Our plan B was a beautiful plan. We would go to Turkey, travel to a little village on the southern coastline and wait out this mess in my Dad's place. Yes it would have some difficulties, our 18 hour flight would only get us to Istanbul and, if at that point we weren't carted off to quarantine, we would need to quickly book a flight to Dalaman. Once we where there we would be practically trapped in the apartment with everything being shut down apart from the local supermarket, but that would be fine, we would have a kitchen and more than one room to live in for the first time in months. We would have effectively been trapped in the country until things calmed down but our visa's would have had 3 months on them. There's worse places to be.
It might be obvious at this point that our beautiful plan didn't work. We were unaware that it wouldn't work right up to the point we were trying to check our bags in at the airport. We were simply told that "British passport holders are banned from entering Turkey" ... we literally couldn't believe it. We checked the news articles online, we checked the UK Government FCO advice, no where could we find the information that we were banned; it was only on the IATA (International Air Transport Association) site that airlines use. After a while the lady checking us got bored of us and told us to ring the Turkish Embassy... tomorrow... when it opened. Wonderful. We were then escorted to another desk where the woman behind it was even more unhelpful, another staff member wandered off to check and to see what was going on. When she returned she chirpily told us "I've spoken to Turkish Airlines" our hopes were raised, then swiftly dashed when she continued in the same cheerful tone "and you can't enter Turkey".
The next desk we were taken too was much more helpful. The woman behind it was at first as confused as we were as her printed information from the same morning said nothing about this new policy, after checking with the other staff she came to the conclusion that this change had happened at some point during the day - what perfect luck. We decided at this point to get a refund but in hindsight we should have taken the option for a flight to the UK right then and there - it would have saved us a lot of stress but hindsight is a tricky thing. I know it wasn't the airline's fault, but I must have been a terror to deal with, I bounced between rage and tears. I tried to stay level headed but it was a losing battle so it was easier to let Ben do the talking. He admitted later that for him the room was spinning and he felt sick to his stomach but he was able to keep his cool far better than I could.
Plan B thwarted we went to get a coffee and figure out what to do, this initially comprised of staring off into space and occasionally swearing. After a while we put on our big girl panties and got on with it. What did we need to do? Book somewhere to stay (it was 10PM at this point) and actually leave the airport. Deciding to say fuck it to the budget we picked a four star hotel to cheer us up then called a Grab (think south east Asian Uber) to take us to it.
The accommodation was wonderful and did lift our spirits for the rest of the night (truly horrible room service aside), but upon waking up the next morning our situation came crashing down on us. Our plan B was gone, it was time for a newer, better plan. So we spent the day flip-flopping between staying in Bangkok where everything was pretty much okay or heading home to England. We were still reluctant to head home, I don't know where we got the arrogant belief that somehow staying would be easier - that we could rent an apartment here and life would go on pretty much on as usual, that we wouldn't be wracked with anxiety about our decision. We weren't 100% invested in this plan, but it seemed to be our best bet.... borders were closing all around us, there was no where else to go. We looked at prices for long-stay AirBnB's and discussed getting a visa extension on the following Monday. We also went to get a Thai sim card so we could ring the Turkish Embassy and English Embassy to find out what was going on.
At the shopping mall where we got the sim card was the first time we felt unwelcome in Thailand. Normally we were greeted with smiles and shouts of hello in Thai, here they clearly didn't want to deal with us. They weren't outright hostile, but the friendly nature we associated with Thailand seemed to be disappearing. Sim card obtained, we rang up the Turkish embassy who were more than useless. They had no information for us and as we were neither Thai or Turkish they had no reason to help, they suggested ringing up the embassy in London. We were unable to do this from our mobile, so i got my Dad on the case. Despite our hopes the AITA had got it wrong, my dad confirmed that Turkey was still a no-go. Next we rang up the English embassy, we couldn't even speak to someone there, just an automated posh British voice telling us to check online FCO advice... we went through several options until it said we'd be put through to an operator which is when the call was ended from their side. Trying to ring Aeroflot airlines call centre to check on our refund drained the rest of our meagre credit, and again the phone went dead before we could speak to anyone. We were on our own.
It's a bizarre feeling, going from having the whole world open to us - going where we like and doing what we want - to having countries closing down around us, like doors slamming into our faces. Each setback felt like a punch to the stomach. We were both loosing weight from the stress of not knowing what was going to happen next and feelings of anxiety kept us from sleeping well. The next hit came the following day, which happened to be my birthday. Bangkok was implementing lock-down the next day, all but essential shops would be shut and all restaurants would close their doors. I know the same will be happening in the UK, but it would be much easier for us to live in lock-down in a place we know, a place that isn't starting to resent our presence, a place where the online takeaway sites were in a language we could understand.
