Travel in the time of Corona

When the first wave of the corona pandemic hit India in March 2020 and its borders closed, a group of Aurovilians were suddenly exiled. They co-ordinated their return  by sharing information via a WhatsApp group named ‘Back to Auroville’. This WhatsApp group has grown to around a hundred people, and it now supports Aurovilians travelling abroad for family visits or visa runs.

With India preparing to open to tourists from mid-November onwards, Indian citizens, OICs (Overseas Citizens of India), and those with the official Auroville visa have been allowed to travel out and back on so-called ‘bubble routes’ with countries with which India has a reciprocal arrangement.

In the early 1970s, when there were fewer travel guides, travellers on ‘the India trail’ would share information on hostels’ notice boards, and sometimes sheets with shared information were available enroute. In his autobiography, Tony Wheeler, the founder of the Lonely Planet Guides, described his travel guides as a collation and development of those pieces of information. Something similar has been happening with this Auroville WhatsApp group; it’s a place where people ask questions and gather information for travelling in a time that has felt unfamiliar, daunting and at times bewildering due to the new Corona requirements.

There is a complex variety of regulations, depending on factors such as where you are travelling from or to, and what your vaccine status is. India’s corona status is assessed differently in different countries. Even within the EU, each country has different requirements for travellers to and from India. While all countries need travellers from India to take a PCR test before the flight, quarantine rules vary from country to country. Some nations, such as Spain and India, ask travellers to download an app with all their COVID test information on it. Sometimes information clashes. Lufthansa informed me, for instance, to register with the Indian embassy in Germany before my return flight from Frankfurt. However, after seeing the responses of other travellers in similar situations on the Auroville WhatsApp group, 

I realized this was no longer required. 

Other frequent questions asked on this forum were, when the government requires you to be tested 72 hours before, is it before the flight starts or before landing? Where can you get that test locally and how much does it cost? How to fill out the Air Suveida arrival form required by the Indian authorities?

The group helped some Aurovilians with all these questions, and forewarned them that that on arrival in India there would be queues for the PCR test.

To have a forum where any traveller could ask questions and receive answers was very supportive in this new world. I teased the stress of the unknown and helped flying become less anxiety-provoking. In its own way, the ‘Back to Auroville’ WhatsApp group is a fine example of community and of the Auroville unified connection reaching beyond our shores to support Aurovilians travelling out and returning home.