Ithaki, Greece - what's open in the off season?

As I walk up the hill and away from Vathi, I look down over the bay and there’s an eagle. It glides a full circle of the bay, looking for fish and thermals and vanishes out of sight. A moment later a car passes, and without any indication from me, stops and picks me up. He drives me to the ferry port. As we reach the crest of the hill the eagle is sitting on top of a cypress tree, at the site of Odysseus’ Palace, looking at us. I defy augury… but…

This has been an extraordinary auspicious stay in a beautiful place. There's trouble beneath the surface, but these are good people and they are as hospitable as they can be. And visitors are their main source of income. In case you’re travelling round that area and happen on this blog, I’m just going to pop in a few recommendations of places that are open in the off-season. They would welcome people at this time of year, even if the tourist machine is not in gear right now.

You’ll need Alpha Car Rental, in Vathi, easy to find behind the road with the 2 banks, if you haven’t brought your own wheels. He’s closed 2-5 every day for siesta and currently only operates 1 car in the off season, so it might be wise to book so he can sort out insurance for more if need be. Nico, a friendly South African expat runs it. Hitchhiking is an option in a pinch, as most of the roads only have 1 destination. I managed it fine for 2 days. But it would stop being an option if everybody did it. The schoolbus leaves Vathi shortly after 7am as I remember, and then again at 2pm for certain. It goes all the way to Kioni stopping along the way. But there is no bus back after it. The driver tends to charge 1.50 no matter how far you’re going. Nobody rents scooters in the off season.

I stayed at Grivas Gerasimos. They were clean rooms, a little way from the centre, overlooking the harbour. I was in half of a twin rather than a double. It was very reasonable though. This website probably has a good number of reasonable ones. At this time of year everyone has rooms that they want to fill, the whole island is full of them. If you want something more plush I reckon go to Kioni, but you’ll need a car if you do that.

There was one easy place for meat in Vathi. There's no menu, so check the prices before you order. In Stavros is a very touristy looking place called Ithaki Grill. It’s not cheap and the food will be from the freezer at this time of year but it's still very good. The guy was surprised to see me, and he and his wife had a massive argument about the fact that he’d given me a discount. Still, the tourist menu is marked up a lot, so it’s worth asking and risking her wrath. But make sure you get an apartment with cooking facilities or you’ll regret it. And there are no menus at this time of year so do ask the price, in bars as well – once you’ve eaten it or drunk it you can’t negotiate if they ask for way too much. The best food suppliers tend to drive around – the fish guy sells his catch in midmorning in Vathi outside the banks, and there’s a vegetable guy I came upon in Kioni who sold me the best orange I’ve ever had, and some good broccoli too.

The language barrier is an issue. English is a school subject, but often people clam up when they have to speak it. They can communicate perfectly well in it, but it’s that thing of trying to get it right rather than just said. I wish that I had boned up on some greek, but it was all too last minute. And being the only foreigner in town meant that any conversations I joined instantly became awkward and stilted as people accommodated to me. Being a tourist is one thing, being the only tourist is another, being a broke tourist? I felt like people were wondering what the heck I was for. Broke tourist? A truck without cargo, taking up space and bringing nothing. Right now, the aesthetic of sharing what a beautiful place they live in is much overtaken by the brass tacks of getting as many euros in the bag as possible. It's right next to Kefalonia, and let's face it, Homer is a good deal better than Louis de Bernieres. I am surprised there were not more people there. I arrived in Athens and the whole place is rammerjammed with Americans.

GETTING THERE: Is pretty easy from the airport. Regular buses run from the airport to Kifissos station - x94 as I remember, but not hard to find. A ticket was 5 euro. I expect there is a cheaper way, but they don't want you to find it. From Kifissos you're looking at around 20 euro and a 3 hour bus journey to Patra, and from there there are 2 ferries a day - or sometimes, like on Saturday, just 1. The ferry is about 4 hours and is anything from 10 to 18 euro depending on who you ask. A lot of it is booked by agents and resold. When you land in Vathi you don't have to be a mule like me and walk up the hill. There are always taxis to meet the ferries. And I expect they're pretty reasonable.

Never anything can be amiss - A play in Ithaca

Last night I went to the cultural centre in Ithaca to see the dress rehearsal of an amateur show. The cultural centre is opposite the KKE office, and directly outside the door there is a plaque commemorating Byron’s visit to the island. Byron gave a great deal of money and his life for the Greek revolution that won them Independence from the Ottomans. The story goes that he arrived from the boat in a suit of armour, just for the hell of it, and got himself backlit as he went down the gangplank. His money was certainly welcome, and to give him credit he was passionate about it. He unfortunately fell sick and was bled to death by doctors trying to cure him.

I was not expecting to be able to make much of the play. And my presence in the hall was not entirely welcome – one of the actors bristled aggression towards me as he came on stage to rehearse his opening number. He strode across the stage, leading from his pelvis, mobile knees, fag in his mouth, and made a fist at me. I make out something a bit like “Inglesi” being used a few times in heated muffled discussions with the director. Nobody addressed me directly which is a shame as I would have liked to have let them know that I was not there in any way to make judgements. And that I would have been happy to leave if I was asked to, without questions. Although I wasn’t going to go unless asked. There were a fair few other people in the room watching – Tommy described it as a “general”, and I get the sense that rehearsals are always thrown open for the last week. I think his issue was just that I couldn’t speak Greek.

Some things never change about rehearsals – actors were late, the director was growing more and more frustrated, and an eight o’clock start time slowly melted into 9.30pm once all makeup was applied. The play itself appeared to be a political piece, possibly written in the early 1900’s, and dealing with a country that has got itself into dire straits – with an unlikely love story thrown in for good measure. And lots of great live music and songs – one sad song in particular was terrifically resonant. There is something extraordinary about watching a group like that – about 14 actors of all shapes, sizes, voices and ages – all singing in their own raw voices, right in front of you. To a band that included a brilliant balalaika player. It felt like the company was united in a way of thinking, and not putting this on as tonic for someone’s bad ego, as is often the case of amateur shows in England. It felt like this was motivated by a message, and by passion. And refreshingly, nobody was afraid to speak on stage. I wish I knew the name of the play – all I know is the director’s name – Pericles. It chimed to me with all the KKE stuff that I have been seeing around the island. I am leaving Ithaca thinking that – certainly in this pocket of it – Greece is close to revolution. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out over the next few years. Perhaps I need to get a suit of armour and reappear in Ithaca to support them. Although keep those bloody leeches away from me.

Priest vs Goats

After going on about the climate yesterday, the fates have clearly decided to throw me a curveball. The clouds descended this morning and stayed down all day. Miserable cold windy rainy wet day. But I’ve got a hire car and I’m not afraid to use it. Well, maybe a little bit. This morning I headed up to Exoggi – roughly translated that means The end of the earth. It’s an isolated little town right at the top of Mount Neriton, which is the highest peak on this island.

