Hellas!!!
Crete Camp Diary 11-18 July 2006
by Wira Tandjung & Paul Sidle
Tuesday
People didn?t have to get up too early in the morning as our flight to Chania/Crete was at mid day. Everyone gathered at Gatwick Airport on time. It is so much easier to travel in smaller groups. There were only 7 of us plus Dennis? family that were ready for another adventure in Greece. Good for us, bad for the others :-)
It was a good mix of different people: Adam and Jon were the most senior ones, followed by Paul while Kenny (the Irish), Barney (former Tae Kwan Do), Philippe (the Frenchman) and I (the Swiss) have less than 1 year Kung Fu experience. To much of Dennis? amusement most of the participants (apart from Paul ? the lawyer - and me) work in IT.
After a quick greasy lunch inside the terminal, we were ready to board the plane, hoping the food in Crete would be at least twice as good as what we had just eaten. We wouldn?t be disappointed by our high expectations.
On board, headphones for GBP 2.50/each were offered in order to watch the latest ?Ice Age? movie. Some of us ?fell? for this and actually invested their precious money, only to find out that most of the tiny screens on board were either completely broken or only black and white. People got even more gutted when one of us discovered that a normal headphone (e.g. the one from your iPod) works as good as the GBP 2.50 one.
Manoliss welcomed us at Chania airport. Loading our luggage into the 2 rented cars turned out to be a big challenge as the back of the cars had as much space as a commuter on the northern line during rush hour.
Paul and Kenny were our dedicated drivers. There was some initial worry that they couldn?t cope with the Greek streets and traffic or they would drive on the wrong side of the road but everyone will agree that, after some near misses, they managed very well.
We got to Vamos quite late and had dinner straight away. At Christo?s restaurant we got the first taste of Greek ?cuisine?. To say there was not enough food on the table is like saying there are not many fish in the sea.
All we needed now was sleep. The night would be short as Dennis wanted us to start the mandatory run at 6am (it was to some point voluntary if you don?t mind being woken up with a bucket of cold water and being punched for the rest of the camp). I didn?t even know there was a 6am but soon I?d be wiser.
Paul, Philippe, Barney and me stayed at Vamos Palace in a clean apartment (at least at the start of the week?by the end, the cleaning lady was forced to ask Barney to move his pants) with a pool and bar outside. Paul wasn?t very happy when he discovered a wet patch on his bed (was it water or was it something else? we will never know). In other words, he spent the night sleeping with his legs in a semi-split position, avoiding the wet patch. The rattling fridge and the noise of some snorers kept some of us awake for hours. As for me, I slept like a baby (thanks to the Raki that was served after dinner).
Wednesday
Those who have been to the Crete camp before may well remember the running track. It goes uphill for about 5-10 minutes (depending on the speed of the jogger, obviously), then downhill through the village for the rest of the lap. Philippe was excused from running as he came to the camp with a back injury (he still had to get up though?fair is fair). The first lap went easy. It was more ?an introduction to jogging?. In the second lap, however, we soon saw who would be the leaders (Jon and Paul) and who were a bit slower than them (but still faster than Paula Radcliffe?*cough*).
7.30am was breakfast time. It is a great feeling to have breakfast that early knowing that you have already achieved something while others back home might wake up just now with a huge hangover (note: not taking any time differences into account). It was even more comforting to think that we were about to head to the beach and train all day while others back home had to go to the office and work. Most likely they had forgotten their password to login and would spend half the day chasing some support guy for a reset of their account.
Yogurt with honey seemed to be the hit at breakfast. Everyone went for it - keeping the nice lady at the breakfast place busy providing us with more yogurt.
After a quick break we drove to the beach to train. It was a very quiet place with very soft sand. As the sun was shining and there was no cloud at all the sand would soon warm up (to an equivalent of gas mark 5; in other words you could boil some eggs on the sand). After a couple of hours hard training Dennis allowed us to cool down and have a swim in the sea. As a nearby river flows into the beach, swimming in the sea turned out to be a great adventure. The water temperature could change from warm to immediately cold. Cold upper body, warm feet or vice versa?basically every combination was possible. Smart people could detect a cold water front early and change swimming direction when they were taking the front person?s screaming into account.
We had very delicious lamb chops for lunch. To say there wasn?t enough food served is like saying China and India?s population is small. Many couldn?t finish but we were lucky to have Adam with us. Instead of wasting the food we just dumped all spare food on him (how does he keep so slim? Another mystery that remains unsolved).
After we had torn Adam away from the table cloth (he had a go at that too?), during the following 2 hours siesta some of us took the chance to catch up on some sleep. Paul and I had a quick swim in the pool. Philippe joined us later. He first entered the less deep pool to shower (he is French after all) and to acclimatise to the water and wanted to cross over to the bigger pool, which was connected but had an underwater wall in between. The unlucky frenchman head-butted the wall (which was really almost invisible) in the same way Zidane hit Materazzi at the world cup. Poor Philippe took away some bruises to his chin and his pride and had to take the laughter he got from Paul and me (in German, we?d call it ?Schadenfreude??to my surprise there is no English word for that).
