Category Archives: Boats

Sunstroke is No Joke

Since last post i’ve been laid out on my back in our hut feeling like i’ve been beat on by a gang of monkeys. The sunburn that followed our little adventure wasn’t so bad but other symptoms started creeping in, like stiff joins, a horrible headache, sensitive skin, nausea, and a bloated painful stomach. My first thought was to get on web MD and type in my symptoms (bad idea) for at least a full day we were convinced I had either malaria, west nile, yellow fever, dengue fever, or meningitis, none of those would have been fun. At this point the fever is low enough where we are fairly sure it was a bad case of sun stroke and severe dehydration.

So if you plan on kayaking 8-10 miles in 97 degree heat drink more then just one liter of water.

Ko Yao Kayak Adventure!!

Today we rose with the sun, as we always do, ate a hearty breakfast, lotioned up, grabbed a kayak, and made our way to see the limestone karsts of Phang Nga Bay that have been calling to us since we arrived at Suntisook Bungalows.  The tide was pretty low and coming in, so we had to walk it out a bit before being able to hop in.  It probably took us about an hour to reach our destination, four miles according to google maps.

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Unfortunately the water in Thailand is not crystal clear as in Greece, so we couldn’t see much below our paddles.  We investigated around a few of the land structures and happened upon a family of monkeys doin their thang.  They were crab eating macaques, lounging in the shade of the mangroves.  One was trying to open a coconut, and when we came near he yelped at us, hugged his coconut, and scurried a bit away.  Normally we are not big fans of little primates, but these guys were lazy and mildly curious of us in our little, blue kayak.

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We spied a tiny beach, but when we arrived we found that so had many tour company boats.  The little beach, and shallow water surrounding it, was packed with life vest wearing tourists.  I’m not sure why someone would go into 5 foot deep water with a life jacket on, but there were at least 20 bobbing fluorescent vests. We did some exploratory laps around the little islands, and Seth climbed a little bit up one so he could jump off.  Eventually we munched on some lunch of chicken fried rice from our hotel.  Afterwards, we fed our leftovers, and some munched peanuts to the little school of fish nearby.  That was colorful fun.

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We decided it was time to head back another four miles.  We stopped by some more limestone karsts on the way and found some pretty formations and schools of fish hiding beneath.  Paddling back probably took almost twice as long, but our arms and backs are wrecked.  That was a lot of paddling, but well worth it!

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Escape From Coconut Island

We weren’t exactly in love with Khao Lak.  It was quite a touristy town, with many overpriced, touristy restaurants.  Our hotel was nice enough, but there wasn’t anything to do in Khao Lak.  We had one more night before we had a luxury resort stay planned for a week.  We were really looking forward to that.  We decided to head down to Phuket and stay in the old part of town for a night, before heading to our private resort island.  We walked out to the main road to catch a bus down to Phuket.  We weren’t waiting long before I spied a couple in a big, nice SUV.  I asked them if they happened to be heading towards Phuket, and they were, so we hitched a ride with them.  So, the German man, Thai woman couple, with their 6 year old daughter, took us to Phuket.  We sat in the back with the little girl as she played Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja on her phone, and sometimes recorded herself singing along with the car music.  They were nice enough to go out of their way to drop us off in the vicinity of our hotel. That’s the nice part of travel outside the US.  There are certain places where you can do things like hitchhike, and feel completely safe.  I mean, it’s not like we hopped in the back of a truck with guys in fatigues carrying machetes, so don’t use our experience to go and get yourself killed.

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Phuket is an island, with the feel of a city.  It’s a big island and it seems like all of it is very developed.  We stayed in Phuket Town, which is considered the old historical part of Phuket.  Some of the main attractions in Phuket are the Sino-Portuguese style houses.  There were many of those.

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We found a bustling restaurant, filled with Thai people, so we ate there.  The food was delicious and spicy.

