One rainy afternoon, Aysha and I rented a dune buggy to drive around the island. It must’ve cost something like €40 for the day, I can’t be too sure, but it wasn’t very pricey. I have to say we did well in terms of exploring the small island – we rented a jeep and circled pretty much the whole island one day, and cycled over 30km on another! Oh and also did a boat tour.

Do you think I passed as ‘looking cool’? I tried!

It was grey that day but still warm enough. Pretty good for the end of October, really.

We had so many funny mishaps with the buggy!

First of all.. we tried to ascent a too-steep bend and the engine died multiple times. Seeing no other way, we took turns going behind the buggy to push it, whilst the other stayed behind the wheel to navigate.

It was just so stupid, because there I’d be, huffing and puffing and pushing with all my might, but the buggy would move NOT ONE INCH. We laughed so much and nearly had a stomach ache.. and actually, I can’t remember how we got it up in the end..

Anyway. Along the way we spotted this sign.. so we followed it and found a really scenic place for a snack/drink.

With a menu like this, who could resist??

But really, I love rabbit and I LOVE octopus.
Please, meat is meat.. rabbit is no different from chicken. 

I apologise for the terrible quality of pics.. (compact cam)

Although it was – as you can see – rather a grey day.. it was in fact super lovely. The island was quiet as it was off-peak in in regards to the tourist calendar.. and we had a relaxing drink overlooking the sea. The blue, blue sea!

I remember for some reason I was really craving chips that day. Well, I crave chips pretty much every day…

We drove town into the little town square, which was quite empty on a weekday afternoon.

I thought my parking was pretty good. Under the tree, because it was starting to rain. See, I can be sensible too!

There was a small market nearby and we went to see what sorts of things they sold in Greek markets.

The answer is: GIANT ONIONS. (or possibly garlic..?)

And just so you can get an idea of their size..

Isn’t it fascinating?? (by that I mean ‘what the f’)

I had never seen white pea pods before!

Oh one of my favourite vegetables ever – okra! Or ‘ladies fingers’, as we call them back home (Malaysia). Though the ones I’m used to are a darker green, slimmer and longer.

I liked the pink tips on these ones..

Aysha is absolutely in love with baclava, so we stopped by a corner-store bakery so we could pick her up some.

The rest of our journey continued to be hilarious…

It started to rain. And we got stuck in peak-hour traffic – when everyone had finished work. Our little buggy went so slowly relative to all those REAL cars. So on an uphill stretch, we went along like a tortoise with only three legs, and held up all the traffic.

At times like this, what can you do really, other than.. snap a picture of your own face??!

All in all, I had a fantastic day. Everything was spontaneous (as it mostly is in my life) and it didn’t even matter that we were under the rain half the time. Time with Aysha is always super funny and we end up in so many ridiculous situations together.

Like the time we almost missed our cruise ship back from Spain, having to use the disabled persons’ ramp to get in since the normal-people-ramps had closed. With everyone watching from the deck, knowing that we had caused the delay. This was after hitching a ride from strangers (forcing ourselves into their car) and her having peed herself a little from the excitement/anxiety. Haha!

🙂

We ended the night with wine and some kinda of UNO game.. don’t ask me.. I’m not very well versed with card games. I just bring the masks.

Boo!

I haven’t been back to Greece since and that was my first and only time in the country. I think I’ve been missing out, haven’t I?

Perhaps it could be my next obsession (my current one is Portugal – duh – and previously it was Italy).

You can book holidays to Greece via Thomas Cook (don’t just book it, Thomas Cook it, right? Haha).

They’ve got pretty good deals for lots of resorts on all the different islands. Perhaps something to consider for the next year.. Greece 2014 here I come!

*This post was brought to you in collaboration with Thomas Cook! 🙂

The post Zakynthos – Our Dune Buggy Adventure! appeared first on SMALLCRAZY.

Everyone met up in East London, where the car had to be collected. Surprisingly I was the first to arrive. Linda and I had no time for brekkie so the car made a detour to McDonalds. Looking back at road trips or day trips I’ve been on in the past.. I think it’s safe to say that possibly 90% have involved a McDonalds takeaway or drive-thru. It can’t be a real road trip without Maccas, right?

In the end I was glad we left early.. ish. It took freaking ages to arrive in Bournemouth!! It turns out the WHOLE WORLD wanted to visit Bournemouth beach and wanted to drive there USING THE SAME ROADS and AT THE SAME TIME. I wished we had taken the train instead. But then I guess I wanted my Maccas drive-thru experience so badly that I judged it to be worth the traffic jam.

We got to the beach at about 1pm. So here are some photos! It was only my second time in Bournemouth.

The square ones are obviously stolen from my Instagram, and the rest are from my ‘real camera’. The colours differed so much that I actually re-edited the Instagram ones to match the rest more closely… am I anal or what?? No. I just had a lot of time to spare tonight.

We parked on the upper road towards the East side of the coast. You can either walk down or take a lift for about £1. Obviously, we took the lift..

I had SUCH A GREAT TIME just lying there in a REAL beach (i.e. beach with sand).
The water was icy cold but I managed to brave it at least twice – because I needed to pee..

