Visiting Emperor Nasi Goreng

Friday 19 September 2008

“Corfu. Four sun-filled days on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu. Windsurf, waterski, parasail, swim or just soak up the sun. Get off the beaten track in an open-top 4-wheel drive jeep or cruise along the coast. At night, enjoy the local cuisine and try your hand (or feet) at Greek dancing.” Contiki Itinerary.

I woke up burning. There was a hissing sound as flames poured off me, Kristy ran screaming out of the tent. My skin had gone past sunburn and I was now feeling as though I had been chucked in the fire for years.

I had forgotten to bring sunscreen with me. I had forgotten a lot of things I was supposed to bring on this trip: sunscreen, warm clothes, thongs, a flashlight, my brain.

For a long while I just lay there willing my skin to stop hurting, it didn’t work and I eventually got out of the tent. That was a bad idea, the sun it hurts, everything was red.

I finally moved over to where everyone was staring at Paula. If I had any empathy left I would have felt sorry for her, we always started the day with staring at Paula trying to make her cook faster. We were a rather one tracked group.

Somehow the group had stolen some chairs and tables making this the first time in what felt like forever we were eating like sane people. Usually we were just given our food and we sort of plonked ourselves on the ground.

I was sitting there staring at nothing as the sun finally landed on my face. Complete agony. This agony was helped by almost everyone commenting on how red I looked. Thank you Captain Obvious. I’m not sure what response they wanted me to give so I just sort of shrugged at them while mentally contemplating various ways I could make their heads spontaenously combust.

I was rather short tempered when I was in pain.

I was going to spend the rest of the day in the tent, there was nothing planned today but it got suprisingly hot in there so I thought to venture out onto the beach again.

My burnt brain wasn’t functioning that well as I sort of lay there as the sun moved to where my shade was hiding. Damn sun.

Though I have to say that although I was burnt the Mediterranean sun was not as bad as the Pacific sun, it just felt warm not blazing hot so I counted that as a blessing.

Much of the day was spent hiding from the sun and wandering around the campsite. Apart from a little shop, a pool and a resturant there was nothing to do but lie on the beach.

We all took advantage of that to do nothing for once after almost three weeks of non stop moving.

Nothing really started happening until after dark. We all stared at Paula who was now making us dinner. Bridget and Kevin had both disappeared into thin air and we had no idea where they had gone. I think at least Bridget was a little bit sick of us, though I’m sure I don’t know why.

After dinner we all pretty much headed towards the pubs on the boardwalk. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. There wasn’t a single Greek to be seen, even the barpeople weren’t native as they all spoke english, which was kind of a disappointment I was hoping to meet at least a few locals.

We spent a long night drinking away the nights as everyone started to play pool, which just got worse the longer we were drinking.

Eventually a little too much alcohol was put in the system as some of us decided that skinny dipping was a good idea in the still warm water not a meter in front of us. About then I decided to head in for the night while I could still remember where it was that my tent was.

That proved almost impossible as I got back and realised that all the tents looked the same at close to one in the morning. I may have banged into a few unfornately placed trees before I found my way back to the tent. But the important part was that I found my way back.

 Thursday 18 September 2008

“Corfu. Four sun-filled days on the beautiful Greek island of Corfu. Windsurf, waterski, parasail, swim or just soak up the sun. Get off the beaten track in an open-top 4-wheel drive jeep or cruise along the coast. At night, enjoy the local cuisine and try your hand (or feet) at Greek dancing.” Contiki Itinerary.

Today was odd, I was woken by a loud screeching sound and told to get up in three different languages. That was not something that happened a lot. I also managed to bang my head on the roof.

Ouch. A very solid roof, that wasn’t really a roof, but the floor of whoever was above me. We had just enter port at Corfu, Greece. When I mean entered we were still about half an hour to an hour from actually getting on our bus again.

It all started yesterday with us arriving late in the afternoon at the edge of Italy waiting to board our boat over to Corfu. It would be an overnight trip with us being buzzed awake at whatever unfately hour it was now.

We were sitting at that port waiting for our turn to get on for a long time. That was because the ship was running on Greek time which was we were supposed to get on 8:30ish. I love the ish. Which meant that it was only a good hour before we were actually out and said goodbye to Italy. (We would be back in five days.)