The road up was wet and visibility was down to about 3 foot in front of the car, which would have been okay if parts of the road hadn’t fallen off the cliff. Well, and if there weren’t rocks the size of cowheads sitting plum in the middle of the road saying “Hiya!”. And goat-shit generators wandering around in the middle of the road wondering what the hell this idiot is doing in a car, and whether or not they can eat you. But I’m still alive. Exoggi itself is a shell at this time of year. Today it was inside a cloud, all the shutters were closed, many of the houses seemed full of birds, others probably full of goats. I did see one human being. But just one – an old man, walking away from me up the road and into the fog, holding a stick, followed by a white cat.

Above the town are the ruins of an older town, shrouded in mist. I wandered up there. Not much to see. The sad remains of old stepped cultivated gardens, now covered in rocks. Many of the walls seem freshly sprayed with hammer and sickles.

It is really striking how prevalent the KKE (The Communist Party) is at the moment in Ithaca. They have a respectable looking office on the main street, with a hammer and sickle over the door.

I find it odd to see a hammer and sickle again – I haven’t seen one since my childhood. Everywhere is graffiti in support of them. I suppose in a financial crisis that’s blamed on the excesses of capitalism, the obvious backlash is into communism. Especially in a community where the guy that spends his day fishing can’t grow oranges and the guy that grows the oranges can’t catch fish.

Above Exoggi, right at the top, is the Monastery of the Katharon – allegedly built by heretic Cathars, it stands at the top of the island on the original site of a Temple of Athena. I drove up there, expecting to have to climb over a fence as usual. But for the first time, there is someone there. The local Orthodox Priest, in full robes and fuller beard, is up there with a broom and a dustpan and mop, keeping the place clean. He smiles and lets me in. He's cleaning up goatshit. On the main gate there is a sign in 4 languages – “Please keep this gate closed at all times.” It is the only sign in more than one language anywhere on the island. This man is evidently on a one man crusade against the goats. I wish him luck. He’s outnumbered.

Having been to so many places of worship for the old religion for my research, it amuses me to see the priest here having a goat problem. Many contend that the origin of the idea of Satan as a horned God comes from the idea of Pan and the other horned gods, and the need to demonise them in order to prefer the Christian God. And in this place where goat heads pop out of every bush, and there's such tremendous solitude and natural power, it is easy to believe that one of those heads might be Pan. So here on the site of a Temple of Athena, it makes sense that the clergy are at war with goats.

Any trace of Athena has been purged from this site by centuries of devotion, and it’s gorgeous. Man made beauty is often at its richest when made for a deity or collection of them. I light 2 candles to speed my uncle and mother through purgatory. They were catholics. It feels quite special to see theirs as the only two burning here on top of this little world, and in such a shiny and devoted place. I wonder what the place it was built on top of would have been like.

**edit - For all you geeks out there, I wanted to put in this passage from Plutarch. Paxos is near Ithaca, and I find it an extraordinary and moving piece of history or metaphor. The essay is titled "Why the Oracles are Silent". Pan is dead /Pan(theism) is dead? It's not the sort of thing Plutarch tended to report which is part of why it's interesting. The date is anytime between 14 and 37 AD - it was the reign of Tiberius Caesar, which has been found to roughly correspond with the emergence of John the Baptist and what followed in Judea. An odd, sad and inevitable tale though, and I find it fascinating. He has been talking about Gods;

"As for death among such beings, I have heard the words of a man who was not a fool nor an impostor. BThe father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, Cnot known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, 'When you come opposite to Palodes,a announce that Great Pan is dead.' On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astounded and reasoned among themselves whether it were better to carry out the order or to refuse to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea p403about the place he would announce what he had heard. DSo, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: 'Great Pan is dead.' Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement. As many persons were on the vessel, the story was soon spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius became so convinced of the truth of the story that he caused an inquiry and investigation to be made about Pan; and the scholars, who were numerous at his court, conjectured that Ehe was the son born of Hermes and Penelopê."69

Ithaca and tourism.

Nico the car rental guy finally rents me a yellow Fiat Panda, so I can get out to the more isolated parts of the island.

“It must be very different with tourists here,” I say, by way of making conversation. “Nah man, fuck that we need the tourists. We need the tourism.” He responds. “Now don’t you crash. And don’t drink drive. Stick to the roads, ok? And don’t park isolated or some fucker will break the window. Pay me in cash. Don’t you dare crash.”

He fails to mention that I should remember to drive on the right as well. One narrow escape later, I am at the site of Odysseus’ Palace. There’s a dilapidated booth, that maybe in season charges a couple of euro and gives you a map of the earthworks. But since the excitement of the discovery it has proved to be way way post Odysseus. In fact, they’ve stopped bothering to tourist it up in any way, slung in a load of corrugated iron, and filled it with goats. The whole palace stinks of goat. And there’s a donkey. I call it Eurymachus. It doesn’t throw anything at me, but I keep out of reach of its legs.

In the afternoon I drive up the mountain to the little path that leads down to Arethusa. It’s a spring, allegedly the one Eumaeus took his swine to drink from. It’s a long way down. Halfway, I stash my laptop in a bush. Too much to carry back up this slope. I’m not worried, there’s nobody for miles. At the bottom, the water trickles from the rock and then spreads and mostly pools back into a reservoir behind the fountain. It’s clear and tastes fine, which is just as well as I didn’t bring a bottle. Down there, with the sound of the spring behind me and the sea in front of me, I feel more isolated than I ever have done. Unfortunately there's recently been a massive rockslide right by the fountain, so there is nowhere to sit but on the rockslide itself.

I sit on the rocks, eat an orange and think about this island, and what I am getting from it. The people are great, the vistas beyond description, the climate unpredictable at this time of year, but pleasant. I bet it's great in summer. Nico says they need tourism. Do they? If everything mechanical were to stop working tomorrow, while corpses build up in the streets of London, the life here would stay more or less the same. They have fruit in abundance, wool, wine, water, fish, salt, meat, eggs, bread. And they've got a pretty well established tradition of storytelling for the long winter nights.This was an important place in the ancient world. Defensible and totally self sufficient. Tourism will bring more money for electricity, petrol and luxury. But not much else besides dependence.

Still, if you’re after a peaceful holiday in a beautiful place you can’t do much better than Ithaca. Although that’s a pretty inefficient recommendation really: "Everyone! Come to Ithaca! There’s no one here!” But you know what I mean.

Walking, and how it makes you want to eat legs.

I can see why Odysseus longed to get back here. Coming at this time of year, in many ways I have been spoilt. I am currently sitting on this white stone beach

looking out at Arkoudi and mainland Greece.

There’s not a soul to be seen. Behind me on the hill I can hear the bells of goats, and always the birdsong. The calm of this place is beyond description. The whole island seems calm and slow, although everywhere I can see the signs of a tourist machine waiting to click into gear. Signs in English on locked and bolted doors. Advertising pinned to trees with maps to deserted tavernas plastered with slightly wrong Latin alphabet – “Spaghetti Boognese!” “Sandwitch!” “Ramp Stake!” "Lamp Shop!"

I couldn’t hire a car this morning. He’s only insured one of them. He tells me:

“You know how it is? It’s fucked. This whole country is fucked. Nobody came here for Christmas. I lost money on the insurance. So now I only insure one car until the tourist season.”

