Where are you bunkering for Covid-19?

[dafluff]

With international travel basically at a stand still now, I was wondering where everyone is during these crazy pandemic days.

Poll rules:

1. You can select 1 answer, but you may change it if you want.
2. Results are visible after you posted.
3. Votes are not displayed publicly.

 

[Will_M]

Nowhere to go home too. My remaining parent would refuse to meet me if I flew home anyway. Scared I may have picked something up in bandara or Pesawat. Best stay put. Also, the company I work for is largely still operational, and required a lot of managing.

 

[Balifrog]

No intention to leave except if complete chaos and civil unrest breaks out.

And even then....I lived through 2 harsh "coup d'état" in BKK, so ....

Also the temperature of the swimming pool is much better here than at "home".

 

[atlantis]

No reason to leave neither my home nor the country I consider mine.

 

[tomtoba]

There are probably 25 to 30 tourists and 12-15 more or less permanent expats like myself stranded here on Samosir island in the middle of Lake Toba (tuk-tuk). It's probably one of the better places to be during these times, though. We can shut down the entry points if it starts to heat up here, and have plenty of farmland up on top for food. Relatively rural and all the locals are a member of a clan which should distribute necessities fairly. There's no hope for any healthcare here, though, unless you count the oiled massages offered by the magic men.
The bad part is that Immigration here is still requiring tourists who arrived before the feb 5th cutoff date to travel 5 hours to the immigration office to fill out forms and pay fees in order to avoid the worlds highest overstay fines.

 

[fastpitch17]

I live in Indonesia. My home is here. I am trying to protect myself and wife by staying home as much as possible. Protective gear for a once a week grocery run and then try to avoid others. If business has personnel without mask, we avoid. To even think about leaving would be stupid. Why would I want to return to a nation that due to presidential stupidity and self ego trips has totally missmanaged the treats? Nope, I probably have more personal control here with this inept government response.

 

[dafluff]

I am staying in Indonesia also. Travelling right now would be so much of a hassle, and everywhere I could realistically go to is also going to be (or already is) getting hit pretty bad.

 

[Euc-]

My country won't let my Indonesian wife in, besides it's probably worse there than here so I'm staying put.

 

[Vanhelsing]

I'm in Indonesia a few months every year of recent times and would have preferred to ride it out in country, but as explained in another post - Indonesia's general incompetence and inability to deal with these things posed too much of a risk as I saw it.

 

[ChrisTex]

I am staying here in part I am not sure if my wife would be able to get into my home country and two, with work we have been told we can't leave Jakarta(back at the beginning of March they told us this).

If going back to Texas was an option, I still don't know if I would leave as then I need to consider my wife's family.

 

[harryopal1]

Staying on and things surprisingly normal around Jimbaran in Bali. Just glad I am not in Jakarta with that impossible to manage iockdown of some millions of people without income and resources.

 

[Vanhelsing]

Just glad I am not in Jakarta with that impossible to manage iockdown of some millions of people without income and resources.

I was staying on Jalan Jaksa in 98 while watching plumes of smoke rise above the city as China Town burned. I'm glad I'm not there.

 

[Helpful Herbert]

Staying in Indonesia but have escaped from Jakarta to West Java. A place that we bought many years ago and rarely used is now turning out to be the perfect isolation hideout.

 

[Wisnu]

we're living outside Indonesia. Working from home. No plan and not possible to go outside the country unless evacuated by company. So far no evacuation plan, although company had asking the validity of our schengen Visa. Unfortunately expired.
Anyway, I'll prefer to stay here where we can conveniently lockdown ourself. Not sure if any better and safer place for this time.

 

[john madden]

In Australia. Classed as essential so go to the office in the city every day. I'm mid 60s so the young wife and daughter cooped up at home are freaking out. Still there's no traffic and the council has 5 buck a day parking or free if you can find an unoccupied metered spot on the street. Very quiet on the streets and all are keeping their distance. Boring on the weekends but!
.

 

[Dave70]

Due to business reasons, no choice but to be in Indonesia.

 

[waarmstrong]

Its kind of a meaningless choice of answers for us. We had hoped to return to Jakarta for the summer. Hope is one thing, the reality of travel during this pandemic is another. Its near impossible to fly anywhere these days, let alone 1/2 around the world. Getting a visa has become a crap shoot, as well.

 

[Puspawarna]

The question isn't really directed toward someone like me so I'm not voting in the poll - I'd already moved back to the US and I'm sheltering in place at my home on Hawai'i Island.

Had I been in living in Indonesia when this all started, I'd probably have been forced to go home to Hawai'i. In that alternate world, presumably I would have been in Jakarta with my husband, who was still living there as of March. His employer (a US consulting firm) directed all internationally-based employees to return to their original homes about 3 weeks ago.

Had I been living in Indonesia and free to choose, I'm not sure what I would have done. Most likely I would choose stay in Indonesia, but it would depend on circumstances. For example:

An American friend of mine, a teacher at a now-shuttered international school in Jakarta, is sheltering in place in Solo with her mid-70s Indonesian husband (they have a house and plan to retire there).

Her husband started experiencing a non-COVID 19 stomach illness right around the time this whole thing started. They weren't able to get helpful medical care in Solo or Jakarta and had just decided to go to Singapore when Singapore blocked people from flying in.

Now they are stuck in Solo, getting a lot of heart-breaking requests from local musician friends (who of course have no work right now) for financial help. Her elderly widowed dad is alone in the US and she's worried about him. And she's worried about her husband's ongoing GI problems, which are worsening and there is nothing they can do about.

I don't think she has the option to return to the US with her husband at this point (maybe she could have left earlier; her husband has a 5-year entry permit to the US). It would have been inconvenient, I'm sure, as she is busy teaching her students on line.

But, in her shoes, if I'd had the ability to return to the US at some point, and the predictive ability to see how things would play out, I would have left. (In reality, I probably would have stayed because, like her, I wouldn't have realized until it was too late that I'd be better off, for the sake of husband and father, to be in the US. (Yeah, I know the virus is overwhelming our ill-prepared American health care system - but her home town where her dad is and where they would have gone doesn't have a lot of cases yet, and her husband has previously gotten great medical care in the US thanks to her good medical insurance.)

I worry about my friend and her husband a lot now. Aside from his health issues, she's going to have more requests for financial help than she can handle. She's only a year from retirement herself, so saving are important.

 

[Helpful Herbert]

I think many on this board will be getting financial requests left right and centre over the next few weeks...

 

[Jaime C]

We spent 2 weeks at a hotel in Jakarta doing self isolation, and are now at our house in Bandung. We intend to stay here until things get back to normal.

We had originally planned to stay in Jakarta in late May when flying into Indonesia, and then head to Jogja and Solo for 10 days. I have no idea what will happen now.

Thankfully we have stocked up on basic food staples. Extra 20 liter bottles of water and an extra gas tank. My FIL needs some medications and other health items since he is wheelchair bound.