Chapter 6 1968 - Greece, Bangkok and on to Australia
After a day of air travel, it was refreshing to head out of our Athens hotel at dusk to wander in the nearby streets and shops. We discovered chestnuts being roasted on every corner, very large newsstands selling newspapers from many countries along with a gigantic choice of magazines [many pornographic], coffee bars which seemed populated only by men, elegant stores selling very stylish and expensive shoes and knitwear, again for men only?
A set menu for dinner in the hotel that night was welcome; our first baklava was memorable. The red wine from Rhodes had a distinctly sulfurous nose, not unlike the wine at the Hostel La Prudencia in northern Spain.
Our hotel proved comfortable, but in a noisy location as the street stayed awake much longer than we planned to on our first night. We awoke refreshed and ready to climb the hill to the Acropolis which we found to be most impressive. The Greek tourists there treated the site and all of its attractions with great reverence and the area was kept beautifully clean and well equipped with signs in various languages. To better see the view over Athens, Pat was about to climb on a broken piece of a column that was lying on the ground outside one of the temples, but out of nowhere came an armed guard who growled at her, and somewhat shame-faced, she walked back along the path as directed.
Finally being without a car, we decided our best opportunity to see some of Greece outside Athens was to take a guided bus tour. A lady in a tourist office, suggested we could take the usual one-day bus tour to Delphi, but instead of returning the same day, stay a night in a hotel there, and bus back to Athens the following day. We made the booking and were surprised how inexpensive the tour and accommodation proved to be.
Lunch introduced us to moussaka, and after a surprisingly long nap at the hotel, dinner was our first chance to have Greek lamb on shashliks - a dish which became a staple during our time in Greece.
We returned to the Acropolis site that evening for a brilliant sound and light show which included tasteful colours, traditional music, and a clever commentary.
The hotel’s front desk accepted the bulk of our luggage the next morning to store for the short time we would be away on our tour. With a minimum of luggage we walked to the bus depot and were aboard and heading out of the city by 7.30am.
As we drove through the suburbs, we learned from our driver/guide that no buildings were permitted taller than seven stories so that no-one’s view of the Acropolis would be obstructed. We noticed a similarity to Spain and Montana as the bus raced through the countryside - rounded hills, dark green trees, some cultivation. Our tour arrived in Delphi and all aboard the bus were shaking their heads in disbelief at the setting.....
The bluest sea, the mountains as a backdrop [to push the heresies away our guide said], the temple of Apollo and the nearby museum provided a perfect visual effect. After a short time the driver took the tour group to the Hotel Amelia for lunch, and then all, except the Dickasons, departed for Athens.
The tourist season being almost over by mid-October, we practically had Delphi to ourselves. There were heavily laden donkeys, men smoking in bars, shops selling colourful rugs and carpets, and fabulous shades of red and pink as the sun set over the ocean to the west. We slept long and well with the lack of noise being a marked contrast to Athens.
Les rose early and went to see the sun rise over the temple - as close to a religious experience as any to date - and after a late breakfast, we sat in the warm sun to await the return of the tour bus scheduled to take us back to Athens. Our route back to the city was slightly different and we had a sight-seeing stop on the slopes of Mount Helicon at the Monastery of Hosios Loukas where the highlights were the 10th and 11th century mosaics. The building honours the memory of a hermit who predicted the conquest of Crete and many mosaics depict St. Luke.
Back in the big city, the front desk at the Hotel Academia was frantically busy and we waited for quite a time for the retrieval of our luggage. Eventually we were unpacked again, enjoyed mousakka and lamb [this time with spinach] and another long sleep.
Pat realized the next morning that she had left a coat on our tour bus. This made necessary a walk to the office of the company to report the loss before visiting museums, and dodging rain showers. We took a gamble that evening by going to a movie - but we guessed correctly and found the soundtrack in English with Greek sub-titles. We could relax and enjoy the Thomas Crown Affair, though we were not sure many of the Greeks in the audience did.