He’s lent it to a mate of his to take to Kefalonia for the day. He swore consistently in English for about 2 minutes – “Shit shit shit fuck shit fuck fuck shit shit” - went silent for a long minute while he seriously considered letting me have one uninsured, thought better of it and told me to come back tomorrow. I caught a ride into Stavros with a fisherman who sells sardines off the back of his van. He spanked it round precipitous mountain roads as fast as his little van could go. I was calm, knowing he does it every day, and making a mental note of how people drive here for my rental period starting tomorrow.

Down the hill from Stavros is a beach, and next to it is The Cave of Loizos – a much stronger contender for the cave in book 13 of The Odyssey than the one in Vathi. It’ll do for the one in my imagination now. It was a Mycenean “cult” sanctuary for years, and the remains of many votive offerings were dug out of it by Sylvia Benton in the 1930’s. She contended- according to the sign at the cave - that it was the most ancient site of “cult” worship, more so than even Olympus. I am suspicious of this. I also dislike an ancient and massive religion being referred to as a “cult”. But I can’t think what name it had – if any. Maybe it didn’t NEED a name – it just WAS. It does have two entrances – one for mortals and one for The Gods which keys in nicely with book 13. Unfortunately, the interior has completely collapsed now – another victim of the constantly shifting earth round here.

Then I caught the bus to Kioni, which is where I found the beach. I was surprised to see the bus – it came into Stavros just as I was getting to the top of the hill from the cave, and I managed to sprint to it. It was full of schoolchildren, who cheered when I made it through the door – they must have seen me lamming it up the hill. In fact it’s the school bus. It only runs twice a day. When I asked the driver “Do you go back the other way?” He gave me a massive cheese-eating grin: “Yes! Of course! Tomorrow morning, 7.10.”

--

Some hours later as dusk was falling I hit the road back, and am really pleased that not a single car passed me between Kioni and Frikes as I saw some of the most gobsmackingly beautiful vistas in the sunset while slogging up hills in my coat.

From Frikes I managed to hitch as far as Stavros. Only 7km to Vathi, but I’ll walk that after supper, or hitch, as I have found a place that does locally caught grilled octopus. Yes they’re as clever as dogs… But it’s just too damn tempting.

Clarice, are the goats still drowning?

The Cave of the Nymphs. Not having a hire car, this was my destination today. Once the storm passed – and it was one hell of a storm – I headed out into the afternoon.

According to current local wisdom, The Cave of the Nymphs is the same cave that Odysseus and Athena used to conceal all of the treasure given to him by Alcinous and the Phaecians.

Walking round the harbour wall on my way out of town, I was struck by how clear the water was. I stopped to photograph a starfish, and saw something floating near it. “Whoa – it’s some sort of hairy jellyfish!!” was my initial thought. Nope. Freshly drowned goat. Must’ve bolted in there startled by the storm and not been able to get out. Poor thing.

And up the hill I go, guided or occasionally misguided by the eccentric local signposts. I ask the locals for directions – “Why the fuck you want to go up there? It’s closed.”

The Cave of the Nymphs is three kilometres up the hill from the harbour. Now, let’s think practically about this. Odysseus was given a trunk of gold by Arete. And then every single Phaecian nobleman present when he told the tale of his journey home gave him a tripod and a bronze cauldron. So that’s anything in the region of 40 to 100 cauldrons, and a big wooden trunk full of gold. I know he was a hero. I know he was buff. But a trunk of gold and 40 to 100 cauldrons up 3 kilometres of steep hillside? I ain’t buying it. If that cave was open back in the day, it would have been a place of worship, no doubt. But it ain’t the one in the book. The problem is that this region is sitting smack bang on top of a humungous fault line. In 373 BC Helike sank into the water forever. More famous because it was on the tellybox, Pavlopetri sank about 1000 BC. And in Ithaca, on the north east coast, Polis Bay is the hole left where the Byzantine city of Ierosalem sank there in 967 AD. There was a 7.2 quake in 1953 that flattened every building on Ithaca. They don't build high here, for a reason. The earth and the caves in it are going to move around, close, open, collapse and reform all the time here - this area is constantly being moulded by tectonics.

The cave itself has a very narrow opening.

Although there are iron gates, nobody has bothered to lock them, and the last time there has been any successful tourism here is at least 3 years ago, probably more. All of the toll booths and signs are in disrepair and the fuses to the lights are all blown. The cave itself is pitch black, but my phone’s flashlight app got me as far as a rusted and useless old cable lift that would have ferried people into the depths.

To the side of the lift is a rope, loosely strung on iron spikes down the precipitous slope, but only for a while. I went down as far as the rope would allow me, but the rocks were slick with rainwater that was still flowing, and without a rope I could have lost my footing and slid down. Nobody comes up there, so I didn’t fancy the idea of breaking my leg and having to claw myself back up the wet rocks in pain. So I stopped where I was and switched off the light. Profound darkness. As I sat in the darkness I suddenly got shot through with the understanding that I had not brought a sacrifice. If you go to a Cave of the Nymphs, you should bring a sacrifice. No food on me, so I rather clumsily said out loud “Er – there’s this dead goat in the harbour… It’s still fresh.” And then decided it was best not to stick around.

Now I am desperately tempted. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a van, a load of tarpaulin and an accomplice, or that goat would be coming with me down to a deserted beach somewhere, and I’d be building a pyre and burning it. Not because I believe that it would achieve something, before any Christian friends of mine start getting concerned. Just because it seems like the right thing to do.

I won’t do it though. For something like that there really need to be two people egging each other on. Probably a good thing I’m on my own.

I am linking this very long and difficult essay by Porphyry, not because I even half understand it and recommend it but because I found it while searching for frivolous links to accompany this blog, and on a brief perusal, decided that I needed a bit of time and all of my English degree mojo to make sense of the bastard. But on a swift castover, there's something interesting there. And it's Porphyry so it's interesting to get an ancient Greek philosopher on an even more ancient Greek text...

The Stormbringer

It’s enough to make a man turn to Zeus. I walked out onto my little balcony overlooking the bay. I just did my finances after shopping for food for the week. 100 euros left after setting aside accommodation, travel back to Athens and 50 for contingency. The car hire man charges 30 euro a day, so I am a little stuck in Vathi, although I will probably blow 60 euros on car hire leaving me with 40 for petrol and nice things with whatever is left. Essentially, I am on a crazy tight budget. So I go out onto the balcony to make a decision in the open air.

“What shall I do today then? Is it a working day or an exploring day?”

No sooner have I finished the sentence, but there is a jagged lash of forked lightning off to the right of the bay, an almighty crack of thunder, the temperature drops about 4 degrees and it starts to shit it down with rain. Then a cloud descends over the hill opposite pretty much completely obscuring it from view. Well, according to Zeus, it’s a working day. This looks like it has set in for the morning, and I’m not renting a car to drive on the right on unfamiliar mountain roads in a fogstorm. In fact, thinking about it, we’re IN the stormcloud. Larding it on a bit thick aren’t you Zeus?

