Escaping through the tunnel

The next day we got the information that the the city of Wulingyuan got locked down. We did hang out in the reception area of our hotel to wait for news what will happen next. On this day we had planned the trip to „The gate to heaven“ on Tianmen mountain near Zhangjiajie. One of the highlights but of course canceled. Everybody was trying to contact his travel agency but just limited news. Just after lunch we got informed by the hotel that a PCR test is scheduled for the full population of Wulingyuan. Luckily the testing place was next to the hotel. Took us around 2 hours to get it done. After further contact to our agency we could convince them to pick us up from the hotel. They asked not to check out of the hotel officially, we should not tell anybody and they asked us to sneak out of the hotel with our luggage. An unmarked van will pick us up from the road. The van took us on very busy road (a bit of travel panic around us) to the border of the city. There he dropped us and the agency told us on the phone that we should walk now through the 4km long tunnel to get to the other side of the tunnel. And we were not alone. Loads of people had the same idea. It did also show the absurdity of the regulations in China. City is locked down. No car is allowed to leave the city. Police is securing the borders. But pedestrians, bikes and motorbikes can cross. So after a once in a life time walk to the other side of the tunnel we had to walk another 1.5km till we reached our pickup van. Of course we got asked by many motorbike riders and taxis whether we want a lift for a lot of money. But we were too proud! The van driver from the agency dropped us at the airport. We immediately checked in with our green Hunan Health Car ode and passed security. As we rested in the little lounge of the airport our health code turned red. PANIC!
Now we were really lost. What should we do? We had a meal with another couple from Germany. They were with us at the hotel and also their code became red. We knew that we can’t board the plane with a red health code but we were desperate to fly back to Shanghai. We didn’t want to sleep at the airport and more likely (as it happened for the other couple) the local authorities would take you to a quarantine hotel in the city for a few days. So I still had a screenshot from the green Hunan Health Code. They checked every health code with a pen to see whether it’s a real one so they would have picked us up immediately. We waited in the economy lane. I watched the staff about their preciseness of work. And then I spotted the opportunity after all business passengers had boarded and the airline person was distracted. Junita and me did board and just showed very quickly our old green Health Code and we were through. Puh. But it was a tense waiting time in the aeroplane till we departed because we were not sure whether they would catch us retrospectively. But when we departed we experienced a deep relief.
But the next challenge was ahead of us. On arrival in Shanghai before we got to our luggage there was the next check point. They wanted to see again the Shanghai green Health Code and the Health Code of the area where we have been. Shanghai Health code was still green. Other one red. Again we had to use the old screenshot of the green one. We were in the slowly moving queue, around 4 men checked the codes. As soon we reached them did we show the green codes and rushed through before they were able to ask any question. Relieved and tired did we reach our flat at around 2.30 am. What a trip!!!Read more