Glad To Be Home, Gutted To Be Home
First things first, we got home. The euphoria of escaping Vietnam was soon replaced by the sadness of losing our dream year after 7 weeks, which was in turn soon replaced by the stark reality of how much life has changed back here in the UK, and how insignificant are our own experiences in the face of this crisis.
After almost 24 hours travelling home we had missed the latest developments and quickly tried to appraise ourselves by scouring the internet as we neared home. And it seems the new buzz words are social distancing.
We couldn’t have imagined what was going to happen when we set off on what was to be the year of our travel dreams, back on January 29th. At that point there was precious little indication of just how fast and far reaching these unprecedented changes would be, it is difficult now to know where life and the World will go next.
On a smaller, and we hope not too trivial scale, we were delighted with the first 7 weeks of living our dream, and know now that long term travel will be the delight we always imagined it would be. We loved the variety of destinations, loved the changing types of temporary home, especially the homestays, and loved the experiences of meeting people of all different types and backgrounds.
We also now know we must have been incredibly lucky to get those seats on the flight home; the Heathrow flight was a completely full Airbus 380 with 507 seats, yet somehow we had managed to book it less than 24 hours earlier, albeit two seats in different parts of the plane. An overnight long haul flight in separate seats is a bit odd, but we weren’t complaining.
We would like to mention a few people who helped us get home and/or showed compassion, even financial compassion. Julian at Tuan Chau and Khang Le at Tam Coc were incredibly helpful ladies; both the hotel at Tuan Chau (which had to evict us) and the homestay at Tam Coc only charged us for the one night we stayed rather than the full booking, and Vietnam Railways immediately refunded most of the fare for the sleeper train we’d booked ahead for next week. And we must mention Thai Airways, who could so easily have exploited the situation we were in, as other carriers apparently were, yet charged us only £330 each for that last minute booking all the way from Hanoi to Heathrow, which we think is incredibly reasonable in the circumstances.
International travel for everyone now goes off the agenda. Our dream may be on hold, but that is an insignificant thought in the face of this worldwide crisis. And of course, all being well, we can simply resume when this is over, whenever that may be.
Next step, social distancing, self isolation. In our own home. We aren’t complaining.
10 Comments
Alison and Nigel
Glad you both got home safely.
Phil & Michaela
Thank you both 😀
Debbie Parker
So sorry to hear you’ve had to cut your travels short , but glad you’re home safely. Xx
Phil & Michaela
Thank you Debbie. So disappointed but it was the right thing to do. We will be ready to go again as soon as the coronavirus problem allows us xx
Mike&Else
So glad to hear that you made it home. We are so glad we got to know you on parts of this journey Stay healthy and wishing you well. Hope we meet again somewhere.
Phil & Michaela
Thank you, we did have a fun couple of days on the Mekong ! happy travels 😀
Sue v B
Glad you are home safe. This will pass. Stay safe.
Latitude Adjustment: A Tale of Two Wanderers
Glad you made it back. What did you think of the health screening when you returned? Were they on top of it?
Cheers!
Phil & Michaela
Ah well good question! Britain is unrecognisable, everything shut down, everything quiet and empty, it is completely unrecognisable as home. But arrival at Heathrow was astonishing. We were expecting screening, questionnaires, interviews, interrogation and advice. What we got was…nothing. Not one piece of screening, or advice, no interrogation, not even a leaflet of advice. Not even hand gel. We simply walked right through the airport terminal without a single challenge of any kind, not even a question about where we’d been. We were just a little surprised by that!
Joe
Hopefully you guys will be able to resume your trip at some point in the future. We were not as lucky with our last minute flights and airfares from South America. We made it home, but it required five connections and cost us about $2,000 each. We too were surprised by the absence of health screenings and protections at the airports, including our own. Like you, we are now self-isolating at home, hoping that we were not exposed to the virus during our return trip, and dreaming of the day when we can get back to our travel adventures.