Returning from Southeast Asia and Learning to Embrace Uncertainty

With a Road Trip Thrown In

In late January, 2019, as we were lazing away for five days in Langkawi, playing the part of the barefoot vagabonds, we were blissfully (mostly) ignorant of what was happening in the outside world.

Plans Go Awry

Within a day of our January 29 arrival in Penang (also in Malaysia), we started following what was going on with the COVID-19 virus in Southeast Asia. Ian, in true character, started getting up to speed on what was happening. At that time, the number of new cases was small but growing exponentially. We felt that we were not at much risk in Penang, as there were no known cases there at the time. After two weeks in Penang, we planned to go to Vietnam but had not made any reservations yet. We had already decided to skip Siem Reap, Cambodia, and the temples at Angor Wat because of over tourism and the added cost of getting there. 

Vietnam was another matter, as we both wanted to return. We had visited Nha Trang during the first week of our cruise and were looking forward to visiting Da Nang, Hoi An, and Hanoi.

Weighing Our Options

Every day we were reading conflicting reports, flights were getting cancelled, countries were getting locked down. We started seeing more signs, some products started becoming less available. We couldn’t find masks or hand sanitizer. No issue with toilet paper through. We spent about a week going back and forth about upcoming plans.

Our primary concern was that we were scheduled to fly back to the US on March 11, and we felt our highest risk for contracting the disease was being aboard airplanes for 20+ hours of international travelling. Immediately upon our return, we were going to be staying with Ian’s parents, who are in their mid-80’s, and eight days later with Ann’s mother, celebrating her 90th birthday with a huge party with friends and family, followed by an extended family vacation in Florida.

We broke everything down and decided we had four choices. Continue with our plan and go to Vietnam where a lot less English is spoken and if we got sick, the medical care is not as good as in Malaysia. Stay in Penang until our departure date back to the US on March 11^th. If Malaysia closed its borders, we might be there for the duration of crisis. While better than our first option, potentially spending months in Penang, having a limited social network in a country with a quite different culture during a crisis didn’t seem appealing. Hop on a plane immediately for Australia or New Zealand. These countries were having a lot fewer cases. And if we were stuck spending months in either country, we would be able to navigate the culture much easier than Malaysia’s. Our final option was to return to the US early.

Do We Stay or Do We Go?

Our original tickets had us returning to the US from Taiwan on March 11. If we decided to return early, Ian found out that if we stayed with our original departure and arrival airports, Taipei and Phoenix, we could change our travel dates without a charge. Our other option was to return from Penang, which would entail a large change fee and require us to route through Hong Kong, which was having its own issues with the virus at the time.

In the end, after much searching online, Ian was able to find flights back to the US from Taiwan (Taipei) to Phoenix, the only date available being February 19. Returning early also allowed us time to self-isolate before visiting our parents.

This seemed like the best plan since we would still be able to partake in the family activities. Now we had a plan and a new departure date; our only decision was how early to go to Taiwan. Our original plans included a week in Taipei. We could have flown in the night before our flight home but passing through a new city (and country) without at least checking it out seemed criminal. Because it was still coldish there, we decided to fly to Taiwan three days before our departure back to the US and extended our Airbnb in Penang for an extra three days. Luckily, it was available.

We will have a future post about our visit to Taipei. What a huge surprise! A wonderful city, we really enjoyed our time there and are so glad that we didn’t allow fear to prevent us from visiting.

How to Spend Unexpected Interim Time in the US

We now had at least two weeks to kill in the US before we could be at Ian’s parents’ house. What do we do now? We liked the idea of a road trip but finding a car in Phoenix in the middle of peak season was challenging. In the end, AutoSlash came through and we found a car for three weeks at $845 including all fees with Fox Rental Car. Airbnb didn’t present any affordable options. Searching on the networks affiliated with our timeshares, we hit a jackpot. A couple of days were available in Lake Havasu, Arizona for a reasonable cost; we could check out the area as well as Laughlin, Nevada. We could stay a week in Las Vegas (the jackpot), in a one bedroom off the strip for $329. Then we got to check out Death Valley on the way to Angels Camp, CA, where we booked a one-bedroom unit in one of our timeshares.