Our last morning in Athens was spent visiting the Tourist Police Office, where a translator assisted Pat in reporting the missing coat, filling out forms so that she would have a statement to send to her insurance company after our return to Australia. Packed and with fingers crossed about luggage weight we walked to the TWA depot near the hotel, where after a lengthy wait, we were checked in [total weight 83lb - just under the limit] and given boarding passes and taken to the airporter bus.
Disorganized confusion was the order of the day on the plane which had passengers who were remaining aboard the in-bound flight for the next leg - both of our allocated seats, in different rows, were taken already by other people with the same seat numbers as ours. A very helpful stewardess found two unoccupied seats together at the front of the economy section so we enjoyed sitting together and extra leg room of this bulkhead location.
Our flight to Bangkok had a short stop in Tel Aviv where most passengers disembarked, though passengers in transit were not permitted to leave the aircraft. On to Bombay with sufficient vacancies that all remaining passengers were able to stretch out across three seats and sleep. Our forty minute stop in India grew to four hours and forty minutes because an engine sprang a leak while we were on the tarmac! We slept, and ate breakfast on board while looking out at the mechanics with turbans who arrived in a dilapidated Dodge truck, left again, returning with blankets, buckets, spanners and hammers and eventually made repairs. At least we hoped they had, though it was disconcerting to watch them use the hammers on parts of the engine. The plane taxied for take off and the flight to Bangkok began with many crossed fingers on board.
Another continent....
Walking off the plane and crossing into the Bangkok terminal building was similar to walking into a sauna. Being driven along through horrific, dense traffic with a variety of vehicles without mufflers did not give us confidence in the air quality either. Passing canals, school children in spotless uniforms, women washing underwear in the canals, stunning temples, and with not a white-skinned person in sight, we eventually reached the RS Hotel. We relaxed considerably upon finding that it was air-conditioned and had a large swimming pool.
During four days in this fascinating city, we were in an environment which was totally foreign to us. We were conscious of being in a tiny majority - our skin colour, our clothes, our language set us apart. Although we never felt threatened, we noticed the blatant stares from children some of whom followed up in the street, and the surreptitious glances of adults as we veered off the normally taken tourist path and walked down side streets and along canals.
Additionally, we found our senses heightened by the extremes here. The heat and humidity, and especially the strong smells of the city meant that we were uncomfortable, but keen to be outdoors seeing the sights we ventured out as often as possible. We noticed that other ‘white’ people, especially service-men on leave [from Vietnam] tended to stay in their hotel bars and restaurants or travel in air-conditioned buses on conducted tours.
Our first full day started, after advice from the hotel concierge, on a small tour which began with a short ride in an open air bus to the Chao Phrya River where our guide “Giggles” met us. This constantly smiling fellow took six of us on a boat on the river - and we could hardly believe the variety and number of vehicles using the river as transportation or as a home base. Houseboats, large and small ferries, naval ships, rowboats, skinny boats with outboard motors with long propellor shafts; they were everywhere, even up along the side canals or khlongs as we penetrated overhanging jungle vegetation on our tour.
The local population not only used the river for transport but the children swam, the adults were washing plates, pans, clothes and their teeth in the water as well. Our first stop was at a floating market - colours, smells, with shouting vendors in flat-bottomed skiffs making it a vibrant place. As Giggles described the best bargains we motored slowly between the floating stalls which were selling everything imaginable in the way of woven colourful cloth, fruits and vegetables, utensils and especially for the tourists [we were not the only ones visiting with guides] postcards and trinkets.
When we did leave the boat and go into a store on pilings on the bank, small monkeys were being used by vendors to attract tourists to check out the wares on offer. Giggles warned us that the monkeys could bite and that we should look and take photos but not touch or feed them.
Our next stop was at the impressive Temple of Dawn which was a huge pagoda shaped building with ostentatious decor including much porcelain and gold and many bronze statues including a huge emerald encrusted Buddha.
