Our Place In The World As The World Collapses

And so we pick up our story from our eviction from Tuan Chau….

For 4 hours we sit at the offices of Halong Tours, at first outside and later, as it chills, inside with the lovely Nhur Minh (aka Julian), who is incredibly sweet and helpful and looks after us for those four hours, from providing water to reassuring chat to organising our driver. Nothing is too much trouble for her.

We will never forget these four hours. As we sit here, scared and bewildered, news is changing at an incredible rate as nation after nation take extreme measures to combat the pandemic. Everything is collapsing across the globe and things are changing at frightening speed. By the time our driver arrives, we have moved a considerable distance from thinking our trip can continue, and our thoughts have turned to how, or whether, we can get back to the UK before they close the borders.

Julian, who two hours ago was saying things will be easier for us in the south of Vietnam, is, by the time we leave, saying “I think perhaps you need to get home”. The 3 hour drive to Tam Coc goes surprisingly quickly. Neither of us sleeps. For long spells neither of us speaks. We know we are in trouble.

It’s just after 11pm when we reach Tam Coc, our hostess Khang Le is incongruously smiley and welcoming. We leave our backpacks untouched and instead spread paperwork and iPads on the bed; we know now that we have to get out of Vietnam as quickly as possible. We secure flights for tomorrow night, Hanoi to Bangkok and Bangkok to Heathrow, but booking flights is only a small part of the challenge we face now. If things escalated still further out of our control then the fix we are in deepens.

We suddenly feel desperate to get home.

Sleep is fitful at best; we just can’t wait for it to be morning. Khang Le cooks breakfast and rather wonderfully arranges a family member to drive us the 2 hours plus to the airport. There are some incredibly helpful people around when you need them. We vow to repay her by returning one day when this is over.

Now, we sit in Terminal 2 at Hanoi, it’s several hours till our first flight, but we figured it was best to get here early and show that we are doing our best to leave. What else can we do?

The drive here was dominated by fog, rain and heavy traffic; now we stare out of the Terminal window at more of the same. We would give absolutely anything to be staring at the English rain by this time tomorrow.