January 1st: Spend the day on Kuta Beach (pics).
January 3rd 2020: Take an early afternoon flight to Goa via Kuala Lumpur and Chennai.
January 4th 2020: Arrive early morning in Goa.
February 8th 2020: Book flight to Cairo and a hotel for March 11th trip.
February 16th 2020: Book flight from Tel Aviv back to Goa for the 28th of March.
Due to there being little difference in total travelling time if travelling by air or land and the flying costing maybe six times more I at this point provisionally planned in my head to travel from Cairo to Tel Aviv by coach.
March 8th 2020: It was announced on the news that Isreal was closing it's borders to all foreigners to combat the coronavirus COVID-19.
March 9th 2020: I decide to cancel the whole trip.
March 10th 2020: I have second thoughts and decide to go to Egypt only, thereby at least getting something for my money.
March 11th 2020: I Fly late evening to Cairo via Mumbai.
March 12th 2020: Arrive early morning in Cairo.
The rain was absolutely lashing down, and as if that wasn't enough, I heard the news that India was closing all borders to foreigners effective 12:00 the next day to try to combat the novel coronavirus and would not reopen them until April 15th at the earliest (on the 14th of April the lockdown of India was extended until the 3rd of May).
The thunder continued all morning and the rain was still chucking it down when I left in the afternoon. As it happened, it was the worst rain for 60 years and the day previously the news bulletins were telling poeple not to go out. Hence, I was quoted two and a half hours wait to get a taxi. My taxi ride (that I eventually got on the street) was very patient in trying to help me out and we had to take many detours to miss the floods on the highways to the airport.
March Friday the 13th 2020: Arrive in Mumbai at 06:30 and book the final leg of the trip from Mumbai to Goa which would arrive late afternoon that day.
From this day onward travel took a back seat thanks to:
Corovavirus COVID-19 (Click for details)
October 2020: From hereon until the end of the year life gets pretty much back to normal with the exception of the lack of non-domestic tourists. |
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