LIM Yu-Book : Revisiting Greece

When my wife suggested that we signed up for a tour of Greece, I gladly agreed.

I have been to Greece, that was about 25 years ago, when I was stationed in Athens for about a month to help Genting bid for a casino licence. It decided to abort the pursuit; instead it went ahead to acquire two ships which led to the launching of The Star Cruises.

It was a fourteen day tour – first half by coach of Greece “mainland” and the other, by cruise of a number of islands, including a stopover in Turkey’s Kusadasi port, some Anatolia ruins of which my wife and I have visited before – when we did our Turkey tour some years ago.

We used a long way to go to Athens – by British Airways from Kuala Lumpur to Heathrow and Heathrow to Athens. It was a long journey. There are other airlines flying to Athens by shorter routes, but none offers Premium Economy class, which I need because of the condition of my injured left foot. Business Class was simply too expensive for us to consider.

The airport is pretty modern and efficient; I couldn’t remember how it looked 25 years ago. The people were quite friendly.

The tour was operated by Globus, which we signed up through Flight Centre in Melbourne. Organisation was superb. The tour director in the first leg was an elderly but elegant lady. We had a good teacher; she has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of Greece. Little did I realise that Greek civilization was that sophisticated. I was especially impressed by what I saw in the artefacts during the Mycenaean Age (1600-1100 BCE). From what I saw, the civilization might actually be more advanced than China’s Shang which spanned around the same time (16^th Century to 1046 BCE). No wonder, they were able to produce Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, not to mention great scientists like Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes and Hippocrates, and staged the first Olympics.

The revisit to Kusadasi’s Ephesus ruins reinforces my thoughts about Greeks and Greece. Kusadasi is a beach resort on Turkey’s western Aegean coast. The whole of Turkey was actually part of the Greek civilization. But the Byzantine Empire lost it to the Ottomans. Under the Ottoman onslaught, the whole Greece could have turned Islamic if not for Greeks’ fierce patriotism and their strong devotion to Orthodox Christianity. I see that the Greeks are generally a little laid-back in the way they go about their lives. I remember an experience with taxis during my last visit to Athens; none would want to pick up fares during lunch time. That’s siesta time for them! You can even notice the difference between the Greeks and the Turks in tourist sites. There isn’t much on offer in Greek spots, but on the Kusadasi stop, the Turks spare no efforts in emptying tourists of their dollars. One is spoilt for choice there.

Many parts of downtown Athens are still very un-First World. Unemployment is said to be 25%. Our cruise’s tour guide is a holder of a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Many university graduates can only find employment in supermarkets and paid something like 3 to 4 Euros an hour. And unlike the malls and supermarkets you see in our part of the world, theirs are generally sparingly stocked.

he monasteries

Mykonos, Santorini and Milos, Oia & Thira

Wine

Americans

Greek versus Turks

Kusadasi

Celestyl Crystal Crew