My family and I are 9 months into a 14 month RTW trip, and are currently stuck in Uzbekistan, after the government cancelled all flights in and out of the country (foreigners are allowed to leave, but there are no flights for us to leave on). We were in Bukhara when we woke up to this news on March 16, so couldn't make it to Tashkent in time for any of the final flights out. Two of us are dual US/Australian citizens and one is a US citizen, so we are in contact with the US embassy and the British Embassy (who are looking after Aussies as there is no Aussie embassy here) who are supposedly coordinating with the Uzbek government on charter flights to get foreigners out.

Although we live in the US, we would like to go to Australia where we have a house and ride things out there, as our current health insurance does not cover us in the US (and the news about the US response does not exactly inspire confidence). Hopefully we'll be able to get on a charter flight to some hub where we can get on a flight to Australia before the end of the month when it looks like flight availability will pretty much dwindle to nothing.

The Uzbek government has extended permission to stay in the country for all foreign tourists until April 10, presumably would extend further if they don't organize flights (least they could do when it's their decision that has us stuck here). We did hear at our hostel about a traveler from the Netherlands who went to the airport yesterday and talked his way onto a flight to Moscow that was transiting Tashkent, but that's not the kind of punt I'm willing to take with my family.

Wow, I haven't posted for a while, my Programs list is horribly out of date.

Would rather be stuck in SIN than TPE anyways .

Where'd he end up though, hope not sent back to france!

OP, please do let us know what you are told if you do this. I'm very curious as I'm in the same situation myself.

I plan on applying for an EP while I'm here which hopefully I can get before the 90 days hit.

I run a company. I have the means to move my company to Singapore. SG is a pretty business friendly place it seems, so hopefully I can go through that process without too much difficulty.

Base level costs for this would be $10k or so in admin fees, plus paying myself SG$7000 in local salary on an ongoing basis. I can do this, I think.

(Note � just started looking into this, so I may be off, but I'm optimistic.)

Checking Flighradar24, non-cancelled departures were indeed only to domestic destinations, SVO, and Sharm El Sheikh. The latter one is probably to evacuate stranded Uzbeks from Egypt.

If you're feeling a bit adventuresome, the overland borders are probably still open, so you can go to Kyrgyzstan, and from there fly to IST for example. You can even go overland farther to China, but you may not be able to obtain visa to enter.

if your employer is not in Malaysia, and you work (even remotely) in Malaysia, you may be breaking the law in Malaysia, because you don't have a work permit there. Most likely you are on a tourist visa which prohibits any work/business related activities in Malaysia. So, good luck.

Call 6391 6100 and ask ICA for advice.

Kyrgystan is not allowing foreigners to enter the country, all of Central Asia is locking down.

It looks like Uzbek Air will run a flight on Saturday to Delhi, where it looks like we can transfer to Singapore Air and get to Brisbane via SIN.

The other possibility is a charter to Tokyo on March 31, April 1 or April 2 which I guess will be Plan B if the Delhi flight doesn't work out, but it will probably be harder to get flights back to Australia by then.

Any thoughts/advice welcome.

You have probably considered this, but what Visa (if any) does India require for transit and are they still issuing it? I think they canceled all tourist visa recently.

I agree that waiting for the Tokyo flight is risky. Qantas is shutting down all international flights late March.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/qantas-a...tional-flights

Good luck!

You can't apply for EP (if you meant Employment Pass). Only employer can do.
Secondly, if candidate's salary is less than $14000/mo employer can apply to EP only after denying all local citizen and PR applicant and provide explanation why local candidate was denied.
Thirdly, current processing time of EP is 6-8 weeks.

OK, in the light of the additional information. As I said, only employer can apply for EP and employer needs to be Singapore registered company. You can't register company and then employ yourself there - this does not work. Instead you need to have EntryPass which is entrepreneur type work visa. However EntryPass comes with much more requirements.

My suggestion - read thoroughly MoM website and it probably worth to pay for 1h consultation to someone who specializes in local labor/employment law.

Thanks. India (ordinarily at least) doesn't require a transit visa if you don't leave the transit area and your connection is less than 24 hours. I have an email in to the Indian Embassy here to confirm that is still the case.

This leads to the next issue of luggage. If Uzbek Air can't interline our bags to Singapore, then we'll have about 8 hours to figure out how to deal with that before our connecting flight. Worst case, we have to leave our checked bags in Delhi. It's only stuff, I guess. I'd hate to lose the really sweet handmade kitchen knife we bought in Bukhara, but probably best not to try and carry that on.

Unfortunately, even Cebu is also on lockdown, so I can't go to Manila nor Cebu if domestic flights are currently suspended. I have no choice but to wait until April.

Can you send stuff you really care and carry-on home via a FedEx/UPS and abandon/donate the rest that doesn�t fit in carry-on?