Continental drifters
Three travellers tell their stories of crossing borders during the coronavirus pandemic
The pandemic has turned many lives into versions of the film Groundhog Day, but for a few who are unwilling, or unable, to live in suspended animation, continued travelling has proved challenging, bizarre, scary even.
When the crisis began, wayfaring translator Bruce Humes found himself close to the epicentre. “I was in Taiwan, working on a translation of a book about the Mogao Caves, in Dunhuang, on the Silk Road,” he says.
Humes grew nervous as his 90day visa-free status neared expiry, with the virus spreading around the world, but Taipei moved fast.
“Measures were quickly introduced and well publicised. All tourists were given automatic 30day extensions and the government welcomed tourists to quickly apply for a change of status to student visas or work permits. Two friends applied for the latter and obtained them easily.”
Humes was granted several 30-day extensions to his visa. But when the government announced these renewals would end after an applicant had been in Taiwan for 180 days – a policy that ultimately was not enforced – Humes, a polyglot keen to master Turkish, headed for Istanbul.
“I caught a direct flight. Indirect flights were not ideal because they involved short stays at airports that required a document stating you had recently been tested for Covid-19.”
Despite a pandemic response by Taipei now considered exemplary, arriving from Taiwan would prove troublesome.
“Many countries treated anyone coming from Taiwan – one of the first places worldwide to close its borders to flights originating on the [Chinese] mainland – as coming from the PRC [the People’s Republic of China],” Humes says.
But contrary to what he had been told, there was little virus scrutiny on Humes’ arrival, early last August, at the huge new Istanbul International Airport.
From his new base in Ogretmenler, a suburb of Burhaniye on the shores of the Aegean Sea, Humes enjoyed several months of relatively limited restrictions. But Turkey’s open-door policy has led to daily new-case numbers rocketing from around 30,000 in March to 60,000 in late April.
“President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan has suddenly announced a lockdown [until at least] May 15. During this period – Ramadan in Muslim-majority Turkey, when many will be fasting from sunrise to sunset – most residents may leave their residences only to buy food or medicine, with exceptions for emergencies and workers in certain industries. Restaurants and cafes can still do takeaway and delivery, but no dining on the premises. The daily curfew has been extended from 7pm to 5am. And travel between cities now requires government permission.”
Short-term tourists, a few of whom are still entering Turkey, are exempted from all of the above, but Humes, on a multiple entry/exit “tourist resident permit”, is subject to the restrictions.
Like Turkey, Mexico has been proving a popular destination with those willing to brave the perils of pandemic travel.
“Lots of digital nomads are arriving here; they are coming from everywhere,” Singaporean Isabel Leong says from her current base in Oaxaca.
Leong left the Lion City in 2018 to pursue a life less ordinary. Financing her wanderlust as a content and social media strategist, she returned home for Lunar New Year in 2020 “and then the lockdown happened”.
Months stuck in the family home were not easy, Leong says. So when travel restrictions started to loosen, she saw a window of opportunity and jumped.
“I went to Seattle [in the United States] in October. Even though quite a lot of restrictions were in place, it felt like there was more space than in Singapore. I could be close to nature and smell the dew on the grass,” she says of her experience living in a friend’s recreational vehicle.
After travelling through Colorado and California, Leong surveyed the scene. Although travel was proving challenging because of pandemic restrictions, memories of Singapore’s suffocating urban density kept her focused on the road ahead.
Leong flew to Costa Rica and stayed for six weeks before heading north, to Mexico.
“It was incredibly easy, it felt like I hadn’t left the country,” she says of arriving by plane in Cancun, where neither a PCR test nor quarantine was required.
This loose attitude to entry might be one reason Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll is now the fourth highest in the world, at more than 219,000, behind the United States, Brazil and India. Leong says she remains conscious of this fact. “I’m travelling differently from usual. I find a place and stay there for a month and work. I get takeaway instead of eating out. And I avoid crowded places like Mexico City.”
The Australian government has been criticised for not bringing people home, its “travel cap” having pushed up the cost of flights and expensive mandatory quarantine leaving tens of thousands of Australians stranded abroad. Even before the recent ban on returnees from India specifically, the situation had become so desperate that a trio representing those trapped overseas had filed a petition with the UN’s Human Rights Committee.
“I would have gone back to get vaccinated if the process was transparent and easy, but it’s just a nightmare,” says Australian Steven Happ, from Galle, Sri Lanka.
Since retiring in 2017, Happ has been chasing the horizon. “From 2017 to 2019 I travelled around the world then drove around Australia before visiting my daughter in China and then heading down to Indonesia.”
He has no fixed address and prefers to spend his time pursuing passions such as bird watching in exotic locations.
“In March last year, I flew from Indonesia to Malaysia. I was there for two weeks before the lockdown began. I was stuck on Pangkor Island [halfway down the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia] for three months.
Malaysia had closed its borders on March 18, 2020 but offered amnesty to foreigners in the country even if their social visit passes had expired. In January, it was announced foreign nationals would have to either apply for a special extension or leave 14 working days after the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) ended, on March 31.
“After the initial lockdown I was able to travel to Penang and then Langkawi,” Happ says. But after five months on the holiday island, he felt he’d “photographed every bird” and began making plans. After considering Thailand and Nepal – tourism-dependent economies open to travellers willing to quarantine and purchase recognised travel insurance – Happ set his sights on Sri Lanka, which has a similar policy in place.
Happ flew into Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport on March 18. He was met by an assigned driver and taken to a resort, where he was to remain quarantined for a fortnight.
Now free to roam in a country that has recorded more than 123,000 cases (in a population of 22 million) to date, Happ says, “I’m staying away from Colombo and going to head to small towns, beaches and rural places.
“I’ve already photographed a crimson-fronted barbet,” he says.
Lots of digital nomads are arriving here; they are coming from everywhere SABEL LEONG, SPEAKING ABOUT MEXICO
I would have gone back [home] to get vaccinated if the process was … easy, but it’s just a nightmare AUSTRALIAN STEVEN HAPP