Travels in the times of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Bars are closed...don't think so

I’m sure most folks reading this will agree that this virus thing that Donald Trump calls a “Chinese virus” started off sounding off as a joke. Having never felt any repercussions of the similar SARS or the H1N1 virus, I admit I too felt this was one of those world-ending prophesies that crops up quickly and vanishes equally fast affecting just a small part of the world while most of us go about our lives as usual.

I try not to be on too many WhatsApp groups since it’s a serious distraction and waste of time but in whatever groups I’m still active in, the whole initial few exchanges of messages were jokes and memes on this mysterious virus that had originated in China and how it was spreading fast and killing Chinese - sounded like a bad zombie movie.

Couple that with the purported origin of the virus in the wet markets of Wuhan and seems like everyone was having a field day. Some posts on Facebook were even suggesting it was God’s wrath against the inhumane slaughter of exotic animals. Now, I’ve always felt a sense of discomfort with the duplicity of some criticizing meat markets where friendly animals (dogs, cats, etc.)  and farmed and poached exotic animals (bats, snakes, scorpions, etc.) are slaughtered for their meat and body parts. Most who criticize are happy to chomp down on animals like chicken, pigs, bovines, fish, and crustaceans laying bare their hypocrisy on the treatment of animals. I digress from my main subject but hey...atleast I made my point.

Early January and I was still in Liberia when the new virus had an official name, COVID-19, and the headlines just started warming and still my thought was…well, I’ve been throughEbola in its epicenter during it’s outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and with a puny 2% mortality rate compared to Ebola’s almost 70%, I could brush aside COVID-19 as just a minor distraction and more a sound byte for the media.

Fast forward to late February and small number of cases started cropping up outside of China. Things still seemed in control - case in point was the quick isolation, containment and treatment of a few cases that showed up in the Indian state of Kerala. Add in the common scientific theory that the virus doesn’t like heat and humidity and I felt indestructible while I was in Liberia. Home leave was coming up soon and my travel destinations were India and then Seychelles both of which can also be considered as outside of the cold region that the virus supposedly thrives on.

Ah...the backroads of Goa

I had to go to India for personal reasons but as with my past few travels I wanted to combine it with a few days in a relatively smallish country. Seychelles seems small enough to warrant a stay for a few days and although its know more as being a high-end honeymoon destination my primary reason was to go scuba diving.

I’ve completed half of my open water scuba diving course but that was exactly 5 years ago and it seemed an opportune time to complete the certification. Cost and convenience dictated that I get my certification with my dive center in India rather than Seychelles so unlike my recent home leaves, I would go to India first and then Seychelles.

By late February, email notification dropped in from my company’s headquarters that all international travel was stopped but since home leaves for us expats in Liberia are slightly different than a typical “business” travel I was still on for my vacation.

Early March and the initial reports that some towns in northern Italy were being quarantined was a bit disconcerting and I was genuinely getting worried that my home leave would be cancelled. Note the common theme on my concern being more about my home leave being cancelled than the virus itself!

Vagator Beach

By the time I left Liberia on March 10^th, Europe was just turning into the new epicenter but I was glad I was getting out. Through my air travel from Liberia through Ghana and Ethiopia I did notice the increasing effect of the virus as many were wearing masks and latex gloves. Even the airports and flights were generally half empty which was just fine by me as I had more room to sprawl.

I had chosen to land in Bangalore this time instead of Mumbai so I could meet an old friend. I rested at my aunt’s for the day and there was trepidation and jest in equal measure in our jokes of the virus and me traveling in from an international location as India had again seen cases crop up and all of them were from international travelers and their direct contacts.

I decided to scrap the meeting with my friend as I sensed his apprehensions about meeting since I was a traveler coming into India from a foreign nation and multiple transit locations. In all likelihood it was also the sensible thing considering the ground realities of the infection spread in India. Being a pariah was a thought that faintly crossed my mind as I boarded an overnight train from Bangalore to Belgaum.

Contrary to the status at the airports, the train station was still bustling with crowds sans the masks and gloves and with a general apathy to the epidemic that had just been declared as a pandemic by the WHO.

@ Chapora (Dil Chahta with brothers and nephew

A couple days of resting and catching up with family and friends and soon it was time to head to Goa across the beautiful forests of the Western Ghats. Initially the plan was for the whole family to take a couple days and relax in Goa while I got my certification but a combination of less than peak fitness of my little nephew and the increasing concerns of the spread of the virus meant that my mom, sis-in-law and the younger nephew dropped out.