Well – perfect time for me to be getting on with some work.

I have a windy rain thing – what are they called? Lintel? Awning? That thing you get over shops. I wind it down. Now I am typing beneath it. I lucked out with this accommodation.

Is it far to Vathi?

Ancient Greek deities are a very different bunch from the ideas we have grown accustomed to here in the west. They get down and dirty. Also they love to shape change. Zeus had a habit of ravishing people as all sorts of different strange horny beasts. Often in the Odyssey, Athena takes the form of just some bloke, in order to subtly guide events. In some ways it’s reminiscent of the thing that’s thought of as demonic possession in Christian doctrine. Although not to be feared – to be welcomed. Usually you don’t work out that the person you met is a God until after they’ve helped you out.

I was expecting my arrival in Ithaca to have been somehow dramatic, or momentous. In keeping with book 13 of the Odyssey, it caught me unaware. Having been in the sun on deck for much of the voyage, I was sitting in the belly of the ferry dreaming into this laptop, and suddenly someone shouted “Ithaca?” to me. I looked out the window and there it was.

Out of the ferry, I took stock of where I had been disgorged. Hills everywhere. Scrub and olive trees clinging to the sides. Not a building to be seen, and a winding dirt road tracking up the hill. I travel light, and thanking my lucky stars for that I started up the track. Turning to watch the ferry crawl back to the wine dark sea, and taking this photo

a woman came up the track past me – a straggler from the ferry. “Is it far to Vathi?” I asked her – mainly by way of psyching myself up for that usual epic walk that occurs when you arrive somewhere new and don’t take taxis. “Yes, it is far. Too far to walk. Would you like a lift?” Thanking her we walk to her nearby car and she opens the boot for my bag. On the back seat I see a pile of dog-eared printed pages. They are covered in Greek writing, but taking a very familiar form. Some of it is highlighted in orange. It's such a familiar sight to me, that I almost overlook how out of place it is. She’s an actor. And there I was thinking there are too many in London – you go to a remote island in the Ionian sea, bang – first person you meet is one. The world's bursting with the fuckers.

It is indeed a long drive to Vathi – about an hour and a half on foot I expect. “Are you an actor?” I ask, with a gesture to the scripts. She is upbeat – “Yes – we have a play, here, only amateur, three nights starting Friday.” Dammit – I will be gone by Friday. “Can I watch the dress rehearsal?” “Yes of course. You won’t understand a thing.” “I don’t care.”

She drops me at her friend’s apartments – a little out of the centre of town, and high up with the most stunning view of the bay. By the time we’re there she knows that I’m on a tight budget. I’m relying on fellow feeling here. I get the apartment for an excellent rate. They have all I need – a balcony where I am sitting typing in the dying rays of the sun, a fridge, a hotplate and a little oven.

It only occurs to me afterwards that this sort of thing probably happens all the time in Greece. The right person at the right time. And the whole thing about Gods popping up as ordinary people to direct everyday events makes more sense. In England we are usually so unwilling to engage with strangers that these moments of goodness pass us by. “Is it far to Vathi?” “yes – it’s about 3 miles – you go all the way to the top of the hill, left at the crossroads and then round the mountain pass and up and down a load of hills with your bags.” “Thanks.” “No trouble.” A very different experience – and that’s if you’re lucky. “Is it far to Vathi? … Excuse me – is it far to Vathi? … Hello? Madam? ... Only I’ve never been here before and … never mind.”

Hope that the road is a long one

Loose scribblings from diary on the way to Ithaca. Not got there yet though. Mostly for friends and family.

Easyjet have lived up to their name. The whole process of getting on this flight has been flawlessly simple and friendly. In fact, everything has swept me Ithacawards with remarkable goodwill. When the world smiles at you sometimes it’s hard to tell who started it. It might be me, it might be them. Everyone so far today – the guard at the station, the woman at check in, the Travelex clerk – has made a genuine and unforced connection with me.

I am not good at getting up early in the mornings. My dreams are too lucid and too entertaining and it always feels like a disservice to interrupt them. This morning I popped up from a deep sleep five minutes before my 6.00 alarm was scheduled to frustrate me awake with that jaunty and hideous HTC jingle. And I felt fine, on 4 hours. Just as well considering the flight leaves at 9 and I had not yet packed my bags after a last minute theatre trip last night.

Last night I consider to be the start of my journey to Ithaca, and the beginning of a strange and hopefully ongoing period of goodwill. After an immensely awakening week working with Louis Scheeder on Hamlet, connection, presence and simplicity on stage, I rushed off to Watford Palace Theatre to see the latest play by my wonderful cousin outlaw Charlotte Keatley. In the bar afterwards, which I shouldn’t have gone to considering the early start, I mentioned in passing that I was off to Ithaca. Charlotte lit up – she knows the island well. I now have a bucketful of recommendations – places to stay, places to see, and how to get there. She employs the method of getting around that always serves me well and that I would recommend to anyone that ever travels anywhere ever. Be present, be unafraid, trust strangers, talk to people. This way – usually – you have a wonderful time. And perhaps occasionally you end up locked in a cellar with no arms and legs, but it’s probably worth the risk. This call out to be present and immediate is totally ramified by the work we did on stage with Louis. I am now deeply excited to find out what the universe is going to bring to me this week. I’ll probably blog it relatively frequently as somehow it seems acceptable to do that sort of thing when away from home – and also I am on my own as usual so it’s a pleasant way to pass the time when – like now – one is crammed into an aeroplane seat and everyone around is fast asleep and gurgling.

11.15 am Sat

Poring my way through the entertaining and erudite Cadogan Guide for The Greek Islands by Dana Facaros has helped me crystallise some of my intentions for this trip. It was all such an impulse and I was working so hard on Hamlet last week that I haven’t had the chance to ponder what the hell I think I am supposed to be doing. Ithaca is definitely the destination, but I if I am properly going to look for things that will inspire and generate material for The Odyssey, I might need to go to some of the other Ionian islands – principally the west coast of Corfu. Tenuous or not, Corfu lays a firm claim for being Skiathos the island of the Phaecians. And there are some beaches that people insist are where Odysseus washed up, as well as a disputed site for the Palace of Alcinous. Although part of me howls “It’s a MYTH! It’s a STORY! Stories aren’t REAL!” I think that places that can inspire stories are as important as the stories themselves. Does is matter if there really was a Palace of Alcinous or a beach where Odysseus washed up? Not to me. And there might have been. I am willing to accept any form of myth from any culture. Maybe one of them is true – monkeys and typewriters etc. And great fiction is often steeped in fact.

So stage one of the mission: get to Paleokastritsa by the end of the day. This may not be possible – Patras first, find out ferry times and durations, bend the plan if need be. Also I need to either buy a cheap digital camera or, better, get a charger for the one that I have. My HTC Desire HD phone on a stupidly long 24 month contract from Vodafone not only has a shattered screen but also a battery life of about 6 and a half minutes (6 hours), so there’s no point relying on that for a record. I seem to be using my blog as a to do list. Probably not the best idea, especially considering someone will bash me up and steal my laptop as soon as I arrive in Athens. But this might be the only time I’ll get to think for a good long while.