Later in the afternoon, it was around 5pm, we walked over to where Dennis was staying, and trained under olive trees for another 2-3 hours. It?s about 10 minutes away from Vamos Palace but it?s a very dangerous walk. Only the bravest and toughest people survive. Some legend says that Indiana Jones was last seen on that path. On the way we had to pass several mad dogs. Some of them attached to a chain, some chasing us and barking non-stop. It seems that almost every family in Vamos has a dog as a pet. Unfortunately, they don?t really go for a walk with them but leave them attached to the chain. Hence they go crazy; at least that?s my theory.
Dinner took place at Christo?s again. This time we would be served burgers - but only after we were good enough to finish the starters. Those starters could well be a full dinner. It normally starts with freshly baked bread and Greek satziki, then lots of vegetables and Feta cheese and some other specialties such as baked mushrooms filled with cheese. To say there wasn?t enough food for all of us is like saying the London tube is always on time. We finished dinner with some strong Raki?it?s good for digestion.
Thursday
Some of us suffered from soar legs. This is what you get if you don?t train hard enough prior to camps, my instructor Dave would tell me. He might be right.
We ran the same hill up and then down again ? twice, always passing by some mad dogs waiting for us to come close enough. I always hoped those chains were strong enough to keep a killer dog attached.
This time breakfast wasn?t served before we had additional hill sprints following the 6.3km run. Dennis made us run up a little hill so many times and so often that our lungs started to collapse. Still no one was coughing blood ? a sign for our chief instructor to continue :-)
Adam, Jon and Kenny who stayed in the flat next to Dennis' weren't in a good mood. Their water supply stopped in the middle of the night so they felt like a bunch of Loo-sers.
We trained at the beach in Kalives, a touristy place with more people wondering what a group of good-looking, charming and well-built men were doing on the beach. Barney had an impressive sunburn on his back, showing funny patterns (looked like a Rorschach test pattern). He definitely needed to work on his arm-stretch, as he didn?t reach many spots on his back. He tried to correct the burn by having one of us applying sun cream only to the burnt spots. Whether that strategy was a wise one or not?after the commercial break! Stay tuned.
At lunch we got entertained by Adam?s funny jokes and puns. I couldn?t stop laughing while others had to work hard to come up with a smile. It was a tough audience. We kept trying to come up with new puns as the ?it?s all Greek to me? joke was soon worn out (we reserved ?Czech please!? in case we ever have a camp in Prague one day). We all tried to be more CRETE-ive to come up with more cRAKIng jokes and puns. We failed! People kept Adam quiet by supplying him with spare food from the grill-mix-platter. Someone referred to him as a ?human dustbin?. That seemed unfair to me - even a dustbin gets full eventually but Adam just seemed to keep going. Dennis and Adam had a Coffee with Bailey?s (or was it more Bailey?s with some coffee?) after lunch. Something Dennis always wanted to try.
We added some kicks into our training. Not all of us have the same aiming accuracy as Robin Hood with his bow and arrow. While Dennis asked us to kick the opponent's bum cheek we got mostly hit on the hip bone. Surely you can imagine how fast bruises showed up (faster than mushrooms grow after a strong rain) and how pain was growing with each additional kick.
Dennis ended the session by making us drink ?Yunnan Bai You? mixed with hot water. He scared some of us when he warned us that we might spit blood when having too much. We all survived!
Later that night, back at Vamos Palace, our unlucky fellow Philippe, who first suffered from a back injury, then had a knee injury, and then smacked his head against the wall of the swimming pool; hit his leg when attempting to walk in the dark. His cries of agony upon contact with the bed post only met with further laughter from his room mates. I think he was touched by the concern showed.
Friday
You get used to the jogging track and running becomes easier - or maybe not. Our hip joints hurt from the sparring sessions of the previous day. People questioned the effect of ?Yunnan Bai You?, but then again we didn?t want to know how much pain we would have suffered if we hadn?t taken the wonder medicine. Speaking of wonder medicine: on several occasions we ended up discussing the ?Asterix & Obelix? comic. None of us seemed to remember the name of the blacksmith and the chief?s wife. It kept us busy for days. (FYI: Fulliautomatix and Impedimenta).
Dennis added snake sprints to our daily sprint session. Barney felt the pain being the front man but seemed to enjoy 6 men chasing after him.
We tasted another Greek specialty for lunch: Gyros. Not one, but two of them. It was important to Dennis that no one would be hungry after lunch. Dennis ordered a lamb head and we all had to try some of the lamb eye. Not all of us liked it. It feels like jelly.
After another tough sparring session under the trees next to Dennis? place and a quick refreshing break we put the grill on. Dennis prepared kilos of goat meat. On top of that we had meters of sausages to be grilled and eaten. To say there wasn?t enough meat on the grill is like saying these comparisons are not worn-out yet.
Later that night Carmen impressed us with an outstanding ballet performance, accompanied by Sharon?s singing.
