After spending more than 1,000 days traveling around the world on his motorbike, Tran Dang Dang Khoa returned to Vietnam on Tuesday, having cut his trip short due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Noi Bai International Airport’s authority told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday that flight SA2986 carrying Khoa and other passengers from South Africa had landed in Hanoi at 7:00 am the same day.

All 69 passengers and crew members on board were transferred to quarantine centers in the northern province of Hung Yen, about 60 kilometers from Hanoi, to prevent spreading COVID-19 into the community.

Khoa, 33, started his three-year journey around the world on his beloved motorcycle on June 1, 2017.

When he landed at Noi Bai on Tuesday, he had gone 1,110 days since leaving home.

For Khoa, he felt surprised and considered himself lucky to be able to take the flight back to Vietnam amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He had thought he would be stranded in Mozambique until the end of the year because of travel restrictions.

“The 1,110th day, the day of returning to my home country, is very near after so many overwhelmingly heart-touching stories. Thank you for everything,” he wrote on social media on Monday.

Khoa said it took him by surprise when he got a phone call from the Vietnamese Embassy in Mozambique informing him that there would be a flight repatriating some Vietnamese citizens from Africa.

Knowing there was a chance, Khoa applied for the repatriation flight with over 30 other people also stranded in Mozambique.

Everything was a race against the clock. After securing their seats on the flight, Khoa and other Vietnamese passengers were in a rush to gather up at the Mozambican capital city of Maputo before traveling by road to South Africa, where they would board their flight.

Thai passengers accounted for half of the passengers on the flight, who would take a connecting flight to Bangkok, Thailand after landing in Hanoi.

The Mekong Delta-born traveler expressed his gratitude to Vietnamese Ambassador to Mozambique Le Huy Hoang and other embassy staff members as well as the Vietnamese Embassy in South Africa for their devoted support.

To help them, the diplomatic officials had to race against the clock as well, according to Khoa.

“It's awesome and extremely emotional,” Khoa wrote.

“[It was already a surprise that] my journey had to come to a stop unexpectedly because of the pandemic, but the return [to Vietnam] was an even bigger surprise.”

Khoa’s inspirational journey with the starting point at Moc Bai International Border Gate in the southern province of Tay Ninh was reported on Tuoi Tre News in 2017 and 2019.

He was also on the cover of the Tuoi Tre daily’s special issue for the 2018 Lunar New Year.

Khoa has become a distinguished example for a positive, dynamic generation of young Vietnamese, having set foot on all of the world’s continents, including Antarctica.

The Vietnamese globetrotter will have a lot of time to tell stories about the destinations he visited and the people he met over 1,000 days traveling across the world by motorbike.

Had it not been for the COVID-19 pandemic, Khoa would have planned to explore the entirety of Africa then come back to re-discover Asia before riding home to Vietnam on his trusted bike.

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