3.30 PM

I should never wear a hat on a plane. That’s the third one I’ve left in as many planes. Shame – it’s been fished out of the thames three times now and still looks relatively normal. I shall have to get a new one to remind me of Greece. I’m on a bus. Everybody is asleep. Everyone was asleep on the plane, everyone is asleep on the bus. Do they know something I don’t? Or is it me?

Driving on a bus through Athens, having lost 2 hours to the time difference, which might make it harder to get off the mainland by dusk. Still worth trying. The city is ringed by empty barren hills, and looking up into them has got me reflecting on how this country is the cradle of one of the most important ancient civilisations, before the Romans came with their adopted Gods and militant expansionism and decadence.

The sun is shining mercilessly through the windows of the coach and I am ridiculously overdressed. The woman opposite me touched my knee and said “It’s much nicer than England.” She was right. Heading for Kifissos station for the coach to Patras – no idea how long it takes though. I’m looking forward to being able to stop and take stock, but I don’t want to until I’ve put some distance behind me.

4pm

Looks like Corfu might be a little harder to get to than I anticipated and a little more expensive – it of course has the disadvantage of being on the tourist route which is basically shit as it means all the buses from Athens have a 50% idiot tax on them. With that in mind I got a bus to Patras rather than where I was initially directed for Corfu which was still expensive but the guy at the booth was less of a dick so that clinched the deal for me. Thinking about this, Corfu is in a totally different part of the Ionian Islands from Ithaca and perhaps I should rationalise my plan and not be overly ambitious. It’s next to Albania for God’s sake. I’m still in an overcoat, sitting on the sunny side of another bus for the next 2 and a half without water. Being on a mission has its disadvantages.

Everyone around me is asleep again. I am not kidding. I started travelling at 7am, and since then I have been the walking centre of a little pocket of narcolepsy.

19.00

Made it to Patras just in for a spectacular red sunset over the sea. I walked to the end of the pier to watch a boat head off and then noticed how down at heel the whole area seems to be. It’s a ferry port, so they’re never the most salubrious destination, but I was struck by the prevalence of graffiti tags like “Patras will Rise Again.” Infuriatingly, the 20.30 ferry doesn’t run on a Saturday so I have to wait til tomorrow. In an internet café now, trying to work out ferry times for tomorrow and also find a couple of customer reviews for supercheap Patras hotels as there is an abundance of fleapits here and I can handle a walk anyway. The staff here are lovely. The internet here is broken. In fact, I can’t get online at all and nor can any of the other people around me. This whole town seems broken.

19.10

“Hi – sorry to bother you, is the internet working on your laptop at the moment?”

“Oh no – sometimes it crashes – 20, 30 minutes. Sometimes longer. I write now. If it comes back, I will use.”

“Ah ok – maybe I’ll ask them to reboot the router.”

--

“Hi the internet is not working – would you be able to reboot the router?”

“Ahh – no no it is not the router. It is the internet. Sometimes it crashes 20 minutes. Then Boom! It is back.”

----

This is the view from my hotel room - Hotel El Greco.

Double bed, bathroom is across the corridor. Marble floors. 4 or 5 stories.

Saturday Night. I am the only occupant.

Found a hotel. Found some interet. Putting this nonsense out there and then heading in to see if everyone in Patras is still asleep or if someone can make me a cheap stifaki. Then early bed, early rise, explore the town and 12.30 ferry to Ithaki - should be there and ensconsed for late afternoon. Wooo!

Ithaca - by CP Cavafy

Ithaka

The Canon

As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one. May there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

I like to say yes to things. Much more important to be someone who goes in with an open heart and cries YES to whatever life tries to throw. Most recently I said YES to a tour of Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Richard III. Then I was asked if I wanted to build the sets and work as a Stage Manager too. YES.

It's kept me pretty busy. We were driving all over Ireland in a big white van, unloading, building, playing, loading, moving, sleeping. Richard III comes to the Tower of London on 1st and 2nd April - tickets are available through Waterloo East Theatre's website. I have many very funny stories, but I don't blog work. Dammit.

Happy new year

Christmas is finally done with and the sodding easter eggs have already started loading up the shelves in Tesco. We're all freezing our asses off outdoors, and my Australian housemates have the heating jammed up to absurd levels 24 hours a day in my flat so I feel like I live in a sauna and I actively dread the arrival of the gas and electricity bills. And soon enough now I am going on tour with two shows in rep for a few months.

But in the meantime I am assistant directing my friend Mel Cook. I don't do this very often - in fact only for Mel - but it's a valuable insight into my job. You learn how valuable it is to have actors that offer things all the time. You see how visible it is when the actors think they can just busk it. You know who does the homework and who doesn't. And you love actors who work hard and play hard. It all feeds back in.

Mel is directing a play at the well-loved Finborough Theatre. The play was written the year before I was born. It deals with a middle english family imploding as a result of one man's inability to move his life forward. It treats with an England that is financially falling to pieces, and the apathy of the average englishman in the face of inevitable ruin. This is the right time to get it put on, and The Finborough the right place. The company is very diverse and joyful, and I am curently watching them work and chuckling to myself over the top of my laptop.

London

London is cold. Yes it's comforting that christmas is coming, but after christmas comes january, and then after january comes february and by that time I am getting a little fed up.

After Thailand wound up, and my long long awake night on the way back, I hit London on Halloween and made the schoolboy error of taking the tube back to my flat from Heathrow. Considering the state of mind I was in - (my last post) - the fact that all the tube lines were shut and everyone was drunk and dressed up as a zombie made for a confusing and very long journey home, ending in a total collapse on my fantastically uncomfortable mattress.

And then it was back on the boats. I love my day job. It's turning into the perfect one for winter, as it is regular enough that I can pull in some reasonable money from it, and not so regular that it obviates the chance to go to auditions / prepare for them. Best of both worlds. My first day back in London I was booked for a full day on the river, so off I went dressed up in 8 layers with a wooly hat and a waterproof jacket and big thick warm goretex boots. Thinking that I would be totally fine. More fool me. As I arrived on the dock at London Eye, the sun was shining. Bitter cold, but bright. "I can handle this," I thought. So I embarked all the passengers and we got underway, and just as we passed tower bridge a huge black cloud rolled in and the heavens opened. Water down my back. Water in my trouser legs so profoundly cold and profoundly wet that they were drenched in seconds and my boots had filled from the top. Water gradually soaking through to the skin through layer after layer of jumper. Water water everywhere. Nor any drop to drink, as I had forgotten my bottle of the stuff. And through all this water and winds at near hurricane force, I am maniacally spamming energy at a boat full of people. Subtext "Look at the crazyman, he is having fun. If the crazyman is having fun, we are having fun too." Text "Ahhhhhhhhhhh this is the river at it's best! I know you might be wet, but this is how you WANT to be on the river! GOD I LOVE IT! And look - Tower Bridge in the rain! Let me tell you about tower bridge..." I have flash memories of the people in the boat with their hoods pulled over their faces and one eye peeping out. But smiling. Great fun.

