Danang to Yangon by train
The East–West Economic Corridor Railway from Myanmar to Vietnam, street mosaics in Hanoi.
Welcome to the subscriber-only weekly newsletter of Living In Asia. I’m still in Ho Chi Minh City, because I can’t go anywhere else in these lockdown days. At least things are under control here. Vietnam has not recorded a new COVID-19 case for 5 days now, and there are talks of easing lockdown restrictions this week.
Meanwhile in Singapore (usually the model nation of Southeast Asia), things have taken a turn for the worse with thousands of new cases. An article in the Washington Post has thrown the spotlight on migrant workers who build this great city but live in cramped dormitories.
It’s too early to speculate on when travel will resume a limited service, let alone any kind of normality. Vietnam is looking to increase domestic services this week, and it might be that travel is restricted to domestic travel for a while.
Emirates are rapid-testing passengers for coronavirus before flights, so the new normal might be to get to the airport 5 hours before your flight so you can have a cotton bud stuck up your nose. The Czech Republic’s President wants the Czech border to remain closed for at least another year. There is no such suggestions in Southeast Asia, but domestic travel might be the first steps in rebooting the tourism industry to start with.
It’s also too early to speculate on how the pandemic will affect ongoing construction and infrastructure projects.
There was an article doing the rounds this week by Marc Andreessen called It’s time to build. While not related to Asia, the same theme can be applied to the region. I mentioned last week how Singapore is renovating its airport and has committed to spending billions on transport infrastructure. Big project spending by governments will be needed to soften to coming economic blow.
In the related news below there it’s a mixed bag of projects being delayed and projects still being committed to.