Greece 2007

Monday
Arrived in Athens at 4pm, took the Metro from the train over to our hotel (Evangelismos), walked 3 blocks over and checked into the Athens Hilton (thank you Hilton Honors Points!), where we had a direct view of the Parthenon from our balcony.

After freshening up, we headed up via funicular to the restaurant with the coolest view in Athens, perched atop Lycabettus hill. The restaurant’s food was pretty good (this is where we first discovered Greek wine – their whites are lovely!), but the view was outstanding! Take a thin sweater if you go in the evening (better view then) because it does get drafty.


Tuesday
Woke up early and started walking eastward towards the Acropolis. We just wandered without paying too much attention to the map, so we ended up in a couple cool neighborhoods (Syntagma, Kolonaki, etc.) that had charming tabernas (restaurants) and coffee shops and wine bars.

We eventually figured out that we were going SW, which was cool because we ended up right next to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is a major attraction. It’s a little worse for wear, but you can still imagine what it must have looked like thousands of years ago. TIP: Buy the all-inclusive entrance ticket, which is good for a week, and will get you into all the major attractions.

We ended up walking in to the Plaka pedestrian area, which is cool for souvenir shopping (at tourist prices, of course) and eating and we decided to have lunch here (gyro…mmmmm). With our bellies full and our fluids replenished, we made our way to the Acropolis.

Plan to spend about 3-4 hours wandering around here if you’re a culture/history buff. Also do your best to get here earlier in the day than we did, since it gets pretty full with tourists over the course of the day, and it gets pretty hot around mid-day. Also, bring good walking shoes as you’ll do quite a bit of climbing up steep walkways to get up to the top of the hill.

We started out at the Temple of Dionysus, wandered through it all up to the Parthenon proper, and then came back down through Ancient Agora, stopping for pictures at the Temple of Hephaestus. TIP: Don’t wander alone through the trees in the Areopagus area – we did and accidentally interrupted a pot deal…cannabis baggie exposed, replete in all its glory.

Afterward, we were all cultured out, so we made a half-hearted attempt at walking through the Roman Agora before giving up and heading off to dinner in Monastiraki. We ended our day wandering back through the shops in Plaka before heading over to the Metro station and going home around 11pm.



Wednesday

We woke up fairly late (and dehydrated), so we headed straight for the National Archeological Museum and had breakfast around there.

Sadly, we only had about 2-3 hours there since we’re both museum buffs and there was SOOOOOOO much to see. If you’re into lots of artifacts from the ancient world, and enjoy reading the placards, then I suggest planning a full day here…otherwise, it is possible to rush through in 2~3 hours, although I would not recommend it. High points here were…well…legion. Seriously, you NEED to go here.

We unfortunately ran out of time, and had to run back to our hotel to get our bags so that we could take the Metro over to the Piraeus pier to grab our boat. We upgraded to business class (cuz I felt like it, darn it) and enjoyed the 5 hour ride out to Santorini. You can get there a lot quicker by plane, but I’ve always wanted to take a boat through the Aegean, so we went for it. The boat left on time, but somehow arrived a couple hours late. Also, the Aegean is named after the waves propensity to jump like goats, so that should give you an idea of what to expect of the ride. We arrived at the pier in Fira (AKA Thira), where our pre-arranged ride for the cave hotel was waiting for us.

Not sure if you’ve ever been to Santorini before, but the cave hotels are basically hotels that are built into the sides of the cliffs overlooking the relatively inactive volcano crater (caldera). The views are spectacular, and the sunsets will stay with you forever.

They’re a little on the pricey side, but I think they’re totally worth it. Our hotel was the Regina Mare, which was pretty decent and had great service. I wouldn’t expect more than 3.5 stars at any of these caldera hotels, but they nearly get by on charm alone.

We ended up going with Imerovigli, which is half way between the two major towns on the island (Fira and Oia). We chose it because it is fairly close to both, but not nearly as touristy and much quieter – you can actually hear the waves at night as opposed to the various boatloads (literally) of people coming and going from the major cities.

If you’re looking for nightlife, then you might want to stay at Fira. If you’re looking for more rustic charm and more restaurants, stay at Oia. If you’re looking for peace and beauty, stay at Imerovigli.

For dinner, we headed over to a local restaurant (take that with a grain of salt) that was pretty close to the hotel. The food was great and the local Santorini wine was fantastic.



Thursday

We just basically wandered around Fira and enjoyed the general ambience of the place. We enjoyed various meals at various places (can’t recall them off the top of my head) and then went home and called it a night.