So while I am on the river I have my friend Hanna call me and ask me to do a low commitment job for her at The Hen and Chickens in Huis Clos. No harm in that, since I ashamedly admit to her I do not KNOW Huis Clos. I didn't do A level Drama, so all the usual plays passed me by. Probably a good thing, but it was nice to be involved with Hanna and the delightful cast. But I don't blog work.

And then on to more boats, teambuilding in rainy fields across the country, pretending to be journalists, arsonists, kidnappers, santa claus, gangsters and a nuclear scientist. Strangeness. But delight.

Yesterday I was a hologram in Tottenham Court Road. Hologram Santa, being magically beamed all the way from lapland. I had a camera pointed at the people I was talking to, and it was really affirming to see the delight and wonder in the eyes of some of the kids. Santa is so iconic that the costume carries a strange power of its own. I just had to put it on and I felt possessed by it. It's like working with masks - and santa really is a mask - the wig and the beard and the hat make it such that the only window into you is your eyes, and a little hole for the mouth. The reverse of a classical character mask. But a similar.

And now I am assistant directing at The Finborough again, off to do more interesting work at The Factory on wednesday, and assembling a showreel after the Carlsberg ad came through and looks great. With all of that, the teambuilds, the santa, the training, the murder mysteries, the events and the boats, you can see why I haven't blogged since I got back...

Bangkok Night

I just had a crazy night and I wanted to get it down. I still haven't slept, and am hanging out in the business lounge for Thai Air - I'm off in a bit to get a free spa treatment and massage - because I can and because it might help stop me from being so wired. I'll then save it as draft and post it after I get round to writing Crystal.

I landed in Bangkok, and figured I'd head in and find a cheap hotel not too far from the airport. After a brief adventure on a totally friendly moto-taxi who helped me out when I was trying to walk down the edge of the freeway with a whacking great rucksack, I found a cheap hotel. I then grabbed a cab to the Marriot in Sukhumvit where I had left my hat and jeans - (of course). I got there at about ten, and was fortunate to run into a woman who I had got on with well during the shoot, having pudding in the bar. She bought me a couple of Singha and we caught up. At half ten she had to go to her room to Skype her husband, so I said goodbye - (which I had been unable to do previously as I got whipped off to sign some forms). I then headed out into the soi, lost in thought, consulting my Lonely Planet guide and contemplating a depressing solitary final night.

And then - and forgive the tense shift but this was when the weird stuff started - someone appears right in front of me and says "Alex!". I know nobody in Bangkok. I have no idea what the fuck is going on. At first I fail to recognise her. She is in the remnants of a witch costume that she has been wearing for school assembly. It's the girl from the boat. On her way home from a meditation course. I ask her if she's eaten. She says no, and so we jump in a cab and she takes me to a place she knows. Before we are even seated she orders a jug of strawberry margarita. I figure she knows what she's doing. Unfortunately the waitress knows less, but it's palatable. I let her order food for me as she is bound to know what's good. She suggests something that is not on the menu, so I agree. It's brilliant. The best thing I've had since I left Bangkok.

We chatter for a while and then cab it to a massage parlour. It's shut, sadly. But on the way I am getting a whistle stop tour of Bangkok nightlife. It's past twelve though, and all the massage places are finishing up apart from the ones with "happy endings" which neither of us want. Another cab and we're at a converted tuktuk/bar somewhere drinking good mojito and talking random stuff about everything. I find an ease with this girl as if we've known each other for years. Despite the fact that I am knackered from an early start, a boat, a plane, a load of shopping and a load of walking. She clocks this, as I am more than characteristically silent. But quite rightly she overlooks it - "It'll help sort out your jet lag." But also how the hell can she read that from me on one meeting? She is intensely spiritual and has been meditating all day after the witchy assembly in the morning. This might have something to do with it.

Mojitos down, she starts to click into gear. Her self appointed mission is to give me a great last night and show me as much of Bangkok as she can. Another cab, or is it a walk? and "What Gender?" she asks, pointing. Got to be a man... Looks like a woman but no Adam's Apple. I ask her about this. "The operation only costs a few hundred baht. They can do all sorts of things - for 350 baht and an overnight stay you can be a virgin again!" She touches her belly. Suddenly we're in the Algerian quarter, in the shiniest restaurant I have ever seen. "Isn't it shiny!?!" She says with delight. It really is. It's right in the middle - all the bustle is around us. Two terrible western trannies are trying out their new kit on the table behind us. I snap them rudely, pretending to snap her. They see the flash and leave. "Let's get hummus!" I'm stuffed but the hummus is too good to miss. I shovel it in on good fresh cucumber and tomato. I can't finish it but she can and then it's THE FLOWER MARKET. By now i'm in a buzz. It's about 2 in the morning and exhaustion is doing odd things to my head. Trails are happening and I am getting motion repeats from the scuba diving. She asks eight taxis in a row to take us there. They all refuse. She waits a while until she knows that the taxis that are coming by haven't seen her get refused. She asks a new one and he takes us. But is he going the right way? Who knows? We wind through strange side streets and suddenly it's the flower market. By now I am totally tripping out and it is a blur of colour and people and sound. Millions of flowers, and hardly any customers as they are setting up ready for Saturday morning. Vast baskets of lettice are hauled around amid constant chatter and bustle. Orchids are piled high. Rare flowers, cheap flowers in bulk, bags of rose petals. Huge chunks of ice in a warehouse. A siamese cat. Stuff stuff stuff. Colour colour colour. Noise noise noise. It's half two but it might as well be day. An old man is changing his trousers. A blind old woman laughs uproariously at something her young friend has said. Trucks piled with veg are swarmed on by wiry antmen. Children run around all over the place. Many are helping. Dogs wander and sniff and wee on the lettice. Crushed veg is carpetted underfoot. We go in a wide circle. There is some water and a temple. She buys some orchids and some white roses. 70 baht in total. Less than a pound. "Feel how heavy that is!" she gets me to hold the orchids. "Think how much that would cost in the UK!" She's right. I hold her roses. They have no smell. "More market or look at the temple?" Look at the temple! We look. She reads a plaque at the base of the temple. I start at the same time as her. She is done in about 2 seconds, I in 8 to 10. Perhaps I am slow and time has truncated for me. People sit in a circle round coloured contact lenses, staring at the boxes in slow motion. I am occasionally groping my camera from my day bag and taking photos. Every time I replace it in a different pocket or part of the bag. My hands move slowly because the air is too thick. I am not functioning correctly. She notices. The logical step - go home! Another cab, the driver has no idea where we are going. We help. So does Lonely Planet, my constant travel companion. The hotel! I ask her if she wants to "come up." She has a boyfriend. I regret my impulse. It has not been what the evening was about. But it pulls at me like I know her, like i've known her all my life. I head to my room and get into bed. My eyes close and sharks and octopi dance in front of my closed eyes with diving bell helmets. Occasionally a voice reminds me that everything is connected to everything else. I read the secrets that I've written on the inside of my eyeballs in italics and smile. Something huge is explaining that I need to remember that the world is bigger than what I can perceive. This is exhaustion on a grand scale, or it's mushrooms in the food, or it's a flashback. A cockroach snaps me back by running over my chest. I bat it off the inside of my bed and it hits the wall with a satisfying thunk. It's ten to six. Sleep is no longer an option. I read my book a while. A wasp flies from the window into the centre of my neck and vanishes. I check all my cards and my passport. Nothing lost. All in place. Pack. Coffee. Taxi to airport. Check in. Take stock.