After a tip off from a woman in a boutique in Phuket Town, we made our way down to the weekend night market.  The night market is a place for locals and tourists alike.  People go to the night market to buy clothing, backpacks, souvenirs, and dinner.  Seth and I bought some snacks.  Some of them were more tasty than others.  In the adventurous spirit, we sampled some insects, grubs and hoppers to be exact.  The grubs were ok, but now that I’ve tried them I’m not going to be searching them out for a late night snack.  The grasshoppers were not my favorite.  The flavor was too much like chewing on a stick that you pulled out of the mud, and the legs had spikes that pricked my tongue.  I think I’ll stick to snacks like sausages and jack fruit from now on.

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In the morning we went in search of a special type of spindly, white noodles, a Phuket traditional breakfast.  We found the noodles, I think, but we realized soon that we were in a Chinese restaurant eating dim sum, rather than Thai food.  Awesome.  The dim sum was the same as at home and different.  We had har gow, but also little bowls of fish soup with ginger.  And when we ordered our noodles, they came in a soup, not a curry.  But, it was all very good, and a great way to start our day.

We, finally, made it over to the dock to catch a water taxi to the private resort island of The Village at Coconut Island.  We were, almost, immediately disappointed when we saw the beach was quite unexceptional.  And, once we made it to our room, the disappointment grew.  The room was not the same as the ones advertised on the website, and it was dirty.  Gross.  The hotel sent someone to tidy up, but it didn’t change much.  There were so many other things wrong with the situation, but not worth getting into, because we got out.  We had to wait until the next morning to talk with the appropriate people, and after doing so we left to another island.  We finally escaped!

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Now we are on the cozy little island of Ko Yao Noi.  We’re staying in the Suntisook Bungalows and it feels like paradise.

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Yesterday, we rented a scooter and scoot around the island to check it out.  We found a hard to reach beach, and Seth showed me his muscles as he opened a sprouted coconut.  For those of you who don’t remember (or do) we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon.  While there, our friend Annie told us that there was a chunk of coconutty goodness hiding inside a sprouted coconut.  But, when we tried to find one, we spent over an hour opening the coconuts with no reward.  This time we opened the coconut to find a delicious coconut foam, with the crunchy texture somewhat like a watermelon.  We learned later that the coconut tree grows on this foam and the coconut meat for 2 years before sprouting roots.  While we were enjoying our delicious coconut snack on the beach, a man approached us and helped us dislodge the coconut meat for eating.  He then went and found us some fresh tamarind from a tree nearby, and ended up climbing it to fetch us some more.  Though he spoke no English and us no Thai, we hung out for a bit before leaving the beach.

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We had to leave, because we didn’t want to be late for our cooking class.  Mena, of Mena’s Thai Cookery, taught us how to prepare a variety of Thai dishes.  She was a wonderful woman with a wealth of knowledge when it comes to cooking.  And, to top it off, we ended up with a very, very good Thai meal in the end.  She should open a restaurant.

We have a spectacular view of the sunrise over the Phang Nga Bay and I’m laying in a hammock as I write this post, watching the tide roll in.  Today we will spend the day relaxing, but we have about a week to do what we want, on this island or another, and in our near future we have kayaking, snorkeling, and perhaps fishing.  It’s pretty exciting.

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Travel by Land is Never as Straightforward as They Lead You to Believe…

All right, so, when last I left you we were on the small, peaceful island of Ko Phayam. 

