After a few days of exploring Ho Chi Minh City, which they loved much more than they expected, it was time to catch a bus north to a national park. It was only a three-hour journey, so they were surprised to discover that instead of traditional bus seats, their bus had loungers.
Even more surprising was that the loungers were long enough for them, especially considering they towered over the locals.
After exploring the park for two days, they caught another bus for Da Lat, a popular tourist destination where they rented the scooter. After a few days there, they realized that Bjarne needed to get his tourist visa extended and that would require taking a flight to Da Nang, the closest city where he could get his visa sorted. Ironically, that unexpected flight actually was a blessing in disguise as otherwise they wouldn’t have arrived there for another 1.5 weeks.
Things changed drastically after they arrived in Da Nang and they realized that the locals were now afraid of them because the first cases of coronavirus had been brought in by British backpackers. Soon I was frantically working on finding Ashlynn a flight home and was so thankful that she was already in a city with a major airport. After one night in an AirBnB, they realized that they were going to have to cut their trip short so they splashed out on a luxury hotel which had ridiculously low rates. They seemed to have the place to themselves as they didn’t see any other guests until they were checking out.
Their room rate came with foot massages, which they really enjoyed, and a visit to the spa.
On their final morning they ate breakfast in bed; Ashlynn was thrilled that they were delivered tofu and rice.
Plan A was for Ashlynn to fly home via Singapore and Bjarne to fly to Brisbane to deal with selling his car. After living together for four months, they were sad to say goodbye forever a few weeks earlier than they’d planned.
Originally Bjarne had planned to travel around Australia with his brother throughout the summer, but that clearly would not be happening. While in line at the airport, he found out he would have to quarantine in Australia for two weeks, so he scrambled to book a flight home to Berlin instead. (Luckily, he managed to sell his car a few months later without needing to go to Australia after all.)
