Wanderlust

I’ve read about Santorini in a picture book when I was little. I fell in love with the white brick walls and the blue dome church; I couldn’t believe that a town could only consist of two colours. I never thought of setting foot in the land that I’ve only seen on pictures but coming to Santorini was probably the highlight of all my travels. It took a 4 hour plane ride to Rhodes and an overnight ferry ride of 9 hours to finally get to Santorini. I chose the waterways instead of flying directly to Santorini (which would be a lot easier) but I insist on island hopping for the flexibility of traveling to different islands.

I remember waking up to the beautiful sunrise as we docked in Santorini. It’s been a while since I’ve last seen the sunrise; the colours were stunning with a bit of fog left from the morning dew. We arrived at the Santorini dock and we were surrounded by locals holding photos of their guesthouses. We hopped on the bus and it took us straight up the volcanic hill. We passed by Fira and it didn’t take long to get to Oia as the view was plenty for me to take in, digest and believe that I was really in Santorini. As we walked from the bus station to Oia, we saw dogs baking sleepily under the sun which to me was quite odd, I always thought Santorini was known for the Greek cats. The sad story is that people leave their dogs behind after they leave the island in hopes to have the tourists feed stay dogs. The story saddened me to no end as I actually thought that the dogs were owned by the locals since they all have collars but knowing that they are well-fed and free to roam around Oia lightened me a bit.

The entire Oia is painted by blue and white, the majestic of the colors were pure and pristine. Local houses are beautiful in the rustic, raw sense. I walked to the peak of the island and was surrounded by the immense Aegean Sea. Oia was our first destination in Santorini for the obvious ‘world’s best sunset spot’ and next up, Fira.

Like Khalki, Symi is a little island off the coast of Rhodes and 50 minutes away from Turkey. It was very tempting to ferry to harbor of Turkey but I wanted to save the complete Turkey trip for my next Eurotrip. Symi was slightly different than Khalki, the architecture had a traditional neoclassical sense of vivid warm colors. All over Symi I wandered around ruins and old mansions all around the island. I felt like I was traveling through time to ancient Greece.

Symi is small, quiet, and absolutely beautiful. I only spent a short day in Symi, but I had the most memorable lunch with a little tabby linger around my legs begging for more fried Symi shrimps. I left her the rest of my shrimps and photographed her before reluctantly leaving this island.

I spent some sunny days island-hopping the Greek Islands and I was fasinated by how the culture varied island to island. The top of my list are Khalki, Symi, and Santorini. Rhodes was our base where we would wake up early in the morning to take the ferry out. Every morning, I couldn’t wait to get out of bed and grab a frappe on the way to the ferry. I would always read up on the island before I go, but the photos never do any justice on how beautiful and photogenic the place really is.

My favorite being Khalki, it’s a tiny island with no more than 150 residents. I’ve learned that the Greeks are friendly but even more so in Khalki. The people here aren’t afraid to be photographed, in fact, they love posing for photographs. I arrived at Khalki early in the morning, when the fish market has just begun and the crowds walked around town with fresh fish in their hands. As I arrived at the dock of Khalki, a lady greeted us and asked where we were from. People in Khalki were happy to have visitors, quite a drastic change and surprise for us coming from Paris. The lady gave me a jar of Khalki Oregano grown from her very own herb farm. I’ll never forget the smile on her face when she insisted us on visiting and staying at her place next time we come to Greece. I kept her card and will definitely return the next time I am wandering about the Aegean Sea.

I started the day with a sweet Greek bun with custard filling, it reminded me of the bread that I used bring to school when I was little. The food here always surprises me with something foreign yet so familiar. The coffee here was much more aromatic than the ones I am used to, and much smoother and milkier. I yelped of excitement as I walked into the ally leading to the beautiful water, a fisherman cleaning his net asked me where I was from. When I told him I was from Taiwan, his eyes sparkled and told me how he used to be a captain and docked at Kaohsiung all the time. This wasn’t the first time a Greek has told me their connections with Taiwan and how they loved the country. I guess being island people and all, we do share some similarities in lifestyle and the traditions.

Things are simple in Khalki, there’s not very many things left to do in Khalki. I plan on returning one day, just to be still. It’s very calming here, all the troubles seem lightyears away. I am sure I’ll return one day, maybe just to photograph, document and write.