengchan confirmed that the Ministry has ordered enhanced screening at airports for travelers arriving from affected regions.

No cases of Ebola have been detected in Thailand. The designation is a precautionary measure that gives Thai health authorities the legal framework to screen, test and if necessary quarantine arriving passengers from Congo and Uganda. For the expat community, the practical impact is minimal unless you have travel plans that connect through Central or East Africa. Bangkok's airports now have specific screening protocols in place for passengers arriving from the designated zones. The broader context is that Thailand's public health system has significant experience managing cross-border infectious disease risks, from SARS in 2003 to Covid in 2020, and the speed of this designation suggests the system is functioning as intended. The situation is worth monitoring rather than worrying about.

Bottom Line: No action required for Bangkok-based expats unless you are traveling to or through Central Africa. The WHO's PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern) declaration is a signal to governments worldwide, not to individual travelers, and Thailand's response has been swift and proportionate. Keep an eye on the news through the week, and if you have colleagues or friends with African travel plans, this is worth flagging.

Immigration police in Chon Buri arrested a 43-year-old Chinese national identified as Anhan on May 19 after monitoring her activities over a period of weeks. Officers from the Chon Buri Provincial Immigration Office said they had discovered videos Anhan posted on the WeChat application promoting Thai land and property to Chinese investors, effectively operating as a real estate broker without a work permit. She was meeting Chinese buyers in person in Sri Racha district to facilitate transactions. The arrest was announced by Rattanathibet Police Station superintendent Prut Jamroonsarn.

The case is notable for how it extends the enforcement pattern we have been covering into a new category. The Koh Pha Ngan nominee raids targeted existing companies with suspicious shareholder structures. The Phuket beachfront demolitions targeted physical structures built on illegally held land. The April 1 verification requirements targeted the paperwork. Anhan's arrest targets the pipeline: the person connecting foreign capital to Thai land before a company is even formed. Using WeChat to post promotional videos selling Thai property to Chinese investors is simultaneously a work permit violation, a potential Foreign Business Act violation and a facilitation of the nominee arrangements that the government is spending 300 officers at a time to dismantle. The digital trail, WeChat videos that can be screened, monitored and used as evidence, makes this kind of enforcement significantly easier than investigating opaque shareholder structures after the fact.

Bottom Line: For expats in the readership, the takeaway is consistent with every nominee story we have covered: the enforcement is getting more systematic, more upstream and harder to avoid. The government is no longer just raiding businesses that already exist. It is now targeting the people who create the demand for nominee structures in the first place. If you are involved in any property transaction that involves a foreign national buying through a Thai entity, the compliance standard has never been tighter.

There is a 2,000 square meter wellness sanctuary on the 12th floor of Gaysorn Tower, and if you have been walking past it for months without knowing it was there, today is the day to fix that. Pañpuri Wellness is one of the largest urban spas in Bangkok, built around five male and female onsen pools, Akasuri scrub rooms, private onsen suites, double and single spa suites, a Thai massage room and a wellness bar, all spread across a space that feels deliberately removed from the city twelve floors below it. The organic spa treatments are designed around specific goals: sleep quality improvement, stress management, fatigue recovery, and the kind of full-body reset that a Sunday morning was invented for. The onsen pools are the anchor of the experience, with mineral-infused water, controlled temperatures and enough variety between the pools that you can spend an hour just moving between them without touching a treatment menu. A one-day onsen pass starts at ฿750, which for the quality of the facility and the location is genuinely reasonable. Couples' private onsen suites with body scrub, massage and foot treatment are available for anyone who wants to turn a Sunday morning into a proper shared experience. On a day when the AQI is the cleanest it has been in weeks and the temperature is comfortable enough to walk to Gaysorn without arriving drenched, this is the Sunday call.

TIP: Book the couples' private onsen suite if you are going with a partner. Go before 11AM on Sundays for the quietest pools. The wellness bar serves light food and drinks between treatments.

Have a great Sunday, and see you tomorrow morning.

— Devon