I’m the kind of person who can’t really sit or BE still for long.

I’m not one of those people who can relax on the beach with a book for hours or lay down and fall asleep intermittently. No, I can’t. I have to play!

If there are pebbles, I’ll pick them and hurl them into the sea. I’ll collect seashells and bird feathers and washed up seaweed. I’ll draw on the sand using a twig or a stick. I’ll dig holes in the ground and see how deep I can go. Using a combination of digging holes/drawing shapes, I’ll make up a game that I can play with whoever I’m with. If I’ve brought it with me, I’ll blow bubbles into the wind. I just have to DO something.

On this occasion, after feeling gutted that we didn’t have any plastic beach toys with us, I managed to find two plastic beer cups left behind by some LITTERBUG and so we used it to make a rubbish sandcastle!

I skulked around and collected what I deemed ‘the best feathers on the beach’.

After the completion of ‘Feather Fortress’, I laid down to admire our work for a bit.

On the way back to the car hours later, we saw this cute brother-sister pair prancing naked by the sidewalk. They were giggling and chasing each other and seemed something out of a cartoon!

Later on, I saw this family walking ahead of us carrying two bodyboards and I thought DAMN, THAT’S WHAT I SHOULD HAVE GOT!

I love bodyboarding!

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Getting of the plane at Napoli Airport and feeling the bright HOT sun on my face was like stepping into HEAVEN! Trust me, coming from a long-time-summerless place like London, you’d feel the same too. My love-affair with Italy was immediately rekindled.. and it was so obvious on my grinning face as I waltzed through passport control. Yeah, you just walk past an officer who’s busy chatting with his colleague but pretends to look at the details of your passport, which you hold up in your hand.

Transfers between the airport and Napoli Centrale (main train station) cost €3 one way on the Alibus. I had 1.5 hours to kill before Joyce’s train got in, so I had one of my favourite things in Italy – gelato nocciola (hazelnut ice cream). It was soooo gooood!

Taxi from Napoli Centrale to Porto di Mergellina – €25.

When we arrived, the island was bathed golden from the sun that was setting behind it.

I loved it so much and thought to myself, “wow, I’m here.. i’m actually HERE! I MADE IT!”

Last year when I got kicked out of that farmhouse in France and ended up travelling alone in Europe for two weeks, I met an Argentinian girl in Florence. I was determined to try the local specialty, ‘Bistecca all a Fiorentina’ (Florentine steak).. which is served in 1kg portions, and so I recruited Ana and another Brazilian girl to share with me. Ana told me she had just come from a beautiful place, where she only intended to stay for 3 days but that became 10 because she simply couldn’t leave. She said she would only give me the details of this place if I promised to go. Me being impulsive and adventurous, I says ‘yes, of COURSE!’.

And so.. that’s how we ended up on the little island of Stromboli (it only has a resident population of 400 or so and frequented mostly by Italian tourists).

Hydrofoil operated by SNAV.

Thinking we should save some money and walk to our accommodation rather than hire a taxi, we lugged our bags along a lonnnggggg path. And boy was it LONG. I think it took us over 30 minutes in total, and we arrived panting and sweating from the heat (it was at least 30 degrees).

But on the plus side, it was rather interesting to walk through the very narrow lanes and look at cute little buildings, flowers, and colourful things.

That little islet on the left side is Strombolicchio (please excuse the typo in the pic! I was sleepy!), a volcanic sea stack. Don’t know what a sea stack is? An popular example of sea stacks is the 12 Apostles along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia (though the last time I was there, in 2006, only nine were left standing).

‘Strombolicchio’ in Italian actually means ‘Little Stromboli’, but in fact, it is a remnant of the original volcano that Stromboli island was built upon. Apparently its eruptions stopped some 200,000 years ago and volcanic activity moved 3km south-west. With the rising sea level over time, the current composition of Stromboli was born.

We stayed three nights in a private double room at Casa Del Sole, also a recommendation by Ana.
Francesca, who runs the place, is really friendly.. although she does tend to disappear into her big house next door sometimes and can be difficult to track down!

There is a roof terrace upstairs. After leaving our luggage in our room, we clambered up and noticed that the sun was setting.. so we RAN DOWNSTAIRS, grabbed our cameras and rushed back up. Even though by then the sun had JUST gone under the sea line, it was still so pretty.

Dinner was had close to the port. Stromboli does not have any street lights installed, and so after sundown, people walk around with flashlights, otherwise it would be almost pitch dark.

I had a popular Italian aperitif, Aperol Spritz, followed by calamari linguine. Joyce had shrimp pasta – the shrimp caught around the island were a type I’d never seen before. They’re tiny – about the size of a 20p coin – and cooked with the shell on. The shell is so soft/thin that you’re meant to eat it altogether. I found it quite tasty!

After dinner, we endured the 25-minute-or-so dark walk back to our room with the aid of an iPhone flashlight. I’m certain this walk took a lot longer.. because the night sky was absolutely MAGNIFICENT. We couldn’t walk for two minutes straight without craning our necks to look at the stars and we wondered how it might be possible to see ALL the stars at once. I wished I had eyes on the sides and the back of my head. 

