Our Greek Odyssey -- Patmos

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Patmos has been continuously inhabited for at least 2000 years since ‘The Book of Revelations’ was written on this island by John the Apostle or his pupil.

We had booked the evening shore-excursion to Patmos because that day we had given a miss to the morning excursion to Ephesus.

We had already visited Ephesus on our Turkish tour. It is so fabulous that I do not think a short 2-hour visit from the cruise-ship can do justice to it. Especially, if it rains during the visit, the whole excursion becomes an exercise in futility, since there is no shelter anywhere on the site.

The day dawned cloudy. We sat on the upper deck and enjoyed the view of Kusadasi port from the ship.

As luck would have it, it DID rain at Ephesus that morning and we heard no end of cribbing from the tourists who had been on that excursion, that evening. Most of them had not even carried an umbrella while going on the excursion.

While our fellow-passengers were undergoing the miserable excursion to Ephesus, we sat on the deck, sheltered from the strong winds and enjoyed our soft drinks.

Incidentally, we were the only two Indian tourists on board. I had already asked the travel-desk about the nationalities of the tourists.

A dark-complexioned young girl (a crew-member, probably Mexican, I thought.) was circulating around on the deck with a wine-tray in hand.

Avi and I were talking in Marathi, our mother-tongue. Then Avi went to the counter to get a succulent piece of pizza for us. (Cost of food on board the ship, was already included in the ticket)

The girl sauntered over and asked me in Hindi “Aap Bambai ke hai kya?” (Are you from Mumbai?)
I was flabbergasted. I had not thought that we would come across an Indian crew-member on board an Aegean cruise.

Avi came back and I introduced her.

The girl was Manipuri but from Mumbai. We were quite curious about her and asked her how she came about serving on the ship. She told us that three Indian girls were selected by a Colaba agency for this job and they shared a cabin.

The work was not onerous though duty hours were long. However, the poor girl was quite homesick. The food on board, which was superb in our opinion, was too bland and tasteless for her and she was fed up with the sea and the scenery. She was counting the days to the end of the eight-month contract.

We sympathized with her. We too remembered with nostalgia, the ‘bhel and ‘pani-puri’ and ‘samosas’ and ‘idli-sambar’ and ‘dhokla’, the thousands of dishes from all the states of India, which are so easily available in Mumbai. And mind you, we were at sea only for two days.

One thing was certain. We could not use Marathi as a code-language when any of these wine-waitresses were nearby.

Having spent the morning pleasantly - talking with the girl in Hindi/Marathi, sipping our soft drinks, and hypocritically pitying those poor tourists on the shore-excursion to Ephesus - we were now ready for the evening excursion to Patmos.

Patmos was not high on my list of the islands ‘to be visited’ but it was a port of call on the itinerary of the cruise-ship, so I ‘read-up’ on it and found that it did have a unique feature - ‘The Grotto of the Apocalypse’ and so I decided to go on the excursion.

I prefer a cruise on which you get to see different islands with some unique features. There are many archipelagos on earth in which one island looks exactly the same as another, barring some minor differences.

No wonder, my friend, who went on a cruise somewhere in Central America was bored to death. (I forget which cruise. It was either a Caribbean cruise or a Jamaican cruise.)

Thankfully, due to the influence of the Estruscan/Minoan/Greek civilizations which flourished on these islands as well as the volcanic eruptions which took place, practically each island of the Aegean has a unique feature.

Thus, Crete has the Palace of Knossos as the main attraction, while Santoniri has the Caldera and the volcanic islands Palea Kameni and Nea Kameni, apart from the touristy towns of Fira, Oia and Akrotiri. Rhodes has medieval ‘Grand Master’s Palace’ as well as ruins of an ancient temple on the Acropolis of Lindos.

Patmos has the ‘Grotto of Apocalypse’ and a grand castle near the top.

What I did not know was that Patmos is also a very scenic island. Actually it is three islands connected by narrow isthmuses. Thus wherever you are on Patmos, you are never far from the sea.

Actually, there is only one spot on the northern island in the center of a village from where you do NOT see the sea.

Patmos is a place of Christine pilgrimage. The ‘Grotto’, which is just a small cave, can be visited by anyone. Thus we too saw its interior though, we being Hindus, it held no particular significance for us.

At Mykonos, I had wondered, where do these islands get their electricity?

At Patmos, I was wondering where from do they get the supply of fresh water, because the Castle is quite high up.

Our guide partially answered this question. He told us that throughout the year, people manage with stored water but during the summer season, when hordes of tourists descend upon the island, they have to import the fresh water by tankers.

There are desalination plants on some islands.

This made me think. Will I like to stay on one of the scenic islands permanently?

Decidedly not! They are good for a short visit, but I would not like to worry about when the next tanker of fresh water is due.

This reminds me. When we had visited Hawaii, the guide had told us that when shipping from mainland USA is disrupted, the first item of daily use that the Hawaiians face shortage of; is the toilet-paper.

Ever since we had stepped into Greece, we were having cloudy weather. It was quite pleasant, but not good for photos. If you see the photos of Athens, Mykonos, Kusadasi and Patmos, you will see that sunlight was an exception rather than a rule.

What happened to the ‘sunny’ Mediterranean?

Every website had promised us that Greece has ‘extended period of sunshine throughout the year’. Had they lied?

When I complained about the lack of sunshine, Avi suggested a time-proven remedy for it with a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ expression.

“Why don’t you offer to sacrifice a heifer to the Sun God Apollo when you return to Mumbai? Then he will give us the sunshine that we need. That is what those Greek heroes of Iliad used to do.” He said.

A heifer was beyond my means but I offered to buy a 4-inch statue of Apollo if he gave us the sunny days for the rest of the cruise.

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