What should we do when the US State Departments issues a Level 4 Global Health Advisory? Ignore it? Heed it?
It’s been hard to ignore the decreasing number of tourists in Hanoi. The streets are becoming more and more empty.
Hanoi
Last week the United States State Department issued a level 4 Global Health Advisory. The notification said “The Department of State advises U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19. In countries where commercial departure options remain available, U.S. citizens who live in the United States should arrange for immediate return to the United States, unless they are prepared to remain abroad for an indefinite period.”
Level 4 Global Health Advisory
Mind you, we didn’t personally receive the Level 4 Global Health Advisory notification from the State Department. Lord forbid that the State Department use technology to communicate with travelers. Oh wait, we did sign up for that nifty Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). What’s that? “The Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) is a free service to allow U.S. citizens and nationals traveling and living abroad to enroll their trip with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.” Even though we’ve signed up, given them all our personal details, and provided a detailed travel itinerary, we never heard a peep from either the State Department directly or via the STEP application we installed on our phones.
US State Department: We’re not alone in our frustration
We’ve seen news stories about other travelers that are looking to the State Department for help and hearing crickets. We mentioned last week that we were seeking assistance from the US Embassy in Hanoi and only receiving auto generated form letters in response.
Even though we’ve paid attention to the State Department Website, we missed the initial Level 4 Global Health Advisory release notification. What we did notice was that on Thursday morning there were weekend flights with many available seats. Thursday evening there were only a few flights and not so many seats left. Something seemed amiss up so we started checking the news and found out about the notification.
The exact phrase “arrange for immediate return to the United States, unless they are prepared to remain abroad for an indefinite period” caught our immediate attention.
We’d been waffling about returning to the US. As the days had ticked by with more and more business closing in Hanoi we argued more and more about staying or going. Was it better to hunker down and ride out the storm or better to return to the United States?
One item was hard to ignore though, Hanoi was closing up shop, and closing it up fast.
A closed Hotel 
Closure notification in French 
Covering the furiture 
No Entry
We wanted to stay, but we also wanted to leave. Leaving somehow epitomizes the end of our dream for this two year gap. There were more negatives to returning that staying. If we returned what were we going to do? We sold our house and cars. We have no home to go to. As I mentioned previously, we’re in the middle of our two year planned “gap year”. What does it mean to “go home”? Go home to what?
A deteriorating situation in the Level 4 global advisory
As we debated returning to the United Status versus staying in Vietnam it was hard to miss the new law that mandated face masks must be worn in public. There are so many positive aspects to how Vietnam is handling the virus out break that just makes the United Status look like a developing country. Strange to write that.
Elbows on elevator buttons 
Rain and mask = foggy glasses
We saw hand sanitizer “stations” at all grocery stores and most restaurants. Free. Like, use it on your hands before you enter the establishment. We had our body temperatures taken at several restaurants and at our hotel. It’s just a completely different level of seriousness than what we were witnessing on the news from the United States.
Motor bikes without riders 
Reduction in services
As we wandered through our section of town, day by day, sometimes hour by hour, there were less and less shops open. We saw more and more shuttered businesses. We saw signs in stores, in English, telling us that no foreigners were allowed.
Be nice to the tourists!
The Prime minister issued a letter that was distributed reminding the businesses that they needed to follow the the provisions of the tourism law on non-discrimination of treatment against tourists. We certainly experienced discrimination, but, we kind of understood its roots.
Reading the news in Vietnam was interesting. There was a great deal of attention to the cases of the virus being brought into the country via tourists, but not much discussion of the virus being brought back into Vietnam by Vietnamese.
Empty path near lake Hoan Kiem Lake 
Taking care of business
Walking through the streets was interesting. There were certainly other tourists still present, but, no where near the amount of people that were there when we arrived a few weeks ago. I would hazard a guess of a tourist reduction of 90-95% since we arrived nine days ago.
Making a decision; staying or going
Ultimately we decided that we’d return to the United States and ride out the Corona storm in Colorado near my parents and sister. The Level 4 Global Health Advisory was the one item that really tipped the scales in favor of our returning to the United States.
Vietnam has (so far) seemed to be on top of the virus situation. As I mentioned in a previous post it certainly seems like Vietnam is on top of their game in preparing for the virus situation becoming worse. The lack of food hoarding, wide spread use of preventative measures and “calm” attitude were greatly appealing.
The thought of being stranded in Vietnam, far from home, was less appealing. Our Blue Cross Health Insurance isn’t worth beans in South East Asia. Our new nifty Nomadic Health Plan doesn’t cover pandemics.
The Vietnam department of health had specified last week that testing for the Coronavirus is free, for everyone, including tourists. Treatment for those infected with the Coronavirus will not be free for foreigners.
Out of an abundance of caution mixed together with a great deal of trepidation concerning health care, we’ll return to the United States.
Pacific Crest Trail-
Even as we’ve been watching the deteriorating situation around the world as the virus spreads, we’ve been monitoring the situation with the Pacific Crest Trail. We’re planning to return to the trail in late July to complete our Thru-hike. We kind of figured that if we came back prior to July due to the virus we could head to Colorado or Arizona and do some backpacking and then begin the PCT in late July.
