When the World2 Tour completed its first year, on April 08, 2020, I was uncomfortably inactive during a rather loose Lockdown, in Berlin. Upon its second anniversary, on April 08, 2021, I was similarly inactive, even more so, and even more uncomfortable, during a more strict quarantine, in Bangkok. Neither situation, of course, had been included in my original plans for the Tour. There is essentially no possibility that the Tour will still be underway when that date rolls around the next time. However, given the way the past fifteen months have unfolded for all of us, I should probably not be so sure about that. Accordingly, it might be prudent for me to examine the possibility of making advance arrangements to be inactive and uncomfortable next April in another capital city whose name begins with B, perhaps Bandar Seri Begawan, or Bogota.

By the time I arrived in Mombasa I was beginning to feel that it was time for me to move on from Africa, even though my Tour there this time around had been enjoyable and fruitful. One reason for that was that there were few possible destinations available for continuing forward. Tanzania was fully open, and just a short ride away, but would have been another revisit and, with its generally similar environment and culture, I was not very enthusiastic about going there this time. Additionally, if I did later move on from that country, I probably would have needed to return to Nairobi, which at the time had better outbound connections, and that would have required me to obtain another visa for Kenya. Instead, my interests were focused on trying to make my way to a county further east, hopefully eventually to one that was part of my original route plan for the Tour. As usual, that was not as simple as anyone would like. A few months earlier, some of the countries in that region had been making noises about potentially reopening in early 2021, but then most backed off from that idea once newer, more contagious, variants began to emerge. Deciding on the next destination was, therefore, not a straightforward process.

In keeping with my predilection for avoiding long segments of air travel, finding a location that could be reached by relatively short flights took precedence, but, as expected, that goal turned out to be generally unachievable. In 2018, as part of a personal business trip to the region, I left Africa using segments through Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Singapore, with the same intent of breaking up a long transoceanic flight into shorter flights, and with a few days spent at each stop. That strategy generally worked well in that case. This time my first idea was to repeat that route, at least for the first two stops, since both of those countries had recently publicly reopened, even though each would have been additional revisits. Seychelles had managed their response to the pandemic rather well, and their entry rules were not especially prohibitive. At the time, visitors were expected to quarantine in-house for ten days, but, supposedly, making special arrangements to visit selected places of interest was possible during that time. As I was only planning on spending two or three days there, that did not seem to be much of a hindrance for me. However, the single flight connecting Mahe and Colombo was still not operating at the time, so I had to scratch off that option.

Therefore, going directly to Sri Lanka seemed like the next best possibility. Getting there would still involve two rather long flight segments, totaling a slightly longer air-time than if I had been able to go via Seychelles, and since there was no available way to break that with an overnight layover I was resigned to going forward during a single, tiring day. Prior to that time, I had been to Sri Lanka twice. In so doing I had ridden across a good portion of that mid-sized island, visited all eight of the country’s World Heritage Sites, and seen a representative sampling of its bird life. Consequently, at the end of my second visit I felt that I had experienced everything that I had desired to see there, and expected that I would not return again. Nevertheless, a return was now in my plans and since, as is almost always the case, I had previously seen some, but not all, of the island’s birds, I planned on making an increase of my tally for the country my reason for going again.

Sri Lanka seemed to be very interested in restarting its hard-hit tourism sector, and had put in place some rather interesting policies to facilitate that goal, which were outlined on a Website titled HelloAgain. Visitors would need the now-standard negative covid test and would still be required to quarantine for fourteen days in a hotel selected from a list of approved locations. However, you would be allowed to move between various hotels during that period, so the entire length of time would not be so monotonous. People in quarantine were also able to visit a selection of the country’s major tourist sites, all of which I had already seen, by making use of something called a Tourist Bubble. I am not quite sure exactly what that meant, but I had visions of being led around Polonnaruva while inside of one of those giant, inflatable, plastic, human bubble balls.

As it turned out, I would not find out the what the details of that aspect really were. For, after applying for an online tourist visa, paying the thirty-six Dollar fee, and waiting the normal three-day processing time, my application was still listed as pending, a status that would never change. After a full week, and a few futile attempts to get any sort of clarification from Colombo, I surmised that the entire process had been put on hold, perhaps due to the deteriorating covid situation in neighboring India, but none of that information was made available on any publicly-accessible sites that I was aware of. Such examples of low competence from others often prompt me to give up on whatever I had been trying to do, and that was indeed what I did in that case.

This meant that I needed to scramble around to find a new Plan C destination, and there were increasingly fewer choices available. In the end, I settled on Thailand. This would mean another revisit for me, and a significantly longer air transfer, but Thailand is, in general, an easy country to tour through, and held out some interesting possibilities for onward movement. So I overlooked the negatives, and began the process. And what a process it was! Thailand has a reputation for being a real stickler when it comes to paperwork, and the pandemic has pushed that to a whole new level. Something like seven pieces of documentation were eventually required, including another covid test (seventy Dollars for that, plus sixty for a taxi across Nairobi to the lab,) a pre-paid insurance policy obtained even before the application was submitted (one hundred seventy-five,) a pre-paid booking for fifteen nights in a special quarantine hotel (one thousand three hundred,) a few general waivers and forms, and a Fit-to-fly certificate.