Friday

We decided to rent a car and head out to explore the beaches. Renting the car was a good move since the bus and taxi systems are unreliable and sporadic at best (apparently pretty typical for Greece). Looking for the beaches…well…let’s put it this way. If you’re expecting broad sandy beaches with warm waves of blue water washing over you, at least you’ll be happy that it’s blue. Santorini was formed through volcanic activity, and its original round shape was devastated a long, long time ago, resulting in its current crescent + point shape today.

This resulted in the formation of spectacular landscapes and beautiful cliffs, coastlines, and beaches. The bad news is that the beaches are all made of stone. The Black Beach has scorching hot black stones. The Red Beach requires navigation across the cliffs of insanity, and the White Beach requires an off-roading experience to reach. The waters are all crystal clear since there is no sand to be seen anywhere. The waters are also very, very cold for some inexplicable reason.
I got a kick out of the drive and the adventure of getting around. It was cool passing through the vineyards full of lazy grapevines (they sprawl on the ground, vines akimbo vs. having posts to follow) – try to make some time for a winery if time permits. We also accidentally ended up driving up an insane mountain towards a place called Ancient Thira – the roads are 1 to 1.5 lanes wide, which makes it extra fun when you’re trying to get around the vans containing tourists. I’d advise against going here unless you like literally living on the edge.

After spending the day in search of and ultimately hanging out at a beach, we headed home to watch an amazing sunset from our terrace, freshen up, drop off the rental car, and then we headed up to Oia for dinner at what is purported to be the best restaurant on the island. This was GLORIOUS – words cannot describe how good this was. It was pretty darn expensive, but it was also our last night in Greece, so we just went for it. You also NEED to go here if you visit. Afterward, we staggered back home (after waiting 45 minutes for a taxi to show up) and finished packing before we crashed for the night.


Saturday
Woke up at around 4:30am and had a tiny little bit of breakfast on our terrace (we were too full to eat it all, but the hotel had packed us a nice breakfast the night before and left it in our room). We cleared out of the hotel and headed to the airport and managed to catch the sunrise over the east coast. Our flight took off at 6:30am, and thus ended a great (albeit far too short) vacation in Greece.

I love this shirt

Not much to say here except to reiterate how much I enjoy wearing this t-shirt, and that this picture was taken on the grounds of Humayun's Tomb.

India - Udaipur's City Palace, Spice Market and Train Ride

Today is our last day in Udaipur – real pity.

We managed to crawl out of bed in time to watch the sun rise over the lake at 6:45am, and it was nearly as beautiful as the sunset we had seen the previous evening.

We then went for breakfast at one of the smaller local hotels, and decided to try some of the Indian omelets that we’ve seen so many people raving about online. I’m not sure if it was this hotel’s take on them, or if people just have really low standards for omelets, but I have to say that it was rather boring and unimpressive...not bad, just not particularly good.

The restaurant was on the rooftop of a hotel up on a hill, so we did manage to enjoy a very nice view of the city and the lakes, which certainly enhanced the meal. We even managed to catch sight of a woman making chapati on her terrace. There were even a few kids dancing to the radio a couple rooftops away - very cute.

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After that, Doulet took us to the City Palace complex, where we wandered around for about 2.5 hours. I have to be honest here and confess that it was not terribly impressive. In particular, given all that I had heard about the decadence and splendor of the Rajput kings, I had really expected to see…more... The primary points of interest are found within the palace complex, which has been progressively built upon over the years by various generations of Maharanas.

After Independence in 1947 (see also Midnight's Children), the former aristocracy found that they no longer had the cash flow to maintain their lavish palaces. While many royals decided to sell off some of their holdings and move into middle class Rajasthan life, many others cleverly decided to convert parts of their palaces into more lucrative assets. One can now find many of these converted into museums and “Palace” or “Heritage” Hotels, and perhaps even have an audience with the local Maharaja (or Maharana in Udaipur). While they have literally sold out, it makes sense since all they were able to keep from back when they were kings were their palaces – might as well make some money and promote your family’s greatness.

Incidentally, nearly all of the art depicted scenes from the Udaipur royal family’s history…some bloody, the rest mainly boring. We did see more monkeys, which were probably among the high points of the tour. There were some pretty interesting rooms, courtyards, and even what appeared to be the precursor to the modern discothèque. Still, we ended up moving through this fairly quickly due to a general lack of interesting things at which to look.

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From there, we went and had Thali for lunch. This was a great all veg style of meal where it’s basically all-you-can-eat, except there are only a few things to eat, and practically no choices aside from the 7-8 things that they bring to the table. The good news is that pretty much all of the food they bring is tasty. This was quite a bit of fun, and we quickly stuffed ourselves on the things they brought over. Great experience. Great food. Super-cheap. We’ll probably be doing this again if we run across Thali elsewhere.