There’s been a lot of online chatter concerning thru-hikers hitting the trail. Go hike? Stay at home? The chatter seemed extremely contentious at times. I do understand the hikers frustration. It can take years of planning to prepare for a thru-hike. (Not that we did!)
We saw the Appalachian Trail Conservancy request that thru-hikers cancel their hikes this year and stay off the trail. The Continental Divide Trail didn’t exactly close itself down, but they came close in their press release.
What do the PCT trail towns have to say?
PCT trail towns have started closing down and asking for thru-hikers to not come into town. Small trail towns are concerned that a hiker will bring the virus into a small town that has scant resources.
Towns at the beginning of the trail are asking hikers to skip the trail this year. Towns in the Sierra mountains are asking the same. The towns near the beginning of the hike closing up shop doesn’t surprise me, hikers are starting on the trail right now and possibly unknowingly carrying the virus. The mountain town in the Sierra caught my attention; hikers won’t reach it for several months. June’ish. Wow.
What does the PCTA have to say?
It was a surprise, that wasn’t really a surprise. It seemed as if all the writing was on the wall for the PCTA to engage and make a formal request.
It’s a interesting situation when hikers begin debating the legality of the situation. The PCTA does issue permits to hike the trail, but the forest services actually control the trails. Some of the hikers were grousing that the PCTA had no authority, etc. infinitum.
While the trails themselves can be very isolated, the trails lead into small mountain or desert towns.
The trail towns can be very isolated. Hikers coming into town will bring whatever “gunk” we happen to be carrying at the time. We may even unknowingly be carrying our illness into towns.
So our plans to return to the United States and bang out the last six hundred miles of the trail appear to be up in smoke. We’re not alone. It’s happening to lots of other hikers too.
Conclusion What do we do about the level 4 global advisory?
We left Vietnam and returned to the United States. We’re sad to be back in the US. We’re glad to be back in the US. We have no idea what our future looks like. All plans have been scrubbed and we’re unsure of everything.
Should we find jobs and end the two year “gap year”? Forge ahead and return to Vietnam later in the year when the CoronaVirus isn’t a huge deal? Return to the Pacific North West and try to rebuild our lives there?
We have no answers, but we have so many questions. Maybe that’s exactly like everyone else at this precise moment in time.
Thanks for following our journey. A year ago today, right about the time this post publishes, we were jammed in the back of someones car headed for the beginning of our PCT hike.
Welcome back! I hate that this pandemic has wrecked your lives for the time being, and love the irony that you evacuated Hanoi in a crisis.
Toilet paper, all you need is toilet paper… Live it up and make the most of living in the moment and weather the storm.
Thanks! We tried to order toilet paper online without much success, but we haven’t tried that hard yet. We have enough to last for another week or so.
We’re up to speed on the use of “bum guns” from both Thailand and Vietnam, so perhaps I’ll get creative with the plumbing during all our free time.
That would certainly reduce our toilet paper requirements.
Leaving Hanoi was a very strange experience. One of the odder moments was ordering lunch at the nearly completely empty Hanoi airport. A simple noodle dish, plus a salad and beer was $20. WHAT? We had become accustomed to our $6 combined dinner and drinks tabs. It was a rude awakening of our return to higher costs.
Glad you’re “home” even though things here aren’t better than anywhere else in the world. Maybe drive the van someplace pretty and hunker down?
We were out walking earlier today discussing taking the van back out for a few excursions and some backpacking once the “stay at home” orders are lifted in Colorado.
Largely mindless, media-driven overreaction.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/epidemiologist-behind-highly-cited-coronavirus-model-admits-he-was-wrong-drastically-revises-model?utm_source=63red.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=63red
The bigger the “crisis” the more media consumption. The more media consumption the more $ flow towards media. And that is ignoring the opportunities the “crisis” provides to slam your political opponents.
Those in charge never get in trouble for being too draconian in response to a crisis. So what have we lost in the overreaction to this crisis? Jobs lost, lives destroyed, huge unaccountable monies spent…all in pursuit (and reaction to) of another self-important media moment.
Not to minimize the risk…clearly there is a substantial risk to a defined population. But instead of isolating those truly at risk instead we isolated virtually everyone.
“We had to destroy the village in order to save the village“
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. It’s difficulty to know who has the correct model and who has the incorrect model. Media hype certainly plays into the whole scenario. Hopefully it’s all media hype and life will return to normal sooner rather than later.
Welcome back. Tough decisions for many but being covered by health insurance and being near family will help you weather the current storm.
That was our thinking too. We’re watching the SE Asia news and it seems like it’s becoming exponentially more difficult for travelers to leave this week as countries continue to close their borders and international flights are dwindling.
Uncertainty abounds and we are all aware of it increasingly more every day we have to stay home etc. Returning from Vietnam and staying someplace and on and on is pure uncertainty and you 2 are so amazing at figuring each detail out and moving forward certain or not. Congratulations on making a big decision to travel backwards.Did you sell the big live in van?
Nope, we still have the van, affectionately given the trail name of the “shagg’n wagon” by other thru-hikers last year. We just pulled the van out of storage. Depending on how this all plays out, we may head for the hills once the “shelter in place” is lifted for a bit of back country backpacking.