Brilliant night. Information overload. Bangkok never sleeps. I met the right person at the right time in the right city. Our last exchange: "Of course I'll email you! I'm not going to be ashamed of telling someone that I think they're attractive. Now here's 70 baht for my half of the taxi, and thanks for a great night." "That's the thing I love about this town - those two sentences together. Perfect."

---

As for the crazy stuff, it took me all the way home. I was up for 36 hours and the plane flight was great fun if a little random. Insects were a common part of the experience but everything was benign and I relaxed into total knowledge that I was hallucinating when I got woodlice on my leg in the plane - the plane is full of insecticide. The woman next to me was a little concerned at me I think. Probably worried I was a terrorist, since I was sweating, fidgetting and grinning. And occasionally jumping and looking at things that weren't there. And mumbling to myself. The girl insists that she didn't give me anything holotrophic. Who knows. Could be a combination of factors : Exhaustion, a massive electric shock, flying too soon after scuba, and hey - maybe i got a tiny tiny bit of neurotoxin from the krait through a scratch in my skin. I don't care. It was a brilliant night, and without doubt it will stay with me for the rest of my life. This link goes some way towards expaining what it was like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6DD1k4BAUg

Crystal Clear

The ferry drops passengers in Mae Hat, a quiet village with a rash of westernised restaurants and halfhearted tourist shops. Crystal Dive has carved out a good sized portion of land just north of the ferry port, and filled it with relatively comfortable shacks equipped with fans and in some cases, air con - (for a premium). Each shack has a wetroom, with all the things you want from a thai wetroom - a loo, a bumgun, an exposed lightbulb for the electrocutotourism industry, a sink and an unheated shower. It is comfortable, and infested with friendly geckos who have long since polished off all the roaches. So it feels fairly salubrious. And if you dive with them, the subsidy on the room makes it laughably, joyously cheap.

I arrive, fresh off the ferry, and after accidentally crashing a very vehement board meeting being held in english, I find the reception. Everyone at Crystal defaults to english, and the thais that work there don't bother with ka and crab. This is something of a relief as at least I can make myself understood. I book a course with the unnecessarily attractive receptionist - she is clearly a dive instructor too. They work them hard here. My course will start tomorrow - a basic PADI Open Water Course.

What is PADI? PADI is the bulbous all-seeing spider at the centre of scuba diving worldwide. It has cast its web to the far corners of the world and sits in the middle monitoring everything. It is implacable, vast and uncompromising. It has no sense of humour. It stands for "Professional Association of Diving Instructors," and whoever set it up is oh so very fond of acronymns. Also this sort of prose is standard: Scuba diving [ ] can help transform your life through education, experience, equipment and environmental conservation: It's like they brainstormed as many words as possible beginning with E. They make you read vast tomes of this crap. Now this is not to say that the content is crap. Just the style. It's a good thing that a company exists that homogenises scuba worldwide, as it makes it possible for you to hop from America to Thailand to Australia to South Africa and always be speaking the same language, and thus safer. And in a sport where you can't speak, this is important. But the presentation??? Oh dear. It’s hard to believe that the world’s largest scuba diving training organization was dreamt up by two friends in Illinois over a bottle of Johnny Walker in 1966. I agree - you'd need to be a whole hell of a lot drunker than that to write this shit.

The night before my course starts, I wander around the beach and the town, finding a cool rasta bar out of the side of a campervan. I spend a good long time on a swinging chair staring at the full moon, and paddling down the beach. Then I grab my book and head for the bar. Within a minute an Israeli woman joins me at my table and we get chatting. Twenty minutes later a whole pile of drunk instructors bundle onto our table, and begin to propose drinking games. Shaking off the feeling that I have somehow teleported to Magalouf, I join in and after a couple of hours of utter stupidity, realise I need to hit the sack and crash off to my hut.

---

Day one of the course is videotime. And after the new year celebrations on the neighbouring island, most of the people starting up are sweating alcohol and haven't slept. First of all you have to watch one of a series of scuba training videos. These videos were made in the late eighties /early nineties. They were made with the assumption that anyone that wants to learn scuba has the mental capacity and sense of humour of the six year old boy who sits at the back of the class eating lego. And they are desperately American. This is "Have a nice day" taken to the power of 10000. Scuba is FUN and FRIENDS and JOKES and LEARNING IS FUN and so are your FRIENDS. And so full of acronyms. SCUBA: Smug Cretins Using Bloody Acronyms. Nonetheless I learn all about my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) and my RDP (Recreational Dive Planner) and my SNORKEL - (Suck Now Or Right Kidney Explodes, Lamentably).

And after each video our instructor Rob bundles in enthusiastically and helps us with our knowledge reviews and makes us do a test. And he is constantly upbeat, and constantly positive and informative. And you almost believe that the PADI spider is not watching him. He gives no indication that he thinks the videos suck. He is a consummate professional, and I can't help thinking a good actor. Probably after work each day he is sucked into a cocoon and tortured through the night.

In the bar that night Jodie tells us that if you get someone from Holland to say "Choose my side" it sounds rude. We do and it does. Without being able to prevent it, and despite Rob's protests, it becomes our team name.

---

Day two of the course is VIDEOTIME and I am beginning to feel very fortunate that someone else paid for my flight. At some point, probably after another few bottles of whisky, the guys that made these videos decided that they would be much better if they had some JOKES in them. But they have gone way too far. The whole course is much longer than it needs to be because you have to watch this middle aged "clown" and the "hilarious" things that he does. Is American television always like this? No wonder they're voting for the Tea Party. Nation of retards. While the jokes happen on screen I pore through my manual. I read fast. I'd sooner just lock myself in a room and read the manual than have to watch any more of this rubbish. At least I could listen to some good music. Towards the end of the videos they devote a whole section to this: "So how can you get the most out of Scuba? Spend FUN MONEY on PADI! Yes you NEED to spend MONEY on us. Giving us MONEY is FUN, PLAY and FRIENDS!"

Rob comes in to find me trying to dash my brains out on the table. I need a beer. But now it's off to the POSAP - (Pool Of Scum And Piss). Here is where we will learn our Subaquatic Helpful Information Tips. We all jump in, and instantly the fierce chlorine sucks all the moisture out of our skin and leaves us weathered and cracking. The pool is full of dead insects, consciously added I have no doubt to replicate the plankton that will affect our visibility in open water. A brilliant bit of thinking by the people at Crystal. We repeatedly run over the important basics. Rob is excellent underwater - comfortable and professional and reassuring. I can't work out how to equalise with my mouth held open by the regulator (Breathing bit). Equalising is something you need to get good at - it's to stop horrible pain and burst eardrums from the added pressure - you need to do it regularly as you go down. I work it out eventually. I also find it really odd breathing underwater. The air in the tank is very very dry and I feel it on the back of my throat.