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Doulet then brought us over to a tribal art cooperative on the outskirts of Udaipur. There we found a bunch of neat stuff – wacky rugs, wall hangings, shawls, bed covers, etc. While there, we bought many, many things, and in all honesty, we will probably end up keeping about ¼ of it. Not proud, but that’s just the way it is.

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Soon after, we went over to the spice market, which is as far as we could tell frequented only by locals. This place was amazing, with all sorts of sights and sounds and colors and smells - oh the smells. Everything was colorful, and we marveled over the bowls with the spices stacked high and proud. While here, we bought some crazy cool canvas shopping bags which had various India-specific scenes (a seated Ganesha, Krishna looking like a rock star, ‘om’, etc.).

Doulet then took us to the place where he preferred to get his real local "masala chai", which was right in the middle of the market area. There was also a significantly sized fruit and vegetable market where local farmers plied their wares to local citizens. Not as convenient as a supermarket, but the food is fresher, and the farmers get a bigger cut. We saw all sorts of vegetables that looked related to those that we've seen elsewhere, but they were all somehow different in their own way.

We also managed to pick up about 1.5 pounds of Indian tea, as well as the masala (spices) that magically transform it into Chai. We drank some local chai, which is as delicious as it is sketchy. We could not help but notice the (sadly consistent) presence of blotches and stains on the cloth that he used to filter the chai, but we figured we have already had all of our shots and what happens, happens.

When we strolled back to the auto rickshaw, we also bought some very potent cardamom pods, that will serve as a vital link between future memories and present experiences. We truly had a rewarding experience overall just seeing how Udaipur residents live and interact.

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Afterward, Doulet took us to see the sunset over yet another lake. Again, it was spectacular.

From there, we went and bought a cheap suitcase in which to place all of our local purchases, and then headed over to a cheaper art school where this time we actually bought a few items – again, souvenirs as well as gifts.

At that point, it was getting close to departure time, so Doulet dropped us off at the hotel so that we could wrap up our packing. When we finished packing, a young German couple (students from Dresden named Klementine and Bernd) showed looking for a room (cheap) for the night… we chatted with then for a while before or took off. Since they had another couple days in Udaipur, we introduced them to Doulet. We then took some time to write in Doulet’s recommendations book. What we missed was his request that we fill in his book as we packed and then leave whatever payment we consider as fair for the previous 3 days worth of pickups, drop-offs, advice, conversation, and general super-guide activities.

From there, we headed to the train station with our entire newly enhanced luggage in a rickshaw (good times). Doulet made sure we were set up and then started to leave. I stopped him stating that we had not paid yet, and that was when he explained his request for us to pay via the book. This made it a wee bit awkward, but we then got it and had to hand him some cash. Sigh…

We plan to keep in touch with him (doulatkalra@rediffmail.com). Really, he was a really good guide, and we will definitely recommend him to any friends we have visiting Udaipur and looking for a guide.

We then got onto our train (2A class sleeper) and knuckled down for our ~10 hour train ride over to Jaipur. Since we did not feel comfortable with both of us sleeping at the same time, Melanie slept first, which has left me some time to read a little and then spend a few hours updating this somewhat. Given that this whole journal is becoming increasingly less interesting to even me, I think it’s time to wrap up for the night and wake Melanie up for her turn to stay up and listen to the symphony of apnea and flatulence that has been going on all night long. I’m glad I have my allergies to sustain me, but I confess to feeling particularly bad for the rest of family in the larger Dutch sleeper oven across the aisle.

India - Udaipur’s Royal Cenotaphs and Boat Ride

We woke up fairly early and tried to get in touch with travel desk person to see about changing our tickets to delay our departure from Udaipur, but it just seemed as though it would be too much of a hassle to change everything downstream (i.e. train tickets, hotels, flights, etc.). We did still try since Udaipur was turning out so much better than we had initially anticipate, but it was not looking very good...so, we went downstairs at 9am to meet with Doulet, who took us for breakfast at Café Edelweiss.

Quick Digression:
Along the way, Doulet told us that one of Udaipur's claims to fame is that it was the setting for a significant portion of the James Bond movie, Octopussy. It was the eponymous Bond girl's island in the movie. Many enterprising hotel owners and merchants around town show the movie a few times a day on little movie screens or large TVs to tourists curious about exactly where it turns up. Melanie and I ended up passing on the movie, but got a kick out of the whole situation.

