Preface
I've been living as a digital nomad since 2017. I lived in more than ten countries before I arrive in Vietnam on 25.01.2020. On 28.01.2020 Vietnam decreed the closure of the border with China after the news regarding the appearance of a strange virus in the Wuhan market.
On 1 February all flights from China, Macao, Taiwan were suspended. Subsequently, the flights and the border with China were opened, but the situation kept changing. The restrictions on the entry in Vietnam were changing accordingly to the number of cases growing in different countries. Thus, Koreans and Europeans were also banned from entering the country at the beginning of March.
On March 22nd, all foreigners were forbidden to enter the country. In 28.03 activities such as gyms, cinemas, tourist sites, massage parlors, karaoke, and others were closed.
On 01.04 Vietnam decreed the total lockdown implementing the social distancing measures. Since then, people can only leave home to buy food and medicine.
The restrictions imposed by the country totally changed my reality, my plans and my life as a digital nomad. I decided to write this diary to report these days and somehow continue to travel within an apartment of less than 60 square meters.
15.04_A ticket to Hanoi
I wake up late feeling completely exhausted in a kind of emotional hangover. I look around the apartment and I feel completely numb. I was never good with the “goodbye part”, however this unexpected situation make the things even worse. I need to pack, clean the apartment, solve stuff, but I don’t know where to start. I look around the kitchen, I still have one avocado, so I prepare myself my favorite smoothie with frozen bananas, spinach and avocado. After I make the bed, clean the apartment and put my backpack on the sofa, I turn on some music and start to separate clothes and the rest of my stuff.
I still have some work to do. Sometimes working on this crazy times give me a sense of normality and even more balance. But when things get critical, it’s not good to have some deadlines to finish. Instead of working I send some emails to my clients explaining the situation and also justifying the delay of deadlines.
My Brazilian friend D message me asking me if I want some food for lunch. We decide to have our favorite “con ga malay” which is a Vietnamese chicken rice that we love! D promise to take me to the airport. We become friends during this time I was living here in Da Nang and I know I will miss him a lot. I finish packing, we had lunch and talked a lot. We both were kind of sad because all of this… After finishing the lunch I come to Nam to give back the keys. She’s really lovely and I give her a hug and also we take a picture together.
Me and D go to the airport on his motorbike. I always called him “Mr. Grab” and we laugh trying to balance ourselves, one backpack and one suitcase on the motorbike. We arrive on the airport and seems like we are on a movie scenario. Everything is close and empty. I arrive into the Vietnam Airlines window and one lady give me the instructions to fill a health declaration. The declaration is online and I need to fill it with some information like if I was on self quarantine, if I have the symptoms of the virus and if I get in contact with anyone who has it. In the end of the form there’s a note saying that "filling wrong information could cause me some penalties, like jail”, for example… I didn’t take it serious to be honest, but after I heard about some cases of planes that, after landing, everyone had to make the test and some people were conducted to quarantine camps, I started to be a little bit more concerned.
Before getting into the plane the temperature of everyone was checked. The flight attendants were dressing with all protection equipment. Sometimes I asked myself if the plane would land in Chernobyl or somewhere like that. From the moment I felt left Da Nang to the moment I arrive in Hanoi I felt like I was in some kind of scientific fiction movie…
I meet other Brazilians during the flight and they seem to be very nice. When we arrive in Hanoi there was a van from the hotel to pick up us there. I love the way that Brazilians treat each other. To have such an informal culture helps you to make friends very fast and easy. After we arrived on the hotel we had some food and beers together. Everyone talks about their decision to come back and most of us didn’t want it…
Everyone is tired and after some beers and hanging out everybody decided to go to bed. The streets of the hotel are very silent, seems like Hanoi is a ghost town.
I'm a bit confused. Why the trip to Hanoi? Are you heading home?
Stay safe.
Hey hey! How are you? I receive a calling from the Brazilian embassy on 13.04 about an repatriation flight... It would leave from Hanoi. So, this is why I fly to Hanoi and then to Brazil...
The whole story is here: https://hive.blog/hive-174578/@helgalubevi/quarantine-diaries12-04a-call-from-the-brazilian-embassy