Escaping Hong Kong… Again | The Corona Diary Part 3
By: Joschua Mueller
Tags: Malaysia, Hong Kong, Covid 19, Kuala Lumpur, Coronavirus

Headed to Malaysia

Great. After a semester of violent protests and online learning, it looked like this virus was going to try and mess with my uni life once again. At this point, it was clear that classes would be held online once more and many of my classmates decided not to return from overseas. Naturally, the prospect of living on a deserted campus for a whole semester wasn’t the most appealing notion, causing us to re-evaluate our options (my protest-induced empty campus experience a few months prior — about which I also wrote a story —left a rather sour aftertaste).

Some of my friends didn’t faff around much and quickly decided this would be the perfect opportunity to travel around Asia, starting with Singapore. After much back and forth, my boyfriend and I decided we would join the team for two weeks in Kuala Lumpur. It would be an affordable mini-vacation and allow us to take our minds off the pandemic for a bit.

As bizarre as it was, we found ourselves fleeing to a warm South East Asian country two semesters in a row (in fall of 2019, we escaped the Hong Kong protests by flying to Phuket for two weeks).

Once again, I boarded a plane in a “high-risk region”, only to arrive in a safer place to rip the mask off my face and return to relative normality. No panic buying, no mask-wearing and no worries about getting sick; it was bliss. Major spoiler: Malaysia was just days away from getting acquainted with a certain Miss Corona.

The once-bustling airport terminal at HKG almost completely deserted

Almost all Hong Kong -registered aircraft grounded indefinitely at Hong Kong Int’l Airport

While disease prevention efforts were stepped up, daily life remained unchanged. We spent the first week of our stay exploring KL’s city, gasping at the Petronas Twin Towers and climbing up the colourful stairs to the Batu caves. I particularly enjoyed the accessibility to donut stores such as Donkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kreme. But I digress.

Outdoor sink to wash your hands

As it turns out, however, as easy as it was for us to enter the country, those infected with the virus similarly had little obstacles in their way of getting in. It wasn’t long until there was talk of government restrictions. Within a few days, various facilities closed down and mask-wearing became commonplace just like in Beijing and Hong Kong.

Eventually, only partially into the Asia trip, our friends decided to go back to Hong Kong. But because my boyfriend and I didn’t want to waste our flight tickets, we decided to wait just another week before heading home. In retrospect, we probably shouldn’t have.

So there we were, doing our lectures online, barely leaving the Airbnb and simply waiting for our departure day. Suddenly, on a day’s notice, the government announced a tough lockdown, or as they called it “movement restriction order”. People were pretty much only allowed out for grocery shopping, and everything from offices to restaurants was shut.

Almost as expected, panic-buying ensued. Why people think they must stock up a year’s worth of food and toilet paper supplies, knowing that supermarkets won’t actually be closing escapes me until today.

Sliced bread? No chance.

Panic-buying in Kuala Lumpur