We’ve been back from our visa run just 3 weeks and it feels like so much has changed in that time.
We are so glad we aren’t back home in the UK right now. I mean come on people, what’s going on?
Not calling anyone out but either all of my friends on social media are jolly nice folks (I would like to think that is the case) or a large portion of you are hypocrites and telling porkie pies. A lot of people are panic buying back home right now but I can’t go through more than 2 posts on my Facebook feed without somebody saying how selfish and ridiculous it is. Somebody is panic buying, is it you?
Either way there seems to be a lot of selfishness out there in the UK right now, and it makes me sad to see what our country has become. I guess in situations like this people show their true colours. God help us if there was something more serious happening like a huge asteroid hurtling towards us or some country invading us. It’s not a pleasant thought at all.
We have changed so much in our society in such a short period of time since the second world war. In the space of just 75 years, we have gone from pulling together and helping each other out to being insular selfish greedy folk who don’t care about the well being of their neighbours and fellow countrymen.
I remember writing a post a few years ago when we were riding through the back roads of Vietnam about how it’s always the people with the least in this world who have the biggest hearts and are willing to share what little they have the most. That still holds true to this day.
Malaysia went into lock down today and when I went to the local supermarket yesterday for our usual supplies it was just like any other day. Nobody here has changed their shopping habits at all. I’m not quite sure what people back home think is going to happen when the country goes into lock down, which it will, when bungling Boris catches up with the rest of the world. Food shops will remain open, they aren’t going to let the nation starve in order to protect them from the virus. The mind boggles.
Anyway I think that’s enough soap box talk. What have we been doing since our return from Thailand?
Well pretty much the same as before our visa run really. Back at the animal shelter caring for our furry friends, 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. It certainly beats speaking to the British public in a call centre though (please see above for why the British public are hard to deal with).
We haven’t been out as much as usual that’s for sure. Things are still hard since Frankie passed away. Lepak was a social boozer where locals and ex-pats alike used to meet up. That’s exactly what Frankie wanted from his boozer. Nowhere else on the island has that quality about it, and the old Lepak crowd haven’t really settled into anywhere new since. I think everyone is finding it hard since Frankie and Lepak’s departure. Bam Boo Ba owned by Daniel is probably the next closest thing and that’s where we were last night, for his “End of the world” party.
As I mentioned earlier Malaysia went into lock-down today and that was effective at midnight last night. It was a good night but was unfortunately cut short at the stroke of midnight. You can face up to 2 years in jail and a hefty fine for the breaking the governments lock-down laws so it wasn’t worth Daniel risking that for the sake of a few extra beers for everyone.
Today has been a little bit eerie. When we were walking the dogs this morning it was noticeably quieter on the roads. Not much traffic at all. I rode along to the supermarket earlier and there is hardly anyone out and about at all. Which is good, that’s what the lock-down is designed to do.
The resort at Bon Ton next to the shelter now only has 3 guests left, who all leave tomorrow. Most of the resort staff are now on forced leave as well so there is hardly anyone around. The governments enforced laws now prohibit any foreigners to enter Malaysia until at least the 31st of March. Existing guests are allowed to stay but guest houses and hotels are not allowed to check in any new guests at all.
Linnea, a Swedish girl who has helped out at the shelter now and then was due to go on her visa run this week to Thailand. She contacted immigration to see if she could extend her visa here as they will sometimes allow you to extend by a month. Unfortunately they said no, so she has to move on to Thailand and stay there as she can’t get back in to Malaysia.
I guess we have been fortunate with the timing of our visa run, we still have just over 2 months that we can stay in Malaysia and hopefully the travel ban will be lifted by then….hopefully.
So that’s where we are at really. Just taking each day as it comes. Hopefully all of these rules relax a bit over the coming months, though I suspect that wont be the case. It casts a bit of a shadow over our travels as we may end up being forced to return home if there aren’t any other countries we can travel to. Then again there may not even be any flights back home either so we’ll just have to see what happens really and take it from there.
