Self-catering tour of Europe (Greece)

I had taken my three sisters (and a brother-in-law) on a ten-day pan-island tour of Taiwan in 1976 when I was working there.  They’d found it great fun, particularly as we went everywhere by public transport, with rucksacks on our backs, something most Singaporeans didn’t do in those days — they’d drive.  So, when I came over to London, I suggested to two of them that we go travelling around Europe for three months in the summer of 1980.

They eventually got organised, and arrived.  As the exchange rate was S$6 : £1, everything was very expensive to them, so they came with a whole suitcase stuffed with packs of instant noodles and an immersion heater rod.  This would also make life more bearable, not having to eat Western food all the time.

We went first to Scotland in a hired car, for five days, with me doing all the driving (and map-reading) and arranging all the accommodation.  By Day Three, I decided I couldn’t take any more of travelling with them — something I’d learned in Taiwan back in 1976, swearing never to go travelling with them ever again, but had forgotten in the short space of four years.  So, I backed out of the tour around Europe before relations got to a permanently irreparable level — after all, there were two of them, so they had each other to rely on.  They’d already bought their Eurail passes, which allowed them unlimited travel around Europe, so they had to go.

One of the stories they came back to London with was about their self-catering experience in Greece.  

After a day out doing the sights, they decided to cook some instant noodles for dinner at their budget hotel:  just heat up some water with the immersion rod, and add the noodles.  Cheap and quick.

When they plunged the immersion rod into the water, there was a “Bang!”, and the whole place went dark.  Then they heard voices and footsteps out in the corridor and on the staircases as people wondered what had happened.  The proprietor went round knocking on all the doors, asking people if they’d been using an electrical appliance that might’ve blown their fuses.  When the proprietor got to them, my sisters said, “No,” without batting an eyelid.

After a little while, the lights came back on.

Right, try again.  They were getting really hungry by this time.  In went the immersion rod, and another BANG.  The lights went out again.  More voices and footsteps outside.  The proprietor came again.  No, my sisters said, trying to keep a straight face.

When the lights came back on a second time, however, they didn’t dare risk short-circuiting the whole hotel a third time, so they went to bed on an empty stomach.

(Greece, 1980)