On the 30th of January, the Philippines confirmed its first case of COVID-19 in Manila. On the 31st, case number two was confirmed. We had booked a flight on the 31st for Bali already and I felt as if we were staying ahead of the virus. We were still on vacation and our plan was practically intact. I wasn’t going to worry about something that might clear up in a week.
We were still on vacation, let’s have fun. We packed up, booked a taxi, and were off to the airport. We realized that something was missing halfway through the taxi ride. Sitting on or near the front desk of the building we had just left forever were both of our drivers’ licenses. The standard thoughts flashed across my mind: could we turn back and still make our flight on time? How hard would it be to get new ones from the wrong side of the world? Jill had the bright idea to send a message to our airbnb host asking to retrieve the licenses and mail them to us. Jill thought we should just have them mailed to our Bali hotel. Using my great wisdom and experience with the speed of international mail, I counseled her to have them sent to our China address (we would be back in China in a couple weeks, no problem). We didn’t need the licenses for anything right now and having them following us around by mail seemed like a bad idea.
So, let’s try again, we were still on vacation, let’s have some fun.We arrived in Bali late at night. It was too dark to see the beauty of the island yet but we discovered it’s people’s friendliness via our taxi driver who chatted with us on the hour long or so ride to the town of Ubud. The Corona virus wasn’t here and we shouldn’t worry about it. I asked him if there were many Chinese tourists this year, i don’t recall his answer. He wanted to take us on tours all over the island. He took us to our guesthouse and walked in to make sure it was the right place. He gave me his card but I think I left it at our guesthouse.
Walking into our new home it was dark, we passed decorative brick walls and shrine after shrine. There was a light on a porch with a makeshift bed. On the bed looking at this phone was a boy who was waiting for us to arrive. We bid the driver farewell and our new friend took us further down the sidewalk. We were at least a hundred yards from the road. There were a few lights though. The cottage was a suite with a four-post bed, mosquito net, and geckoes all over feasting on the bugs.
I keep looking for more!