This time last year I was on my way to Singapore to start my solar eclipse adventure. This as it turned out was my last visa run and last taste of the great lifestyle I had been living for the past number of years. As usual I had to travel every three months and this time it worked out perfectly.
I stayed in Malaysia at Johor Bahru and went into Singapore on two days to explore and to do some bush walking and of course to watch the solar eclipse. Krabi followed and my final destination was Chiang Mai.
I returned to China on the 8th of January and immediately began to finalise my last remaining months before I had to return to the UK to renew my visa. I got my trip to Taiwan organised and then started to book my travel to the west of China where I would leave from to head to the UK via Jordan, Egypt, Greece and hopefully Barcelona.
About a week after I returned the Coronavirus was spreading rapidly and China went into lockdown. Overnight travel was curtailed and a police state began. Movements were limited and life as we knew it came to an end. Suzhou is a bustling city and almost overnight the city centre turned into a ghost town. All the business ceased trading over the course of about three days leaving only one or two restaurants where you could only buy takeaway which for me was a lifesaver. My local Muslim restaurant stayed open luckily and so I was able to feed myself.
Security was ramped up at supermarkets; you had to register with them before entry. You also needed a Suzhou health card which was an app on your phone which you had to show if you wanted to use the metro or gain access to shopping centres.
I still went to the park every day after breakfast to do my exercise and even here I had to register with the security guards. The park was very quiet almost deserted. After a few days there were still no more people but there were more birds, the wildlife was beginning to return and as we have seen all over the world this is one of the great side effects of Covid.
I sometimes got into an argument with the gate security of the complex I was staying in. They wanted me to prove I lived there and wanted me to show them my passport and I told them to fuck off. One day a young guy kept on asking for my passport and I said “Why?” and he looked totally confused. There was a young police officer on the gate that day too and he told him to let me through.
Every day when entering the complex you had your temperature taken, sometimes I was so cold after being in the park that their thermometers didn’t register anything for me………..this used to be a source of amusement………..and possibly because I was an old guy in the height of winter still wearing shorts and a shirt ………..crazy foreigners.
After a few weeks it was becoming clear that Covid was going to be a bit of a problem. It had started to travel around the globe and countries were slowly reducing flights and banning flights from China. Australia closed its borders in March and so when I heard that this was on the cards I thought it was time to head back there for a while, after all my visa ran out in April and I would have to leave anyway. Flights were becoming scarce and expensive. I was unable to transit any country on the way back due to the Covid restrictions and so a direct flight was the only choice. Prices were going up and up, some as much as $8000. I checked all the time and I was lucky to find a direct flight for $1000 to Sydney and so I bought it with a sense of relief. Just a few days later the flight prices just got more and more expensive.
I was lucky that I could stay with Catherine and Stuart in country NSW to do my two weeks’ quarantine rather than having to go to hotel quarantine. I ended up staying with them for three months. By this time there were more cases of Covid in Australia and the state borders were closed, this meant that I could not get back to my home state and to be honest I really enjoyed my stay in Armidale………..it had been over 30 years since I had spent this length of time here and it allowed me to adjust to a very different lifestyle, after being in China for the best part of four years and coming to a place that was so quiet was very different but very enjoyable too.
And so now to the present day………It’s Christmas Eve and I am working at my new job rather than jet setting around the planet which is shit really, but the job will allow me to put away a few bob for my future travels. I’m not a lover of Christmas and being in Asia at this time life goes on and you don’t know that it’s Christmas and for me that just fine. We finished at 2pm today and I’m off for four days and rather than going to a family gathering I have opted to stay put and work on the house and maybe I’ll get out for a bush walk or ride on the bike.
One more thing………. every night on the news there are stories of people stranded overseas and complaining because the Australian government won’t bring them home, it’s Christmas and this is just not Australian. Give me a break, what a load of shit. I know people that did not read the signs and thought everything will blow over and life will return to normal, what’s all the fuss about. Unfortunately, they were wrong. Not everyone that is “stranded” is stranded because of circumstances beyond their control, some were of the afore mentioned. Hell mend them I say. I personally know of one family that did not leave China when I did and they were faced with ticket prices in excess of $10.000 per person, but as it turned out they were lucky because two months later they managed to get a ticket for just over $1000. They too ignored the warning signs but were just fortunate that an opportunity arose. Much the same as other locations around the world, flights have become available and people have made it home. And some of the early travellers were also lucky that they didn’t have to pay any hotel quarantine.
Many people are using this time of the year to get their 15 mins of fame complaining about the Australian government because they are not here for Christmas…………these folk need to get a life. After all it’s an old pagan festival that has been high jacked by Christianity and then turned into a commercial fiesta………In this day and age where we can use technology to communicate what’s the big deal. If you are ill or sick or there is an underlying reason why you really need to get back to your home then that is different, but I don’t believe for one minute that the estimated 40.000 Australian’s “stranded” overseas are all in this basket……………many ignored the writing on the wall and only have themselves to blame…………….