COVID: How Quickly Things Change
All of a sudden our Turkish adventure is coming to an end and we are now travelling back to England on Monday.
As we headed off to Alanya this week, news was breaking that the Turkish Government were about to announce increased COVID restrictions, although at that stage all of the talk surrounded weekend closures. When the announcement came, the measures were much more far reaching, with an indefinite closure of all bars and restaurants and heavily restricted opening times for all other outlets including food shops.
At the same time an 8pm curfew comes in and, although the curfew, rather counter intuitively, doesn’t apply to tourists, it’s clear that pretty much everything will be closed before 8pm and there will be little for us to do.
With these new rules seemingly in place until at least the end of the year, and with the distinct possibility that further rules may be introduced in the interim, we’ve decided it’s in our best interests to call it a day and head back to the UK. So the 10 days we had planned to stay in Antalya to finish this adventure have been dropped and replaced by 14 days quarantine at home.
By no means are we too disappointed by this turn of events: we feel we got incredibly lucky to have had our time away in Croatia and Turkey, and our extended 9-week stay in Turkey has been terrific throughout.
It’s a shame that we won’t be able to say goodbye to new found friends who have already shut down their businesses in the light of recent developments, but other than that our focus is on hoping the journey home (Antalya-Istanbul-Heathrow) goes without hitch.
Turkey has been great, and we’ve visited many wonderful places which were nowhere near our original plan for 2020.
Let’s see what 2021 brings…..
9 Comments
John & Susan
Stay safe!
Phil & Michaela
Thanks guys
normareadtalktalknet
It’s been wonderful reading … safe journey home …
Phil & Michaela
Thank you, see you soon 😘
Andrew Petcher
All good things come to an end!
Annie and Steven Berger
I see what you meant after my last comment. When we left India in mid March I remember how disappointed we were. It may be different in the UK right now but we have been able to travel safely by car all over the US during the pandemic. Lots of things closed but still so much to see and hotels seem very safe. We’ve given up on Thanksgiving with family but are still planning a Christmas road trip to see children in San Francisco and then through the southwest. Please keep posting and let us know how life is in the UK.
Be safe.
Steve
Phil & Michaela
Hi there, well as it stands we will have to quarantine for 14 days. Also the whole of England is in lockdown until 2 December so we eagerly await our governments announcement on what happens next.
greenglobaltrek
Ah yes, covid changed a lot. We got “locked out” of our home base in Viet Nam while we were closing things out from our former home base in Sri Lanka… what to do? Choose a new country of course…
Peta
Phil & Michaela
Yes I remember, we were already following your blog then – I think you were in Hoi An. At that time, when the world first shut down in March, we were also in Vietnam, making our way south with our accommodation in Hoi An already sorted. We were in Ha Long Bay when disaster struck – we were evicted from our hotel and had to make a swift exit to avoid being quarantined. It was all a bit scary at the time – we posted it as it all unfolded. Now we’re just waiting to see what the new year brings and what our next destination can be.