The final item was ostensibly a note from a doctor, signed two days before the flight, stating that the traveler was not currently presenting any covid symptoms. I actually had difficulty in obtaining that document, though not for reasons to do with covid, which nearly derailed the entire process, potentially leading to a waste of all the expenses mentioned above. That was actually a story that might be of use to others who are participants in similar endurance activities, but I will defer any discussion of that topic until later, perhaps when the tour is complete. Suffice to say that I was fortunate that the place where I was staying near the Nairobi airport was located on a road that also housed a modern hospital and about a dozen small health clinics, so I was able to find a doctor who would sign the certificate without asking too many questions.

The flight options from Nairobi to Bangkok were never going to be great, but I reluctantly settled on an Emirates flight with a five-hour midnight layover in Dubai. There are two cities in the World that I have vowed to never set foot in, one is Las Vegas, and then there is Dubai. As you might expect, if you have read some of my other writings, the reason for that is that both places epitomize catastrophically bad urban design, so why would I ever want to go to either place? However, in this case I bent the rules, since a handful of hours in the middle of the night, barely counts as a visit to a certain place. I will say that, as airlines go, Emirates did seem to have their act together. Both aircraft were noticeably more comfortable in Economy than others I have been forced to use previously, but even more appreciated was that the ticket price included two 23-kg checked bags. My standard load of two bags—the two panniers joined together into one, and the bike in its Tyvek bag—always weigh nineteen kilograms each. That meant there were no baggage charges, and no @*!&$^*# bike surcharge. Ahhh… The gate agent in Nairobi did give me the idiotic Did you deflate the tires? routine, but, fortunately, she believed me when I lied and said that I had. I will also concede that, as a transit airport, Dubai is a fairly good option, especially because all of the restaurants and shops stay open throughout the night, a circumstance that other major airports could definitely learn from. However, even at night, the approach and departure revealed the city to be just as unappealing as I expected, nothing but skyscrapers encircled by expressways.

Then, early the following morning, I arrived in Bangkok. Even after perhaps just an hour, or so, of sleep along the way, Jet Lag would not be a concern, because up next was my fourteen day quarantine, when time would become irrelevant. I had been willing to go through a quarantine once or twice before during the Tour, but, for various reasons, that never happened. However, I assumed that I could not avoid doing so forever. Thailand had fared relatively well in the pandemic so far, probably primarily because they took action very early on. Now, when they are anxious to receive visitors again, their entry policies are probably a little stricter than they really need to be. Everyone from my flight was led a considerable distance through the terminal to the immigration section, where an array of widely-spaced chairs were waiting in the middle of the hall. Agents in full PPE came around to check body temperatures, and to ensure that everyone had hard-copy printouts of all the required documents. Fortunately, I had everything in order, and I think everyone else around me did, too. I don’t know what would have happened if someone was missing some documents, but I assume it wouldn’t have been pleasant. Overall, however, the process appeared to be reasonably well organized, and getting through immigration, baggage claim, and customs didn’t seem to take that much longer than usual.

That is when the quarantine really began. Another PPE person met every passenger and placed each one individually into a vehicle with a sealed-off passenger seat waiting to take them to their pre-arranged quarantine hotel. I chuckled a little as the driver spritzed disinfectant all over my bike bag. The costs for the quarantine included two covid tests, one upon check-in (negative) and the second on the penultimate day (also negative.) After the initial sampling I was escorted to my room, the door was closed, and that was that. Some of the other quarantine people were allowed to sit outside, in the tiny garden adjacent to the small, closed-off pool, but Kenya was considered to be an elevated risk country, so I could not leave my room at all. Fortunately, I chose a reasonably good location for my incarceration. In addition to being the option located farthest west in the city, to better facilitate my eventual departure, the room was quite comfortable, the wi-fi was good, and there were a few international news channels on cable.

None of those things really made the time pass any more quickly, however, and the period soon fell into a predictable routine: reporting my body temperature twice daily, and waiting for meals to be delivered. The quarantine package included three meals per day, which were left outside the door. For extra charges, room service could be ordered from the hotel restaurant, which I only did twice, but deliveries from stores or other restaurants were not permitted. For the included meals three options were available for each meal, usually a mix of simple Thai dishes and basic western fare. They were generally tasty enough, but typically resembled larger versions of airplane meals, and were served in copious amounts of plastic packaging, all of which was to be sent off somewhere as biohazard waste.

By the time the first week had passed, it had been over a month since I had done any cycling at all, between the all of the preliminary arrangements and the quarantine. Related to the issue I alluded to above, in Nairobi, the long period of inactivity was really starting to have negative effects on my physical condition. The hotel did have a stationary bike for rent, which could be brought to the room, but someone else had it when I arrived, so I couldn’t make use of that until the second week. I really dislike stationary bikes. However, it did help me out somewhat, and at least gave me something else to do. My only other tasks were catching up on my writing and leisurely reassembling the bike (a package of replacement parts did not arrive on time, so unfortunately I couldn’t install those until later.) None of that made the days go by any more rapidly, and eventually I had grown very tired of seeing only the view shown below.

Then, one day, my time was up. Finally. The second covid test came back negative on the fourteenth day. I had hopes that I could slip out for a walk that evening, but, no. I was not released until the following morning. At that time I was distinctly interested in getting out of the city as rapidly as possible, though, in reality, the long layoff disrupted that intention as well. Nevertheless, I had actually made it to Asia, though to an entirely different part of the continent relative to where I had originally planned. It seems that, like the old adage that notes that all of the great composers of the Classical Period created precisely nine symphonies during their careers, all of my Grand Tours must involve cycling on five continents. Perhaps this past year was just fate’s way of making that happen, after all.