A cousin works in Goa so we caught up and relaxed a bit visiting a few sights of Goa that I’d been a couple decades ago…a time when Goa was just starting to become a favorite destination for Indian travelers. I’m sad to report that this increased tourism has come at a cost of tremendous amount of litter. I do wish my fellow countrymen and women would step up with more social responsibility towards our environment.

Arabian sea @ Baga beach

Talking about social responsibility, it was dawning on me that I was probably not doing that myself. I went to a club, hung out with friends, went shopping and all of it without much regard to the “social distancing” preached by all as a community responsibility to tackle this now full blown global pandemic.

With a low mortality rate, I can afford to ride the virus even if I get infected but what about my parents and my year-old nephew? ...and while I’m thinking of them, wasn’t I being selfish thinking of just my immediate family members? What about all the other more susceptible population I was potentially putting at risk? The guilt was real…and was gradually setting in at this point.

So, it was no surprise that when the call came in from my bosses in Liberia that they would prefer for me to return to Liberia I finally GOT IT…! Sure, I was a little disappointed of having to cut my time in India and having to entirely scrap my trip to Seychelles but it just seemed the right thing to do - Get out of India, go back to Liberia where they needed me during these times and in a place where I can better practice social distancing and not put others at risk.

The popular church in Panjim

The call came in when I was still in Goa so I had to rejig my plans and return back to Belgaum, book a new one-way ticket and head to Mumbai to catch the flight - all of this within a span of a couple days. I had to also be mindful that I had been diving so couldn’t fly within a 24-hour window lest I’d be dealing with decompression sickness!

The airport in Mumbai was almost empty and as I chatted with the bartender over a drink he told of the steady stream of flights being cancelled and business down about 80%. He and the fellow restaurants were also going out of business so the bartender and his colleagues were soon to be an unemployed lot. These are not normal time. I wished him well and boarded my now delayed flight from Mumbai to Nairobi.

Rikkin will have to wait for Africa :)

As I am writing this blog I am sitting at the airport in Nairobi, Kenya. Its been 24 hours since my flight arrived from Mumbai and today’s flight from Nairobi to Monrovia was cancelled and now I’m supposed to leave tomorrow. This means it would be about 48 hours in transit at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi. Looking around me, seems like most passengers have similar stories as several have been stuck at airports for over 24 hours and all are trying to rearrange their travel plans.

I would have preferred to have gotten out of the airport in Nairobi, get a hotel room and get some rest but last night I had to do with prostrating across normal airport seats. The Kenyan government does not want transit passengers to enter Kenya and I don’t blame them with the countermeasures being put forth across the board through the nations of the world.

India just announced that they are going to suspend all international flights and so did several others. Sierra Leone did the same after having a few travelers on the Kenya-Accra-Monrovia-Freetown flight tested to be CIVID-19 positive.

Some coffee at the lounge at Nairobi airport

Fatefully, this is the exact flight that I had getting into Liberia but now it seems like tomorrow’s flight will exclude the stop over in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

At this point I am just hoping that neither Ghana nor Liberia institute a blanket suspension of all international flights. If either of those scenarios happen I might just find myself reprising Tom Hank’s role in “The Terminal” - a situation where I can’t get to India, nor Liberia and neither into Kenya proper and having to live at the airport in Nairobi without a clue how long this situation would last!

...offset with some alcohol. Then repeat!

As I type the cases in India have crossed 200 which means I will be quarantined for 14 days when (and if) I land in Liberia. Luckily, I’ve got special permission from the government of Liberia to be self quarantined, the details of which I don’t know yet but that can wait. For now, the immediate concern is to be on that Kenya Airways flight tomorrow to Accra and then Monrovia!

Don, my colleague and boss in Liberia had some reassuring words for me yesterday saying “…well, as a professional adventurer and citizen of the world, I have faith in you”.

So…as I sit in a nice lounge and write this blog I am thankful I am atleast relatively comfortable, with a steady stream of food and enough expresso and alcohol to offset each other and last a lifetime. COVID-19 is real and it’s amazing how much a puny virus has shaken the world as we know it! - so that we humans know of our place in this world. The death count has crossed 4,000 and my prayers go to them and their families and speedy recovery for others who are positive.

This will soon pass…Good health to all the citizens of the world…!!!