Café Edelweiss is a German bakery that was highly recommended in most our guidebooks (they're even top of the list of the Udaipur travel guide on Wikipedia). While my personal preference would have been for a traditional India breakfast, I didn't want to be high maintanence, so we just ended up dining there. If you do ever find yourself in Udaipur at this particular restuarant, my advice is that you don't get the marble cake (which was dry and flavorless) and instead get the cashew nut crumb cake - very unique and quite delicious.

We also got a kick out of the fact that all of the patrons of the tiny restaurant were tourists, and between the two of us, Melanie and I could understand every conversation going on around us. There was a Swiss family, an Austrian couple, a French family, a Chinese couple from Taiwan, and also some English travelers. Oddly enough, there was only one American there.

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After breakfast, we went to visit the cenotaphs (memorial sites) for all of the Udaipur Maharanas (other former kingdoms had Maharajas, but Udaipur was different). Doulet gave us a very good explanation of many things, including Satis, city naming conventions, different aspects of Udaipur and Hindi, etc.


We spent quite a bit of time walking around the various cenotaphs. Doulet had quite a bit of information on whom the various structures were constructed for (all of them were Maharanas - some were greater than others). Size usually gave a good indication of what the sons (who were responsible for building and paying for the cenotaphs) thought of their fathers.

Going back to the Satis, we also came across various tombs for the mothers of kings. These were special because they usually represented the now outlawed practice of the Sati ritual, which basically involves the wife (or wives - all of them) setting themselves on fire at their husband's funeral pyre. Apparently life as a widow was a very terrible one that involves being ostracized by general society and waiting for death. Going the Sati route at least offered promise of a beautiful rebirth.

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From there, we visited a small Jain temple just across the street. For those that don't remember, Jainism is a very old religion that stresses non-violence to all creatures, and spends all of its money building beautiful temples for worship. It was still being added to even though various parts of the structure already appeared quite old. Many statue/temple fragments (mainly statues) from what appeared to be other ruins were mounted in the outer wall surrounding the Jain temple complex. I must confess that I was a little taken aback when I saw our volunteer tour guide within the premises (who had terrible English skills and wanted to practice with us) swat down a spider (!!!???!!!). The good news is that the spider was still alive after it hit the temple floor. I asked a few minutes later i he was Jain, and he said that he was, so I guess he must be a special sort of Jain.

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Afterward, we proceeded to a store that sold Kashmiri shawls, carpets, and other assorted handicrafts. This place had quite a bit of very interesting merchandise…over the course of the time that we spent there, we purchased gifts for my grandmother, grandfather, mother, father and Xiao Ma – Melanie got some nice things for her family as well as herself. We also picked up a nice enamel frame, some cool papier-mâché boxes, and a nice box to store our wedding notes from our guests. After spending 3 hours there, I also made a friend of Ram (our salesperson), who ended up hugging me as we were leaving. I assume this is normal, and that I am not now somehow married to an Udaipuri.

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After shopping, we went over to the City Palace to buy our tickets for the boat tour at 5pm. It was only 4pm, so we figured we had enough time to grab a quick late-lunch/early-dinner at a local restaurant called “Honey Dew.” This was a purely “veg” meal and was rather good, but a little on the slow side. Because of this, we ended up being several minutes late (we had mistakenly thought we could catch the 5:30pm boat) and missing our boat altogether.

Fortunately, there were still some boats running, albeit only for tour groups with prior arrangements. After looking sad (which we really were), acting pathetic and asking for help from the attendant, he took pity upon us and approached a tour group about letting us take a couple seats on their chartered boat. There was a very nice French-Canadian guide taking his tour group from Quebec all around India, and he cheerfully welcomed us to join his tour (but only for the boat tour).

It was thus that we had a very nice boat tour of Lake Pichola (the main lake of the seven in Udaipur). It was very peaceful, and we saw one of the most spectacular sunsets I have witnessed in years. Just the way that the sun turned both the clouds and lake surface into an impressionist tableau in that mysterious time between when the shadows all disappear and when the darkness comes.



For what it is worth, I know I'm not terribly poetic, but it really was a singularly amazing experience.

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We also saw a ton of monkeys just after we stepped off the boat– nothing terribly earth shaking, but still pretty darn cool. We couldn't take very good pictures of them since it was already a little too dark, but these pictures show the best that we were able to manage.

The monkey is the one on the left (I'm totally gonna get it now)

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After that, we went to an art school to look at their “miniature painting” – apparently a specialty of Udaipur. They had some amazing works, although we eventually decided against buying anything due to the high prices. We ended up regretting this later, but that is a story for another day.

The good news was that we did get our luggage back from Jet Airways at the end of the night – nice work, Ashish!