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It was time to go.  But, going is never simple.  Even though you have to deal with taxis or shuttles and security, flying is way easier than traveling by land.  When you want to fly, you go online, book a ticket, and show up at the appropriate time, and it is pretty straight forward from there.  But, when you travel by land, you never really know what you’re gonna get.  For example,  we bought a high speed boat ride from the island of Ko Phayam to the mainland in Ranong.  Simple.  It left on time, and took us to where we expected.  But, then we had to contend with taxi drivers who would rather be shot down for their inflated rate, than actually work.  We walked a bit before finding a local transport who told us he’d take us to the bus station.  He gave us the same price as all the locals that were jammed in the back of the truck with us, so that was nice.  He dropped us across the street from the turn to the bus station, perfect.  But, on our way to the bus station someone stopped us and showed us the bus to Khao Lak, which was where we were going.  Now, I know that busses in Thailand make multiple stops and that your destination may not be the destination of the bus.  Either way, the guy told us that the bus was going all the way to Khao Lak.  I’d blame it on being lost in translation, but he spoke English quite well enough, and even pointed at the destination line on our ticket and said, “Khao Lak.” Hours later we found that the actual translation of the Thai words on our ticket said, “Takuapa” which was, obviously, not Khao Lak.  Though we were quite disturbed, we couldn’t reasonably become angry with the driver, because he had nothing to do with the swindle.  And, really, it’s our fault for not proceeding all the way to the ticket counter.  But, when you’re in another country you never know if the customs are different, so you try to go with the flow. 

After another bus ride we made it to Khao Lak.  We wandered around the main road, wishing the google map would give us an actual destination to look for.  The locals pointed us in a variety of different directions, and we were finally successful, and found the Swiss Guesthouse.  It seems like a new building, and we could be the first to use the room we are staying in. There is still plastic covering light switches and when I turned on the AC it had the ‘I’ve never been used, plastic-y’ smell.  And, we’re back in shump-ville.  Though the entire bathroom floor becomes flooded, and you have to wipe down the seat later, this is a deluxe shump, and has some touches that make it work.  First of all, the bathroom is clean.  Then, there is a soap dish/shelf.  The hot water works and there is sufficient water pressure.  But, the item of noteworthiness is the cover for the toilet paper, which actually works.  I was quite impressed to find that the paper was completely dry after the two of us took showers.  Very nice…

There were a few reasons why we decided to stop in Khao Lak.  The biggest determinant was that it is about midway between Ranong and Phuket.  We needed to break up the bus ride.  It’s quite uncomfortable sitting on a bus for 3 hours, and 5-6 sounds unbearable.  Also, the driving is quite scary and that needs to be spread out as well.  We chose Khao Lak in particular, because it is said to be a good starting off point for a variety of day trips.  For tomorrow we have a tour of the Kao Sok National Forest where we will take a jaunt through the jungle and float down a river on a bamboo raft.  Sounds good.  It is, also, a good jumping off point for diving and kayak trips to some interesting land formations, but after weighing our options we decided against those, but don’t worry, they will happen in a different location of our trip.  We wanted to see if Khao Lak was a place we could enjoy aside from the day trips, so we made our way down to the beach.  Quite a walk from our hotel and quite touristy on the way.  We found a super touristy market area with more cheap souvenir shops than I could handle and the beach at the end of the road was not all that impressive.  So, this will be a jumping off point.  

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The next morning, after booking our day trip, we took a long walk to grab some lunch at a restaurant recommended by the guy at our hotel.  Ten Star had okay noodles, and really delicious Tom Ka Gai soup.  After lunch we went next-door to get foot massages at Phuping Beauty Salon.  We didn’t notice the name until we left, which is good, because we might not have been able to enter with a straight face if we had noticed the sign beforehand.  (for those who don’t know, ph is not like our F sound. PH is pronounced as a plain old P)

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Afterwards, we made our way over to a little mini market to grab an ice cream bar.  Seth is partial to the Magnum ice cream bars and decided on one of those.  I found a lychee flavored popsicle and it was delicious.  After a little more walking our cold treats were gone and there was another market right in front of us, so we went in to find another cold treat.  Once again, Seth decided on a Magnum ice cream bar, and I found a popsicle with a bit of an interesting flavor profile.  It was really tasty even though the pictures lead me to believe my popsicle was comprised of jackfruit, corn, and green beans.  I’ll be buying that one again!  I love finding odd things at the market.  

