This post’s title’s not to be confused with the dystopian thriller of the same name, in which half the planet’s in perpetual darkness and the other’s in constant daylight, although I suppose there are similarities. It’s just me signing off before I head for home tomorrow. 

Prompted by my ailment a few days ago, from which I’m now thankfully fully recovered, I’d got the jitters about the two bus journeys I’d need to make to get me to the airport on time, and a friend of my landlord, Lefteris (name changed for legal reasons), is driving me there for less than half the price of a taxi. It’s cash on departure rather than arrival because the taxi drivers don’t like that sort of thing, and probably the police too, although it suits me.

I’ll be meeting Lefteris for the first time tomorrow morning at 9.30 outside, and my landlord tells me that he speaks Italian, and obviously Greek, but doesn’t speak English. I WhatsApped him earlier saying I’d be there on time at 9.30, packed and ready to go and he replied ‘yes, I know’, so it should be an interesting journey.

As well as being prompted by my ailment, my apprehension about using a bus follows my experience on arrival three weeks ago. I’d got the first bus from the airport to Chania city ok but at the bus station, where I was to make my connection for Rethymno, ticket purchased, I’d joined a throng of people attempting to board, but it wasn’t going smoothly. Unusually, the bus was more of an upmarket coach, I suspect brought in to replace one of the usual fleet, which had maybe broken down or was out of action for some other reason. 

The driver, possibly the owner, was sat at the wheel, a ferocious look on his face, and a younger man, a boy really, was doing the usual, getting passengers to load their luggage below where all the flaps were open, and then tearing their tickets in half as they boarded, except he wouldn’t let anyone on.

Every time people got to the front of the queue, most of them tourists like me, an argument ensued, and it soon became clear that you could only bring hand luggage on board if it was so small it was virtually invisible, which nobody had. I’d never experienced anything like this before. In fact, when I first came to Crete and for many years after it wasn’t unusual for passengers to be accompanied by crates of tomatoes or live chickens, and once even a goat. The buses looked like the one pictured above back then.

When my turn came the boy pointed at my small backpack and, with a look that made me wonder if he was the driver’s son, just said ‘underneath’. Asking him why, in Greek, he said ‘underneath’ again and started to bar the next person with another ‘underneath’, as if it was the only word he knew.

I then interrupted him, still with just enough Greek from my limited repertoire to explain that my bag contained a laptop and my passport and, pointing to all the empty racks that ran the length of both sides of the inside of the coach, I asked why it couldn’t go there, and got another ‘underneath’, like a spoken version of an out of office reply, or those automated phone messages that keep repeating how important your call is and telling you that you’re now number 78 in the queue. 

Some people had done as he said but there were a few of us milling around grumbling and clutching our bags. The problem was that the bus would stop several times on the journey, when the flaps would be opened for people to remove and add luggage and, while the crime rate’s much lower on Crete than in some parts of Greece, where it’s pretty low anyway, there was no way I was putting my bag ‘underneath’. After a while grumbling with the others, I decided to go to the ticket office to ask why this was happening. 

Stretching my repertoire to its limits I explained to the woman at the desk that the driver of the bus to Rethymno was crazy and that he wouldn’t let anyone take hand luggage on board, pointing to mine, at which she rolled her eyes, slammed her hatch closed and went to talk to the driver. Talk’s the wrong word really and a mighty shouting match ensued that lasted for several minutes. The driver was yelling to himself he was so angry even after the woman had gone. Before she left she’d told everyone to reform a queue, as we did, and the boy tore up our tickets as if nothing had happened, we all got on with our bags, and off we went.

I think the whole saga had been because the posh, private coach had been drafted in and the driver, certainly its owner, didn’t want anything to mess up its insides. It was such a palaver but in some ways is what I love about Crete. Things like this happen but then stop as though they never had. The driver was whistling and laughing with his son as we drove off.

Odd things like this happens all the time, like whole families passing by on a Honda 50, as do small trucks with loads that look like skyscrapers about to fall, or when you hear women having what appear to me momentous disagreements, when all they’re actually doing is discussing the price of tomatoes. It’s annoying at times but I quite like the chaotic ridiculousness of it all, like yesterday when I watched a scooter pass by with the driver controlling the throttle with one hand, while the other held a ten-foot stepladder and a dog sat behind him with its front legs resting on his shoulders, its tongue hanging from one side of its mouth and ears horizonal in the wind.

Anyway, that’s me signing off, although I might just add a footnote if my ride with Lefteris throws up any gems. Bye for now.

There is a footnote (link below)

(Sorry – the comments feature’s gone again. Bit late now anyway)