I always knew I would be spending my birthday alone with Ben, I didn't know where we'd be but I imagined us going out for delicious food and exploring the world around us... I didn't imagine sitting in a hotel room in Bangkok trying to figure out booking a flight home. It wasn't as easy as just picking a flight, yes, we wanted it to be cheap, but with border policies changing all the time we also had to make sure the transit countries for stop-overs were ones we could actually fly to. There was a direct flight but it happened to be double the price of any others we could find, we wanted to get home but we weren't going to bankrupt ourselves in the process. We settled on a flight on the 25th, a 22:15 flight would take us to Russia, then a four hour flight would take us to London - who knew that Russia was such a short plane ride away?
So flights booked, next accommodation. You might think we could have headed straight to either sets of parent but things are never that simple. Our original plan was to book a whole house via Airbnb in Cambridge so we could self-isolate for two weeks (after being surrounded by so many people on the plane), then to my Mums house for two weeks, then rinse and repeat at Ben's parents. Unfortunately that wasn't meant to be, a few days before our plane departed the country went on lock-down. As my mums partner Steve is classed as high risk for the virus and has to self isolate for at least 12 weeks, it would be too irresponsible to go and stay with them. Obviously upsetting but ultimately the most sensible course of action.
We luckily found a house to rent that wasn't too expensive and quickly booked it for two weeks. That sorted all we had to do was wait. This might seem like the easiest part, it wasn't. Our flight was 5 days away and who knows what could happen in that time. The next day we checked for earlier flights, by then they were all booked so it was back to waiting. We endlessly scoured the internet, checking nothing had changed that would impact our travels. We tried to ring up the English embassy in Bangkok to make sure we didn't need health certificates to leave the country, but of course, couldn't get through to anyone. We then rang up our airline to check with them instead - luckily they were more help and assured us we didn't need a certificate right now. They couldn't guarantee it wouldn't change.
By now Bangkok was in lockdown, we only went out to grab food from the shop ( mainly pot noodles as it's the easiest thing to make in a hotel room) and spent the rest of our time worrying. There was nothing else we could do. There was no point in making a contingency plan when we didn't have any clue what the situation would be like by the time it arrived. So we waited and worried. We didn't only worry about ourselves, we knew others who were trapped in locations around the world, hemmed in with red-tape, getting little to no advice from the local embassies. It was a few days after we made our decision, when the government urged all travellers and holiday-makers to return to England. We had definitely made the right choice.
We started to see hate on the internet for travellers abroad, those of us stranded or trying to get home were being called "idiots" for no getting home sooner, comments would state that that we brought this on ourselves. Going to online travelling groups and forums, you'd often see people saying "go home" and telling people to stop travelling... as if it was that easy. A lot of people seemed to have no concept on how hard it was to find flights, or if there were flights half the time the countries they transferred in wouldn't let you through. We were lucky that we found the flight we did, some travellers in other countries are completely stuck until borders re-open. They're stuck in places where hotels have shut their doors and with strict lock-downs, where xenophobia is rearing its ugly head.
The wait was long but it eventually came to an end and it was time to go to the airport. With fingers crossed we had our temperatures taken and got in the queue for check-in. I was feeling sick to my stomach, the stress of the past week was nothing compared to the anxiety that something might have changed since we last looked. When we received our tickets, I was almost giddy with relief, we were going home. The journey took us over 24 hours when you add in the time spent in airports and our taxi to Cambridge. What shocked me the most was the lack of security measures when we landed in London. I had my temperature taken to enter a shop in Bangkok yet there was no heat scanners in the airport, no one took our temperature, there was just a man yelling at us to stand 2 meters apart... as if we hadn't just shared a small plane together for the last 4 hours.
So we made it home, safe and sound. Well not really "home" - we can't see our families and friends due to the lock-down and as upsetting as that is, we can live with that. We might not be in England because we want to be, but we both know for us this is the best place for us to be. A day after our flight landed, Russia stopped passengers transiting through their airports. We were one day away from being unable to get home, and although we're already here I can't help but being terrified by what may have been. We would have have had to make do if we were stuck in Thailand, but it wouldn't have been easy. The past week was stressful enough, I can't imagine how another month would have been. At least being back in England has made the anxiety recede. This is by no means the end of our adventure. We may be here for the foreseeable future but we plan to resume our trip as soon as things quiet down. These may be uncertain times, but the best we can do is follow advice, stay safe indoors, wash our hands and keep hope alive.
Comments