Arrival in the US

After spending time in Southeast Asia, getting off the plane in Los Angeles was like stepping back in time. No one wearing masks, no one seemed concerned about what might be coming. We did notice a couple of idle CDC agents.

Fox Rental Car

As we approached the car rental counter, we say a huge line. It took us two hours to work our way through, and when we asked the agent if it was always like this, she said yes. (No long lines at any of the other rental counters, but they were considerably more expensive.) The car was great, and we had Sirius FM so spent our drive time enjoying songs from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. At the end of the trip, we wanted to extend by one day. Fox’s website said for Phoenix, we had to make the change by phone. When we called, after one hour on hold while we were driving, listening to the same boring message over again, we found out it that, with all the fees, it would cost an extra $200 plus for an extra day. Needless to say, we won’t be renting from Fox again.

Arizona, Nevada, California Road Trip

Lake Havasu, Arizona

Neither of us had been here before. What we found was a cute town filled with retirees in the winter. Interestingly, winter is the not the peak season; summer is, because of the river. We also noticed a lot less emphasis on London Bridge than we had expected. Somewhat surprisingly, or perhaps not, real estate prices are higher than outside Phoenix.

Las Vegas

We spent a whole week in Vegas and never once went to the strip, never went out to restaurants. After a trip to the grocery store and Trader Joe’s (Oh, how we missed you!), we shut ourselves in from the outside world.

Spent a wonderful day hiking at Red Rock Canyon National Park and another day hiking at Valley of Fire State Park. Although we thoroughly enjoyed both, of the two, Valley of Fire was our favorite. By the time we left Vegas, we knew we were not infected. At least not from our Southeast Asia travels.

Death Valley National Park

Since we were headed to Northern California from Las Vegas, rather than taking freeways, we went cross county (what’s a road trip for?) and right through the center of Death Valley National Park. Ann had visited before, but this was Ian’s first time. We did some hiking and spent a day playing tourist, while keeping our distance from others.

Angels Camp, California

From Death Valley, we travelled to Angels Camp with an overnight in Ridgecrest (with a surreal drive through Trona, CA). Angels Camp is in one of our favorite parts of California. In the heart of gold rush country, in the foothills of the Sierras, with tons of wineries in Murphys 15 minutes up the road. And just 30 minutes up the road, Calaveras Big Trees State Park, our favorite place to spend time gazing at the giant sequoias without the crowds of Sequoia or Yosemite National Parks. Another day we drove up to Placerville, along Highway 49, stopping at the Gold Rush towns along the way.

Over the two and a half weeks we were road tripping, Asia was retreating from our minds, and we were thinking perhaps the coronavirus was just a bad dream, and it would blow over.

San Diego

Our last stop was in San Diego, our home before we started full-time travelling more than two and a half years ago. Eighteen months had passed since we had last stopped by. It felt good to be back, and to be visiting with friends. By this point virus-wise, Italy had blown up, was fully locked down, and the first cases were starting to occur in the US. So, we were at least somewhat mentally prepared for the storm we knew was on the way.

Phoenix

We arrived back in Phoenix on our originally scheduled date, March 11. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, the situation started to become more serious. Ann’s family cancelled her mother’s 90th birthday party along with the trip to Florida; we cancelled our plans to travel back east. We took over the doing all the grocery shopping for Ian’s parents, so they didn’t need to risk exposure. At the end of March, we moved into our own house, after the seasonal tenant left. We initially had some concerns about Ian’s parents – when the cat’s away – but they behaved themselves and stayed home. Fortunately, they, as well as we, have been able to walk daily around the community of houses.

Evaluating Our Decision

So, did we make the right decision to come back early? Considering only ourselves, we would have been much better off going to Australia or New Zealand. They have been doing a much better job of controlling this virus than the US has. But the question we keep coming back to is, what would Ian’s parents have done if we weren’t here? So, for us it was the right decision.

Random thought relating to the pandemic, Ann said that these kinds of things are what you read about in the history books, not the kind of thing we expect to live through.

Looking forward to the time when we will all be able to travel again. Until then, just taking it day by day.

Stay well!

Ian & Ann