Saturday
As we were expecting many people to spend their weekend at the beach we chose to go to another place. Manoliss took us to a place near the forest. The colder air was appreciated by all of us. The number of bruises kept going up as we continued to spar. We had lunch at the nearby restaurant and witnessed how a goat was sliced and diced (?Now THAT?S how you turn into a vegetarian?). It was the first time people were still feeling a bit hungry. They were quiet and happy as kids after Sharon ordered some more food.
During the short siesta at Vamos Palace Philippe and I challenged Paul and Barney to a volleyball contest. They had no chance?I advised them they had better stick to Kung Fu.
The afternoon session became a fun session when Dennis introduced us to something called ?1000 punches?. The aim is to hit the person as fast and as many times as possible from different angles. One can guess that the number of bruises on each of our bodies was now higher than number of fingers on one hand (you don?t have to be a mathematician to figure out that it?s more than 5!)
We cooled down at the pool, just before dinner was served at Christo?s. Barney and I did some somersaults into the pool - or at least we tried. Can be quite painful if you don?t turn a full 360 degrees and suffer from a sun burn, but hey, no pain no gain!
Philippe shared one of his funniest stories EVER: When he was much younger (he insists that I point out it wasn?t recently), he was in such a rush and was brushing his teeth very quickly. For some strange reason, (we are still trying to figure out how he managed to do that) he slipped and the toothbrush got stuck in one of his nose holes, which ? according to him ? can be very painful when trying to pull it out due to the bristles facing down. I bet he regrets that he shared this story with us as we kept bringing up that story over and over again; and it became one of the most memorable moments to all of us (even though it didn?t happen at the Crete camp). Still, we promised not to mention it once when we got back. I think this is at least the fourth time now, so we?ve kept our promise!
Sunday
Philippe?s knee injury got worse. Nevertheless he tried running the 2 laps ? it was more limping than running but thumbs up for the attempt. Kenny?s knee started to hurt a bit which meant I lost my pacemaker. Although it was a Sunday this didn?t stop us from training. We all agreed that a day off was in none of our interests. We were there to train and learn, hence we trained and learnt. For lunch, we were served a very nice seafood platter. There was plenty of seafood around. If we had worn trousers I bet we would have had to open a button and half a zip?but we were wearing stretchy training pants, hence everyone got spared the scary view.
We started to show some tan ? at least some of us. While most changed from protection factor 20 to a lower number, Paul kept putting on some sort of sun blocker (the stuff you need once you leave earth atmosphere).
Our bodies went to their limits due to the long training and the exposure to the hot and burning sun. We stacked up on Vitamin C and kept drinking water.
During one of the breaks Kenny ? one of our dedicated drivers ? complained about the cars we rented. I never drove in the same car with him but apparently he was rarely speaking highly about the car and its performance during the rides between Vamos and the beach. Paul?s car was of the same quality but at least we had a sunroof. Finding a good radio station was a bit of a challenge though. It was all Greek to us (boom boom). We then often tuned into the US military?s own radio station (some of the US Navy are stationed on Crete). They love their rock?n?roll!
Monday
The majority agreed that we should run a different track. So we started at Vamos running towards Kalives for about 25 minutes, then all the way back. The tricky bit is that it goes downhill and the tough bit is the way back. Surprisingly, it took almost the same time to run uphill as downhill.
Only on Monday, i.e. the 7th day of the camp, the Kenny-Barney-mix-up started. Not only Sharon and Dennis but others began getting confused by the two and were often referring to one person but meant the other. It would make sense if they were the same height (they aren?t), spoke the same accent (they don?t), looked the same (they don?t) or behaved the same way (nope!). I think our brains just got tired or it was the effects of the hour-long exposure to the sun.
The Afternoon session was less physical but more challenging for our brains. Dennis discussed with us for about 2 hours. It was a welcome change and we all learned a lot. He left us with some sort of riddle (in a ?Da Vinci Code? way), i.e. he gave us some hints but we had to figure out the solution ourselves. This kept us thinking the whole night.
Tuesday
Only today we realised how quickly time passes by when you are having fun. One last time we ran the new track (downhill then uphill). One last time we had that delicious yogurt mixed with local honey. One last time we went to the beach in Kalives to train in the morning. One last time we had a big and delicious lunch at Christo?s.
In the afternoon, we were busy packing our stuff and had a last swim in the pool outside Vamos Palace. Some of us did some last minute souvenir shopping.
Dennis bought about 12 litres of local olive oil and had those bottles packed up in a box. Unfortunately, the airline wouldn?t allow bottles being checked in. So we all helped out, got some extra plastic bags and carried them as our hand luggage.
We all behaved like little kids with some pocket money when we got to the airport?s duty free shop. Masses of M&M?s, Haribo gummy bears, chocolate were sold within minutes upon our entry into the shop. All the calories and fat we burnt during the whole week would be loaded back within a couple of minutes.
It was a quiet flight back (apart from some turbulences). Most of us tried to sleep or were reading the book they intended to finish prior to the camp. I finished my book and was glad about the happy ending.
To say this wasn?t a great Kung Fu camp is like saying there was never enough food in Crete.
P.S. Bruce Lee?s favourite drink? Punch!
P.P.S. my favourite musical? Grease!