Great Fun in Crete! - 01/06/06

Hi all,

Sorry for the long hiatus between this and the previous segment of my travellogue. Have been so busy diving everyday and the nearest Internet cafe is rather inaccessible by foot so have to do this after having just arrived in Santorini. =)

My experience of Crete this time is vastly different from what I saw in Iraklio (capital of Crete) and Hania (nice quaint little town with a Venetian lighthouse and Ottoman mosque) two years ago. I was staying in this sleepy town called Anissaras where the Coral Diving Centre is. Instead of just being another place where people go there to dive and then go off afterwards to do their own thing, this place is really friendly wtih everyone sitting down for a beer or frappe (ice coffee) after each dive and chat about everything and anything. Problem is that everyone here speaks German. All the season workers, be they German, Austrian, Greek or Italian speak German. And poor me feels so handicapped sometimes since I am not clued into their insider jokes and I feel sorry for them when they have to accomodate me sometimes when they speak in English. I am quite convinced that German is one of those languages I have to pick up at a basic level at least, if only to facilitate my travel in Europe!

It was great fun every nite as the only thing I look forward to after a long hard day of diving is to enjoy the great food in Crete! Everywhere along the coast is a potential chillout spot, with great Greek music playing in the background, the setting sun behind the mountains providing the perfect backdrop to serenading your significant other, should you wish to do so. =)

Of course, I was there with a bunch of friends from different countries (kinda like UN) - Belgian, Senegal, Austrian, Italian and me. You just cannot imagine the kind of ruckus that we kicked up when we eat and drink cos it is just so fun to have that international interaction and understanding the peculiarities of each other's culture. There was this one nite in Iraklio where we went to a little quiet Greek taverna and we started toasting each other in Chinese ("Kan Bei"). Everyone was so tickled by this as they pronounce it as ("Can't Pay"). So now quite a few Greeks in the local pubs and certainly the entire diving centre always toast in Chinese. =) And we were making all these silly jokes about the English and American tourists and there was this English family who looked on at our motley bunch and just wondered how we can be so loud and "rude" by making these remarks. (And to think that we were only drinking coke, no alcohol!)

There was also this one nite when a French diver just completed his Open Water Course and he got the entire diving centre to come together for a BBQ in the evening. The music blaring from the laptop speakers, against the gentle waves of the Cretan sea, the free flow of rakis, vodkas and Mythos (greek beer) certainly created quite a boisterous mood. It is simply too eventful to describe the feeling in its entirety.

The few towns towards the eastern part of Crete (Anissaras, Hersonisos, Stalis, Malia, etc) are dominated by all the European tourists (mainly German, English, Dutch). I seem to be the only Chinese here (except for those guys working at the Chinese restaurtants). You guys might want to consider coming here and just hangout before these few towns are invaded by the Chinese and Japanese package holiday tourists (who tend to cluster in Iraklio and Hania).

Anyways, that is all for now. I am going to have my lunch and explore the volcanic calderas in Santorini and regale you with more interesting tales (hopefully!).

Laterz!