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Island Life

We woke up in Ranong, ate some breakfast, then made our way to the dock to catch a boat to Ko Phayam.  We had the option of taking the slow boat which could take two to three hours, or a speed boat that would take between 35 and 45 minutes.  The choice was obvious.  So we sped off through the waters of the Adaman Sea to the tiny island of Ko Phayam.  At the dock we caught a motorbike taxi to our hotel.  There are no cars on the island, only bikes and scooters.  Our bungalow is a super cute freestanding structure with a room and a partially outdoor bathroom.  It’s pretty sweet, and we’re steps away from the water. 

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We took a walk back to the little village to grab a delicious lunch of spicy noodles and thai tea.  We then rented a scooter to scoot around the island.  It’s quite small, and takes less than a half an hour to cross it most ways.  It’s going to be a few days of lazing around a small island, wading in warm ocean water…

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We’ve scooted around the island, checking out all the beaches, and messing with little crabs.  Most of the food we’ve eaten has been fiery hot and delicious.

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Confused

Hello all! I have to say, I’m a bit confused.  It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I’m not sure I’m going to be completely accurate on the daily accounts of our days since.  

I left off with our excursion to Kimolos, which was fun.  The next day we decided to start off as we somehow always do, with a long, hot walk up a hill.  We decided to visit a beach that we had seen on one of our bus rides called Papafragos.  It was all turquoise water, white sand, and white rocky cliffs that bordered the beach and created natural bridges and little caves.  The bus schedule didn’t fit our needs, and that’s why we walked.  It was long, and hot, but doable.  We ended up picking little snacks of grapes and figs on the way from trees and vines that lined the road.  Yum!  When we finally made it to the beach the water was refreshing.  Seth sat on the beach and drank his beer while Sloane and I went for a swim.  We checked out a cave, that didn’t end up being something we could enter, boo.  Then we noticed that there was a natural bridge that looked like it ended in a little private beach.  We decided to check it out.  The first bridge was cool.  But it was kinda creepy to be in the bridge’s shadow, because it made it hard to see underwater.  Then there was a longer bridge that led to the little beach.  That was super dark.  And, it turned out this was where there was a suction for any and all trash.  Uck, Sloane and I swam through that.  Oh well.  We made our way back to the other side where we sat on the beach at the water’s edge until we had our fill.  It was really pretty.  We, then, caught a ride back to the town.  There was no way we were walking.

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That afternoon we had lunch at another restaurant on the water.  That sounds luxurious, and it is, but they’re all on the water.  There’s a string of about 8 restaurants for that side of the island, and they are all on the ‘road’ that line the beach.  We decided to go traditional.  Sloane got a traditional baked eggplant dish, Seth ordered the lamb in lemon sauce, and I decided on musaka.  It was all really delicious, but I think I liked Seth’s the best.

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We then made our way to our regular hang out.  I think I’ve failed to mention that at least twice a day on Milos we went to this one restaurant to hang out and play Farkle.  We have kind of gotten to know the servers and they know us.  As a matter of fact, they have begun to predict what we will order, and are usually quite accurate.  Anyhow, I asked how to pronounce the name of the restaurant, and then what it meant.  The meaning is baby goat.  I inquired, “baby sheep?” and the waiter laughed a bit and said, “no, baby goat, the owner just has a thing with sheep”.  I’m glad he found the humor as well.  But, like I said, we’ve gone there multiple times a day our entire stay on Milos.  They are friendly, their drinks and ice cream are good, and they automatically bring you water without charging you.  Winner!  Also, they enjoyed watching us play Farkle and ended up asking us about the game.  By the last night they were taking bets on who would win, and one even rolled for Sloane.  This turned out to be her downfall, because she was doing really well until he rolled for her.  The other server told us this was a bad idea because he was bad luck, because he was born on a Saturday (which is apparently bad luck in Greece).  