But the Greeks have a great attitude, just get on whenever it’s all good. Actually we were sitting in the bus for awhile so Bridget started a game.

The bus was split right down the middle and Bridget would call out a random object to be found in our daypacks. Whoever had that item in their packs would have to get it out and pass it behind from where they were sitting, then all the way back down the front, before the other side did. Thing was though that every person on the side had to touch the item.

Pens, decks of cards, passports, a blown up condom, a black bra, and a shirt that you had to have been wearing were all passed up and around. We had a lot of fun because we were on the side with the door so we had two of our side just standing in the stairwell.

There was attempted cheating as the other side tried to grab the item before it could go to the front, we tried to grab theirs as well, but both sides were just as bad as one another. But it was alright because we totally won.

It passed the time and soon we were too hyped up and Bridget let us off the bus to run around the area. I’m sure she felt like she was babysitting most of the time.

That was our lovely little boat we took over. We all had a four person box to sleep in as me and Kristy bunked with Kelly and Tiffany.

Most of the night was spent wandering around, for a boat so big there really wasn’t much to do, but we eventually found food, the eternal search.

However that wasn’t to be the biggest struggle, I needed a break from everyone so I wondered around the deck. I found a number of odd things on my travels, a swimming pool that didn’t have any water in it was one, along with a formal staircase that led me around in circles that I was sure was taken straight from Titanic.

Fighting off murmers that this ocean looked exactly like the film by singing to myself, loudly.  Eventually the bitter cold forced me to look further after staring up at the stars that I couldn’t see from the top of the ship. Was very disappointed, I wanted to look at strange looking stars. I eventually headed to where I thought the room was.

That took a good long while as everything looked the same before I eventually crashed into bed.

Of course that was all last night and now I was running on barely any sleep and no breakfast. We wouldn’t get food until we got to the campsite. I don’t function well without food or sleep, seems unusual I know but that was just me.

I sort of zombied myself out of the boat and on to the bus vaguely noting that a lot of our group seemed to have mistakenly put the pillows from the rooms in their bags. One of the guys was being particularly unsubtle as it was clearly hidden as a sort of baby in a jumper. It was a wonder he wasn’t stopped.

We zoomed out of the way and into Greece or really the island of Corfu, it was such a picturesce place, we were going the sort of coast route as we drove along near the beach.

Eventually we got to the campsite as we all sort of lazily got everything unpacked sort of waiting around for Paula to make us some food.

The guys started up a game with a football I’m sure that they produced from nowhere, as I lay inside the tent doing a whole lot of nothing. It was so nice and warm inside the tent and we wouldn’t have to take it down for almost another four days. Excellent.

Soon we were fed and I was starting to feel at least semi normal. We were given time to explore the campsite, which we had to ourselves, or at least the section we were in, which was huge compared to the other places we had been.

The view from our tent. 

We would been going back into town for a few hours soon because Kevin was given the time off for Corfu so now was the only time, otherwise we would have to make our own way in.

We had a great camp, there was a little shop just down the road, a pool, a resturant and the beach was not even five minutes walk away with a couple of bars on the boardwalk. Apparently according to Bridget we got the best place in Corfu because we were camping, at least compared to the Concept and Hotel tours, though now that I think about that I’m not sure how.

Soon the bus left with everyone on it. We were at the beach and I just didn’t want to face another town at the moment. It was time to relax.

So I proceeded to head down to the beach and swim. The water was crystal clear, it was unbelievable I could see my toes and it was hugely deep water, I could see the sand that I kicked up as I moved around.

Corfu was excellent, the crystal water made up for the lack beach. It was rocks up until about a meter into the surf. There was even a volleyball net in the middle of the water, I would start playing with some of guys when they arrived. I had thought everyone had gone into town.

The afternoon soon passed as everyone finally chilled for awhile, leading back lazily for dinner. It was about when everyone came back and told me I was looking unusually red that it occured to me that the searing heat in my skin was sunburn not warmth as I had previously thought.

Damn.

 Everyone back from the town quickly explored the area after dinner as a bunch of them headed towards the bar. My glowing was lighting up my whereabouts so I considered bed as an option.

It was a good one.