The dock for the Royal Barges followed where we saw ornately decorated boats with elaborately carved prows, each with golden pavilions to shade the royal families when in use. Both sites were paradise for vendors who targeted tourists with every type of souvenir imaginable. Giggles offered to stop our bus on the way back to our hotels so we could explore silver shops and drink ice-cold coke, but though our four tour companions agreed to this extension, we returned to our hotel for a refreshing swim, beer, lunch and a nap.
During the afternoon, a frustrating time was spent on the telephone as we attempted to confirm whether our return to Australia required cholera shots. One Government issue pamphlet collected at the Bangkok airport when we arrived indicated that visitors to Australia from Asia were required to show evidence of this on their medical record. It was a weekend, and reaching anyone who could provide a definitive answer was very difficult.
After agonizing over our choices, we decided we should be safe rather than sorry, and on Monday morning we caught a taxi to the Bangkok Municipality Health Centre where we were informed cholera shots were available. This Centre also contained a snake farm [to milk snakes for their venom] and we were given a short tour - intriguing, but, we were more concerned with being inoculated. The process was remarkably cheap, quick and efficient, and we were on our way to a rendezvous with our Mensa contact at lunch and he guided us on a walk to a nearby monastery and temple with a huge Buddha - then on to the only Hindu temple in the city which was a stark contrast.
An Australian, living and working in Bangkok, Victor gave us detailed instructions on how to travel to his home where we were invited to join him and his wife for drinks. That evening, with his directions on paper clutched in our hands we first took a local bus, then a river ferry and finally a three-wheeled taxicab to his home which was situated on one of the khlongs on the outskirts of Bangkok.
We sat or squatted on mats with Victor and his [Indian?] partner in their house on stilts on the bank of a canal and drank strong, sweet iced coffee while ceiling fans kept us cool and two cats kept us company. Victor then escorted us down a side street named “Lane Giving Better Service” in translation from Thai, and we had drinks at the home of two Swiss Mensans who were also working in Bangkok.
Later the jolting three-wheeler took us across the river on a low bridge, and Victor made sure we caught a different ferry so that we would see a variety of scenery on the way back to the dock near our hotel. This boat travelled faster than others we had used and we arrived back very damp from what felt like at least half of the river that had splashed into this conveyance. We felt the need of a bath to remove the river water, then dined in the hotel coffee bar again.
Our final day of our stay included routine shopping for some souvenirs for family and friends, finding the GPO to mail postcards to Canada, lunch beside the pool with a band and singer to entertain us.... did we mention how hot some of the chili sauces were, even in ‘western’ dishes here? The packing and return to the airport were accomplished without incident, and the flight to Perth was not memorable enough to earn a paragraph in the travel diary.
Australia again
Immigration authorities at the Perth airport assured us that after all the trouble we had been to, we did not need cholera inoculations [regulations changed recently] and they waved us through with hardly a glance at our passports and no welcoming comments either. We had made reservations at a motel not far from the airport so we could rest before flying east to Adelaide and finally to Melbourne to meet family and friends.
We knew we were back in Australia when we had two experiences the next morning. Our breakfast was pushed through the ‘cat door’ device common to walls of Australian motels but not seen elsewhere on our travels, and when we turned on the radio we heard the ABC broadcast of the proceedings of Parliament House in Canberra [the time difference meant it was being heard in the early morning in the western state]. Our ears had quite a shock to hear the Speaker, with a very broad Aussie accent say, “Will the Honourable Member from Woi Woi please sit down and shut up,” and the corresponding heckling with swear words which followed - what a welcome to the land of our birth!
A day in Perth to recover from the flights, then on to our final stop, Adelaide. We thoroughly enjoyed the capital of South Australia with its wide streets and abundance of parks. Our Mensa contacts and hosts there had made reservations for us at Chateau Fort, a much recommended restaurant in a private house, with a set menu and a sergeant-major owner who ordered diners around and refused to accept suggestions or changes to his plans for our dining pleasure. It was quite an experience, but the food and wines were exceptional; the brow-beating soon forgotten.
A short flight to Melbourne led to reunions with family members in a city we had left 2 years and 4 months previously.
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