Milos Sheep Cafe

Anyhow, that afternoon was the Farkle game of ouzo.  Seth bought a bottle of ouzo and set the rules.  If you Farkle you take a shot, and if you roll 1000 you, also, take a shot.  Of course I ended up farkle-ing first and rolling 1000’s like it was my job.  I ended up with 7 shots, more than the others.  Oh well.

When we woke up the next day it was super windy.  We obviously were not going to the beach, and being anywhere near sand was quite painful.  We didn’t know what to do.  So, we went for a walk and checked out the waves.  Sloane won a bet where Seth dared her to sit by the edge of the rocks for 2 minutes.  She got a bit wet.  She won her ice cream. Then, we went and played Farkle.   

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The next morning we woke up and took a ferry to Folegandros, another small Cycladic island.  The ferry was short and uneventful.  We found an apartment to rent while at the dock.  Folegandros is daunting.  Its landscape is comprised of sweeping hills that end in sheer rock cliffs overlooking the sea.  The whitewashed, cubed, buildings a stark contrast to the browns and reds of the earth.  Piled rock walls zig zag over the countryside partitioning the land for their owners, and enclosing livestock like donkeys, goats, sheep, and chickens.  The main village of Chora sits precariously on the cliffs edge.  A small town, walked from end to end in about 5 minutes or less, is a labyrinth of whites and blues, opening up here and there to small squares filled with tables shaded by trees and umbrellas.  Our first stop was for lunch.  We found a restaurant that made their own pasta and had the local dish of rabbit in red sauce.  That was a savory treat.  But, the lunch favorite was the simply named, chickpeas in the oven.  Hopefully Seth will describe this dish, or maybe have an idea of how it was prepared.  Because what I can tell you is that the sauce was thick, and creamy, but not dairy based.  It was very good.

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Folegandros terrace

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Folegandros night

That night, while at dinner, we happened to have chosen the restaurant right next to a wedding.  So halfway through our meal music and dancing began.  It was another wonderful, unexpected surprise that we could not have planned if we had tried.  

Something I failed to mention was the wind.  Apparently Folgandros is always windy, but our first day there was exceptionally windy.  So windy, in fact, that we were in jeopardy of losing our food at dinner.  We guarded our plates as we watched chairs drift down walkways as their owners chased after them.  If you stood up it was liable to happen.  The only wind I’ve seen stronger has been in tropical storms.  

The next day, yesterday, we went on a boat tour of the island.  5 beaches and lunch for 28 euros.  This was good, because we had wanted to do this on Milos but it was 50 euros there.  This was a good idea because Folegandros was a bit more difficult to get around.  The boat tour was nice, but we didn’t really stop at beaches per say.  It was more like we stopped off the shore to swim for about 20 minutes before we got back on the boat.  But it was really nice.  It was hot and the water was cool.  There were rocks to climb and jump off of and I learned that I have a new party trick.  Apparently I can touch the bottom in pretty deep water.  So, I began retrieving rocks for people.  Mostly Seth and Sloane, but some of the others got in on it too.  

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On the boat we met some people.  We met Nick, from Sydney, Australia, and we met a couple on their honeymoon, Whitney and Baptiste, from Paris, France (well, Whitney happened to be from Hawaii, but met her now husband while studying abroad in Paris. Every fathers nightmare!)  They were all very nice and we spent some time exchanging travel stories.  When we got back to port, guess what we did.  We played Farkle!!  Finally, new players!  Baptiste was the winner of having the most Farkles, while Whitney took the lead early on and won.  Totally fun.  

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Folegandros Farkle Group

This morning we split from Sloane.  We are heading back to Athens to figure out our next move, and Sloane went to Ios, a nearby island.  It was totally fun traveling with Sloane.  But, I think she’s done with traveling with us, and with traveling in general.  She seems to be looking forward to making her way home.  Sloane has 15 more days until she”ll be home, and we’ve been traveling for 40 days.  We will be in Turkey within the next week or so, but are not sure if we’ll make a stop somewhere else before then.  Athens is a pretty good hub so we are going to figure that out while there.