When Ana told me about Stromboli, she said she often stared at the sky. And now I know why! The sky was so incredibly dark/clear that you could see just how bright the stars REALLY are. They were so bright that there were illuminated patches in areas where the stars were more concentrated. It was truly the most beautiful night sky I had ever seen in my life. 

At the Casa, we spent a good half-and-hour lying in the deck chairs up on the roof terrace just to stare at the sky some more. It was so surreal that I almost felt as if I was floating in space, surrounded by glittering stars. Oh yeah..we saw three shooting stars in a row, can you believe it?

I really loved the place where we stayed. It was like a big happy house with different types of rooms spread over two levels/two buildings connected by the outdoor common area/dining area, kitchen, and communal bathrooms (each unit had its own sink, toilet, and shower).

The next morning – me after having caught up on some SLEEP – we had a simple breakfast in the kitchen and went out to explorrrre.

I think we were only two minutes out of the Casa and we were already stuck taking photos of everything around us. Everything just looked too pretty. The sky was bright blue without a sign of any cloud.. there were flowers and strange plants all over, and it was so very quiet and peaceful.

There are no cars in Stromboli (they simply wouldn’t fit into the narrow lanes). Instead, they have these tiny three-wheeled things that look like big toys, or golf buggies.

Oversized top/dress from a Malaysian online store called Beautiful Disaster.

Many of the buildings in Stromboli have colourful painted tiles on the outside to display their names. Naturally, the volcano is a popular and recurring theme!

On the way to the beach, we came across a hotel called Villaggio Stromboli with a terrace cafe/restaurant overlooking the sea. Still hooked from the night before, I had another Aperol Spritz – amazing in hot weather! Joyce and I played with her little pink kaleidoscope and…

…ended up with this funny photo of my eyeball. Amongst others.

Undoubtedly the most colourful person on the island that day.. luckily most people had their sunglasses on when they saw this human watercolour palette.

If you look closely just above the horizon, you can see some faint pink lines. Isn’t it pretty!
We spent the afternoon at the beach. Obviously, the terrain is rocky and composed of black sand as it’s a volcanic island.. making it rather tricky to find a comfortable spot!

I am completely in love with my new SaltWater sandals. I ordered them in the States and was so lucky to have them brought to me in London just in time for my trip. They’re the most comfortable pair of sandals I’ve owned so far. I’m hoping to get them in hot pink and lime green next…!

Sometimes we would hear something rumbling/roaring quite loudly.. no biggie, just that VOLCANO  erupting behind us, you know..

My bikini is by H&M.

One of my fav beach activities is throwing rocks into the sea! Thanks Joyce for this great photo!

If you’re wondering why we always had our footwear on.. it’s because stepping on the sand was like stepping on HOT LAVA.

NEXT: Climbing Mt Stromboli… 

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One of my favourite places to be in Melbourne is St Kilda Beach, where cafes and restaurants and ice cream shops line the streets. A lot of them open late too. There’s Luna Park, the crappy amusement park with the giant clown-face entrance that’s become a symbol of St Kilda. There are lots of palm trees; and in the daytime the water is speckled with kitesurfers. There’s the pier, where I used to sit with my friends with our legs dangling over the edge and we’d share a carton of supermarket-bought orange juice (with vodka poured in) under the summer moonlight.

To me, St Kilda is best enjoyed on a warm summer night (as are many other things in life).

I used to have a friend who rode big and fast motorbikes, and one of the best rides he’d taken me on was along the St Kilda coastline. I remember we went so fast. With the cool air against your skin, the sound speed in your ears and the smell of the sea nearby, it really was MAGICAL.

My second-favourite memory is of my friend Joey and I walking on the sand along the beach, which was lit. We passed beachfront restaurants having parties outside. There were people dancing.. and most amazing of all, the shallow parts of the water (up to about 25m in) were full of people! People were sitting and standing everywhere with water (which was warm) anywhere up to the waist. Walking, talking, laughing, splashing. Naturally we did the same and walked in thigh-high water – me in a miniskirt and her in shorts – all the way back to the pier. I was so happy that night!

Anyway.. before I get carried away

I got to revisit St Kilda with one of my best friends Amy one afternoon. It was so good catching up.. it almost felt like we were back at uni again! I felt like I was in a whole different world from the world I knew in London.. a whole different PERSON even. We laughed and spoke and complained about the same things that occupied our minds five years ago, and in some ways it was as if I had GONE BACK to 2007. We were different but the same. Grown up but not. It was weird but wonderful.

Amy and I used to joke and laugh about carrots a lot. It’s a long story so I won’t explain it, but we used do really weird and crazy and silly things like chop up carrots to sprinkle onto random people (in public, from her car), decorate carrots, make carrots out of pool noodles, and create stupid carrot drawings. I think we went a bit mad from the stress of completing our theses.

So we were walking along the beach… and she reaches into her handbag and pulls out.. a freaking CARROT. See just like old times!!!

Looking at these photos again makes me miss Melbourne again
I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to spend 4+ years in such a beautiful city!

PS – Here’s an awesome video of a crazo dancing at St Kilda Beach! I would so dance with him.. haha!

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