The time ticks on and on and my skin grows more and more hideous as I constantly take accidental sips of the filthy filthy water in this miasma. But by the end of the day I feel like I have a good grasp of what the hell I am supposed to be doing.

---

Day three and it's up at crack in order to take a test. I get a good score and am relieved that I don't have to take another one. Then we have to take a swimming test. Thankfully this is conducted in a much nicer pool further down the beach.

There are four of us in our group, and Rob. Rob the instructor is only about 22, professional, fun and full of beans. Jodie is a proper northern lass gone travelling, burnt a deep mahogany by the sun. Plenty of common sense and very smart, but someone somewhere has told her she's thick and she sometimes believes it. She is a lot of fun. Then there's Brian and Sarah, providing the comedy in the team with their bickering and vast competitive streaks. Both from Ireland, both great foils for each other - a great couple and at times they reduce me to tears of laughter. I make up the fourth by being the opposite of Jodie - no gumption, losing everything, walking into trees and generally living up to my ability to make a prat of myself. A finnish instructor in training occasionally joins us and shouts at us. One time he howls "NOOO!" at me, as is his wont, when I am tucking the band of my compass back round itself. My hackles rise and I bark "Fuck YOU" at him. "I'm streamlining." He doesn't bother me so much after that. But during the swimtest, we discover that he lost his virginity at 13 to a 36 year old woman. Perhaps that's the root of it - I can hear her shouting "NOOO!" at him in bed. These things stay with you.

In the afternoon we finally get into the sea. It's a big old boat and it's crowded, and we chunter out to "Twin Peaks". My buddy is Jodie. We have to check each other. The PADI video, surprise surprise, suggests an ACRONYM to help us with our checks. "Begin With Review And Friend." I kid you not. Why that is any easier to remember than "Buoyancy Weights Releases Air Final check" I do not know. I suspect they chose it because it has the word "FRIEND" in it. WOOO We're all friends here!! _ (Another quote from the video, as we watch a bunch of grown men and women behaving like total idiots : "Scuba Divers have more FUN than regular people." By inference this is because they have all been lobotomised.) Rob suggests a more local acronym - "Bangkok Women Really Are Fellers." Better, but it still doesn't get over the fact that IN THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH WE CALL IT A BUCKLE NOT A RELEASE!

In 12 metres of water, I slowly get to know what it's like to dive. The visibility is great - 10 - 15 metres, and the temperature is 30 degrees - it feels like a pool. There is so much colour down here and so many odd fish. The rest of the guys see a Banded Sea Krait, but I am upset to have missed it. But then it can kill a man in 4 seconds with a seriously strong dose of neurotoxin. So probably a good thing. There's a lot of life down here - Damselfish, Sgt. Major Fish, Butterfly Fish, Red Breasted Wrass... By the time I surface I am in serious discomfort. Drinking all that wee in the pool has made my stomach go bad. Under pressure at the bottom it's not so bad, but when you surface, it expands...

The afternoon dive is much more technical - emergency things, buoyancy things, mask floods, getting your regulator back in. No time to look at the scenery. But necessary.

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Day Four kicks off early, and we go to White Rock. There IS some current this time and the visibility is down to 5-10 metres. We still get to see some sealife when we aren't flooding our masks and pumping our BCD's orally. Loads of Giant Clam, Blue Ringed Angelfish and Longfin Bannerfish. At one point I see something large moving strangely. I go towards it, but Rob is signally frantically - "gunfingers gunfingers bang bang gunfingers." No he hasn't suddenly regressed - it's a triggerfish - they're nasty little territorial buggers. I steer clear and find a Marbled Sea Cucumber instead. Much safer.

Second dive and we go back to twin peaks. Unperturbed by the fact there are about 200 other dive boats here, we all leap joyfully into the water and sink. This dive is a little more fruitful. We watch a Blue Spotted Stingray as it regards us grumpily - "What are you staring it - We did for that Steve Irwin, so you better be careful." We also find a little White Eyed Moray Eel, sticking his head out of his hole. Sadly there are way too many Scuba Divers having more fun than regular people wherever we look. In my logbook I have logged them as "wankerfish." But with the skills I have learnt I am now a certified Open Water Diver. Apparently. One of them.

That evening in a bar a man called Jace shows us a video he has made of us underwater. It is well cut considering it's a rush job, and made with a sense of humour. Unfortunately is is cut onto a DVD made out of diamonds and platinum, hand build molecule by molecule by ancient monks in the distant cloud cities of nepal. And the price tag reflects this. Despite the fact that I have no older generation left to show it to I get one. It seems unfair not to get some beer for the guy Jace. He seems nice, and went to the same school as my ex. Maybe one day I can bore my kids with the video too. We all get very very drunk. I stagger back to my shack, knock the top off the fuse box in a quest for the lightswitch, give myself a staggeringly vast electric shock, fly like superman onto my bed and wake up face down four hours later with my jeans soaked in blood. Remarkably, I haven't pissed myself.

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Recovery takes some time, but now I am certified I want to go on a night dive. This is the best idea I have ever had. On the way down, I briefly see a Banded Sea Krait as it swims between me and the rest of the group. On the bottom it is peaceful and dark. If you cover your torches, you realise that all around you the plankton is bioluminescent. So if you move, it lights up with kinetic energy. There are loads of bad tempered looking Great Barracuda. They dislike our torches. Some are bigger than us. It is quiet, serene, fearsome. I imagine what it would be like to sink here in a ship - to have your last moments in this void with the bioluminescence. I decide you wouldn't really care, as you'd be too busy dying.

At the boat, I take off my fins and pass them up. Then I put my foot on the ladder, and someone shouts "Snake!" "Where!" I say - I want to see it. "Round your leg!" Oh. It's been drawing heat from the boat and become curious about these hot things that have come. It lazily coils around inspecting us for what seems like ages, and I am smitten, despite the fact that the only girl in our group is screaming blue bloody murder and telling me to get off the ladder. Only later does it occur to me that I must have come within an inch of putting my foot on it as it was on the ladder. Docile or not it would've taken a chunk out of me then and I'd be going home in a box. Still, I am humbled by the beauty of nature and resolve to come back to Koh Tao and to Crystal as soon as I can afford the time or the money.

Crystal is a really well run operation. I was attracted to it because Lonely Planet describes it as "The Meryl Streep of dive operators," and I think Meryl Streep is a fantastic actress, but it turns out that my arbitrary decision was a good one. The impressive thing is that there are enough staff working hard enough for it to feel uncluttered and uncrowded, while in reality they are putting a vast amount of people through their PADI course every week. And they have a good selection of languages too - all of europe is probably represented.

I just wonder if I can persuade PADI to update their video. I'd be happy to help with the filming! Hey I could be one of the friendly divers!! Or the hilarious clown!!! In fact no, scratch that last one. Not if you paid me a million dollars.