Vis

We arrived in Vis yesterday morning, by ferry.  From the ferry, we piled on a bus with too many other people to get to our part of the island, Komiza.  After standing like a sardine in a bus for 20  minutes on a switchback road down a mountain, we file off the bus.  We take a look around, when Seth notices a woman holding a paper with his name on it! What?!?  So we followed this old woman back to our apartment, as she gives me a little tour of the town in broken English.  It was so wonderful.  

It turns out that we have the best apartment on the island.  Yeah it’s small, and sometimes there’s a funny smell that wafts from the bathroom, but we are on the corner of a little bay, with a beautiful ocean view, with a beach on one side and all the shops and restaurants on the other.  Later in the day we found out that if we walk up a few flights of stairs we have access to a kitchen, and a rooftop deck.  The deck was so pretty, so we played a round of Farkle up there.  Somehow Seth won, again!

One of the first things we did was head down to the little beach we can see from our window.  It’s a beautiful little rocky beach, with white stones and clear water of shades of blues and greens.  Beautiful, but apparently not the ideal beach.  Rocky beaches hurt!  And then, the water was really cold! Aah! It was nice though, and Seth gave me a ‘hot stone massage’.

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Hostel Swap

Hostel Swap. It’s kinda like Wife swap, but less entertaining.  We packed up all of our things and headed toward the islands of Venice.  We were off to find a lady with sardines.  What I mean by that, is we had to make it to a meeting point by 10am to find Mrs. Di Cicco, our cooking class instructor.  This sounds simple, right? You plan enough time to get from point A (our hostel on the mainland) to point B (an obscure vaporetto stop).  And, it would be simple if we had a map that included all of Venice’s windy streets, or if all of the windy streets were labeled with names.  Honestly, I don’t think all of the ‘streets’ have names.  So, what you do is you look at the map, walk in the general direction you think you are supposed to go, then ask someone who looks like a local where this point B is, then turn around because you’ve been going the wrong way.  Eventually we seem to get to all the places we need.  If it weren’t so darn hot, or if we weren’t carrying all of our possessions, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  My strategy with directions, so far, is to take off my sunglasses, place a semi-vapid look upon my face, and walk up to an Italian man while butchering their romantic language, pointing to a dot on a map.  Then I smile real big, with a bit of confusion in my eyebrows.  This seems to be working relatively well, met with smiles, laughs and very helpful directions.  

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We made it to our destination with 5 minutes to spare, and met Mrs. Di Cicco.  She led us through the labyrinth to her apartment on the top floor of a building.  It was a beautiful space with air conditioning and a serene balcony view.  Sadly the weather didn’t permit lunch on the terrace.  With the guidance of Mrs. Di Cicco, and Seth’s expertise, we created a delectable meal of Sarde di Saor (marinated sardines in an onion, pine nut, and raisin mix), zucchini and prawn  risotto, baked sea bass in tomatoes, olives, and capers, and Zabaglione (a marsala wine custard).  It was all so delicious.  I really, really liked the sardines.  I was impressed that Sloane liked them too.  She even had seconds! The risotto was cooked in an amazing broth that we made with the prawn heads and a variation of a mir poux.  I could have sipped that from a cup, it was so good.  The dessert was surprisingly good.  I don’t normally like custards, or custard-like consistencies (aka Jell-O [which is the devil so don’t even go there]), but this was so good.  She said it could be served warm, but due to the heat we popped them into the fridge, so they were cold when we ate them.  We dunked thin, little Venetian cookies into the cream and it was oh so good.

