Dayvo
just passin' through
- Location
- 59° 50′ 5.55″ N, 10° 47′ 41.89″ E
After a few weeks' uncertainty and hurdles to leap, I was finally able to leave Goa, India and get back home.
After flights were cancelled and airlines went bust, it was looking bleak, especially as a three-week curfew was enforced. We (my best mate and I) were lucky where we were: very close to a magnificent beach (by this time, they were very few people around, so 'social distancing' wasn't a problem) so we could walk and swim without any problem.
We could buy meals from the only restaurant open in our area (about 100 yards away) so we stocked-up on take-aways and put them in our freezers, in case we were in for a long stay. Our landlords said we could stay as long as necessary: I was thinking that could be another 2-3 months, at least, as the 'predicted' virus peak was (then) 'expected' to be in June.
However, when the state of Goa was closed down more or less completely, the situation changed. Fear and panic-buying broke out in all the bigger towns not too far away from us. Increasing numbers of locals, more Hindus than the catholic Goans, were becoming more resentful at our presence. Police were brutally beating people who needed to get supplies for their babies, several dying from their injuries.
Other Brits in central and northern Goa suffered a lot more than we did. Reports of elderly people without food or medicine in more remote areas had to make do with drinking (dodgy) water from the taps for 2-3 days.
My mate is Finnish and heard very early Tuesday morning that the Finnish government and Finn Air were sending a flight for stranded Finns and Scandinavians, plus those who were permanent residents (like me) in those countries. Germans, Italians and French had also been evacuated but hundreds, if not thousands of Brits remained, the 'government' (
) doing next to nothing to send help.
We flew to Helsinki, where I had a few nervous hours finding out if I could continue my journey as I had no onward ticket (because I had no idea of the situation in either Sweden or Denmark, where I would be flying too, as there were no direct flights to Oslo. But my misses (
) managed to book two flight for me back to Oslo, so all was well.
She collected me at the airport and drove through a deserted landscape and home. I'm now in a two-week quarantine, and will return straight to work, assuming I'm free of the virus. I was/am VERY lucky and grateful to get back home. My British friends are not so lucky: they 'may' have a flight on Tuesday, or maybe not: the government being extremely lackadaisical to the situation.
And just to mention the local population. Dozens of friends, many of whom I've known for 10 years, have very uncertain futures, if, of course, they survived their journeys home. ALL trains and buses travelling interstate were cancelled, leaving millions of migrant workers throughout India, no other option than to WALK home.
In some cases that could be a thousand-plus kilometres. If they stayed where they were, they would probably have been lynched by frightened indigenous (to that state) people or police thinking that the Coronavirus is best cured by beating young and old, male and female, sick, weak and vulnerable with their thick bamboo stick truncheons.
Of course, the entire planet is massively affected by this virus, but before almost anything else, health and safety HAS to be the absolute priority of ALL goverments in looking after ALL their citizens.
Once this is over and it's safe to travel (although I don't think it'll be anytime soon) I will be returning to Goa to help support my friends in any way possible, whilst still having something resembling a 'holiday'!
🙏🙏🙏
After flights were cancelled and airlines went bust, it was looking bleak, especially as a three-week curfew was enforced. We (my best mate and I) were lucky where we were: very close to a magnificent beach (by this time, they were very few people around, so 'social distancing' wasn't a problem) so we could walk and swim without any problem.
We could buy meals from the only restaurant open in our area (about 100 yards away) so we stocked-up on take-aways and put them in our freezers, in case we were in for a long stay. Our landlords said we could stay as long as necessary: I was thinking that could be another 2-3 months, at least, as the 'predicted' virus peak was (then) 'expected' to be in June.
However, when the state of Goa was closed down more or less completely, the situation changed. Fear and panic-buying broke out in all the bigger towns not too far away from us. Increasing numbers of locals, more Hindus than the catholic Goans, were becoming more resentful at our presence. Police were brutally beating people who needed to get supplies for their babies, several dying from their injuries.
Other Brits in central and northern Goa suffered a lot more than we did. Reports of elderly people without food or medicine in more remote areas had to make do with drinking (dodgy) water from the taps for 2-3 days.
My mate is Finnish and heard very early Tuesday morning that the Finnish government and Finn Air were sending a flight for stranded Finns and Scandinavians, plus those who were permanent residents (like me) in those countries. Germans, Italians and French had also been evacuated but hundreds, if not thousands of Brits remained, the 'government' (
) doing next to nothing to send help.We flew to Helsinki, where I had a few nervous hours finding out if I could continue my journey as I had no onward ticket (because I had no idea of the situation in either Sweden or Denmark, where I would be flying too, as there were no direct flights to Oslo. But my misses (
) managed to book two flight for me back to Oslo, so all was well.She collected me at the airport and drove through a deserted landscape and home. I'm now in a two-week quarantine, and will return straight to work, assuming I'm free of the virus. I was/am VERY lucky and grateful to get back home. My British friends are not so lucky: they 'may' have a flight on Tuesday, or maybe not: the government being extremely lackadaisical to the situation.
And just to mention the local population. Dozens of friends, many of whom I've known for 10 years, have very uncertain futures, if, of course, they survived their journeys home. ALL trains and buses travelling interstate were cancelled, leaving millions of migrant workers throughout India, no other option than to WALK home.
In some cases that could be a thousand-plus kilometres. If they stayed where they were, they would probably have been lynched by frightened indigenous (to that state) people or police thinking that the Coronavirus is best cured by beating young and old, male and female, sick, weak and vulnerable with their thick bamboo stick truncheons.Of course, the entire planet is massively affected by this virus, but before almost anything else, health and safety HAS to be the absolute priority of ALL goverments in looking after ALL their citizens.
Once this is over and it's safe to travel (although I don't think it'll be anytime soon) I will be returning to Goa to help support my friends in any way possible, whilst still having something resembling a 'holiday'!
🙏🙏🙏
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