Greek Islands, here we come

11th Aug 2007. The day has finally come for us to tour the Greek Islands. We set off very early in the morning to catch our 6.35am flight from Istanbul to Izmir. From Izmir, we took a taxi and reached Kusadasi Port 50 minutes later. We sipped tea by the sea and had the best kebab at a roadside stall while waiting to board our ship 'Ocean Monarch'.

Ocean Monarch is considered small, with a capacity for 500 passengers but we still lost our way a few times when we went onboard. We set sail at 12noon and reached our first destination - Patmos island at 4pm. With 63km of coastline, an area of 34 sq km and a population of 3000, Patmos is considered quieter and more peaceful than the other Greek islands. Patmos has always been one of my must-visit places as this was where God gave the apostle John a vision of the endtimes and commissioned him to write them down. That formed the last book, Revelation in the Holy Bible.

We joined a land tour and visited the Monastery of St John, founded in 1088. As it was summer, there were a lot of visitors and we had to take turns to enter the church. Patmos is indeed beautiful, evey corner is worthy of photography, be it the church bells, staircase, cobbled courtyards or the panoramic view of the Aegean sea.

The Cave of the Apocalypse, inside the Church of Aghia Anna (St. Ann) was the place where John lived and worked while he was exiled by the Roman emperor Domitian in 95 AD. It was here that the book of Revelation was written. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside the church.

We walked a lot under the scotching sun and were glad to find a drink stall at the hill. I bought a 1.5 litre of mineral water for 1Euro for fear that we might not have enough time to get it after the land tour. When we reached Skala, the main town and port in Patmos, we realised that we could get six 1.5 litre bottles of water at 1.80Euro. Chey...I carried 1.5kg for nothing.

I took some pictures of the nice little corners at Skala before we boarded the ship again at 7.30pm.

We set sail at 8pm and were scheduled to reach Heraklion, Crete island at 7am the next day. The sea was very rough that night and we could hardly walk a straight line, not to mention sleep. My neck, shoulders and back were aching and the constant rocking of the ship made it worse. I woke up at 2 something in the morning after barely 3hours of sleep. I got to know the next day that my mom and Karen also woke up around that time.