After lunch we promptly hauled our junk over towards the hostel.  It wasn’t far at all, and if my memory serves me correctly, we didn’t ask for directions.  Well, maybe we did.  There definitely wasn’t a street name.  We had to go to the ‘alley’ behind the street name.  We had a bit of trouble with the guy who checked us in because he didn’t want to allow us to only stay one night.  And the rules surrounding this situation were quite ridiculous, but we decided to wait until the morning when we could speak with the manager.

After doing some planning and relaxing in the AC, we made our way to Vaporetto 1.  Ok, a little info about Venice for those of you who don’t know.  Before I came to Venice the first time, I was unaware that it was a series of islands.  In the city center there are no cars.  It’s a walking city.  I don’t even think I saw bikes.  This is because to get to places you want to go you usually have to cross several bridges, and many of the streets are barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side.  But, there is a lot of water.  The canals are the lifeblood of Venice.  So, any and all transportation happens upon them.  Mail, police, deliveries, you name it, it happens on the water.  A vaporetto is public transportation, or Venice’s version of a bus or subway.  Something to know about the vaporettos, and public transportation in general in Venice (and perhaps Italy), is that they hardly check for tickets.  At our bus stop on the mainland there wasn’t a place to buy a ticket, and when we asked the driver he waved us along.  Silly us, we got on Vaporetto 1 and asked the boat guy where we could buy a ticket.  So we paid 7 euro each.  As we were on the little boat we watched the hoards of people waltz onto the boat without mention of tickets or the like.  Gah!  Oh well.  Anyhow, Vaporetto 1 makes its way down the Grand Canal and you get to see Venice how it’s meant to be seen.  I finally was able to see some of the magic of Venice.  Getting lost in the stale, humid heat while trekking through the maze of streets is not a pleasurable experience, while losing yourself with the wind blowing through your hair making your way down the Grand Canal with the magnificent architecture of the old masters passing by can leave a lasting impression.

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Finding our way back to our stop at the Rialto Fish Market, we set off in search of dinner.  We found a spot that looked decent and didn’t try to steal too much of our money.  We then traipsed back to our hostel, only a few turns away, and settled in for the evening.

This morning we abandoned our hostel on time, as the manager begrudgingly agreed to not charge us for an extra night.  It was still cool when we left the hostel.  Wait, wait.  Cool is the wrong word.  Maybe I should say that it was cooler than painfully hot.  So, maybe we didn’t start sweating until we walked a few yards.  That’s a more accurate description of the weather.  Anyhow, we left in search for the docks to buy tickets to Croatia.  We found the docks, left our big bags at the station, and caught a Vaporetto to the island of Murano.  Murano is known for it’s blown glass.  I was hoping to find a hands on class to take while in Venice, but that was not in our cards for the day.  We had about three hours until we had to get back to the station.  

Remember my schtick about public transportation and not really having to pay the fare?  Well, I’m going to have to say that that rule does not apply when taking a vaporetto to a super touristy island.  We took a few vaporettos without purchasing tickets, but on this boat they checked.  There went another 7 euros each!  I bet they never actually fine you for not paying for a ticket (it’s 57 euros if they do), that they just make you buy a ticket. 

As we exited the boat someone was kindly there to tell us that there was a glass blowing demonstration, free of charge, all the way down the path to the left.  We watched the demonstration, which was just a lure to get us to shop, then we shopped.  LOL  But I think glass blowing is really cool, so I thought the demonstration, no matter how mundane they made it, was interesting to me.  One day I will take a course.  Anyhow, it was neat to walk through the shops and see all the glass.  We wanted to buy a really interesting Christmas ornament, but didn’t want to babysit a glass orb through Africa. 

Murano 915

After finding a cheap lunch (which included the best pizza we had in Venice) we returned to the docks, bought our ferry tickets to Rovinj and we are on our way.  We don’t have a place to stay for the night, but Sloane has a friend in Rovinj who is, supposedly, finding us a place to stay.  I hope this works.  Either way, we are pretty excited for Croatia.  We’re hoping it includes relaxation, beaches, outdoor activities, good food, and a stronger dollar