My Summer as an Olympic Volunteer: Part I

Introduction

It goes down as one of the craziest things I have ever done. Summer had arrived, and with the year being 2004 it could only mean one thing: The Athens Summer Olympics was among us! And I along with my good friend, university mate and fellow Malaysian Puvan were headed to Greece as two of the 55,000 volunteers of the Games. Just six months ago to the day of our departure we had meticulously filled out the seemingly endless pages of the volunteer application form on the official website of the ATHOC (Athens 2004 Olympic Games Committee), with just the slightest glimmer of hope that we were going to be picked for the job.

But now that we had our volunteer mandate in hand, new challenges threatened to derail our travels even before we set foot in Greece. ATHOC unfortunately did not provide volunteers with any means of accommodation. So we were confronted with the near impossible task of finding a place to stay in Athens around the time of Olympics without getting ripped off. Room prices made you think that everyone aside from the rich and contest winners were going to miss out on this historical event. Dormitory beds in youth hostels, the usual suspect for budget travellers which normally go for EUR 20 (RM 102) a night were now in the range of EUR 100 (RM 510) or more. What you would normally pay for a hostel room would not even get you a place in a campsite anymore! To alleviate the shortage of beds for visitors the city of Athens had conducted a rent-a-home programme in which Greek homes doubled as housing while their owners escaped the Olympic hustle and bustle, but this was by no means affordable to university students like us! So in desperation many had advertised on the Net wondering if some kind soul would lend them space in his garden or backyard! Some like me received unreasonable offers from private home owners demanding full payment even before I got to Greece! After months of trying time was running out, and despite still not having found anything we booked our flight tickets to Greece. Was it such fervour to be part of the Olympics or just plain foolishness? Those were tense times indeed!

The last resort – the Malaysian Embassy in Berlin, which is also in charge of our affairs in Greece proved to be our saviour. News of a Malaysian family living in Athens who could help us was hard to believe at first. They found us an affordable apartment in the classy district of Kifissia, which is a lot like Bangsar, that we could rent for a month. The family runs a Thai cuisine restaurant business. The father is a very successful self-made chef and general manager. He once worked for the Marriott in New York, while the hotel chain was still up and coming. During those late night dinners we had (on the house!) in his restaurant he would recount fascinating tales from his experience in the restaurant industry. I can still taste those glorious asam prawns and sesame ribs! His wife is also his top aide in the business. Several times I had trouble convincing her at dinner that I was already full as she was so generous! “Are you sure you don’t want to eat some more?” No auntie, thank you. “Sure?” They also have two bubbly kids who speak fluently and maturely in English, Greek and Cantonese. Entertaining in the way that they were pretty opinionated and up-to-date about everything, they kept insisting that we spoke with a Singaporean accent, much to my objection!

Santorini

The beach

Now what would coming to Greece have meant if we did not get our butts down on the salty and sandy of the Greek islands. Due to limited time and budget on our part only one island other than party paradise Mykonos truly warranted attention, and that was Santorini, home of the major volcanic eruption of 1950. Puvan, Mike and I got a splendid deal from a travel agent in Syntagma Square in Athens - EUR 108 for 2 nights stay in a 3 star hotel, including ferries and transfer from the port to the main town of Fira. Santorini has such sheer cliffs that Fira is located some miles up from the port. The journey itself was pretty entertaining. We set off from the Athens port of Piraeus at 10 pm on a 9 hour overnight plough to Santorini. We would reach Santorini at the break of dawn. The idea was that the tall cliffs of Santorini look ghostly in the early morning light. On the way out of the port we caught a glimpse of the Queen Mary 2, largest cruise ship in the world, which in just the week before housed Tony Blair and Sultan Azlan Shah, among a host of other dignitaries. The Queen Mary 2 was undoubtedly a glittering jewel at night, but strangely it did not seem as huge as expected from our perch on the ferry, which was several stories tall in itself. On board almost nobody wanted to sit indoors, where there were so-so couches and air-conditioning, but instead most chose to rough it out in sleeping bags (and even a hammock) on the floor and benches of the windy deck outside. Watching the moonlit waves of the black sea I could not resist thinking about my life and reminiscing the months gone by. After a while the cold started to get to me but some hot water in a cup from the on-board café and a Milo 3-in-1 sachet quickly restored the warmth. We had to improvise on stretching our budget, which was by now way overblown. Luckily I discovered a nicely hidden lobby in the “distinguished” area, which was comfortable but only sparsely occupied. There we played cards and had seriously good shut eye till morning.

The island of Santorini ought to be on the list of Top 10 Honeymoon Destinations on Discovery Channel! To explore it we had rented a car which was absolutely worth every cent, as walking the large island in the summer heat would have been tedious to say the least. Everywhere we went the wonderful smell of grapes drying in the sun accompanied us. It seemed that wherever there was a square inch of unoccupied soil on Santorini, man had to plant grapes. Come evening the draw of the ethereal sunset here was evident as tourists left their cars by the roadside for a few minutes of nature at its best. With our car we easily checked out nearly all the beaches on Santorini. The best by far was the Red Beach which was nested in a cove of red rocks, and was filled with colourful round pebbles instead of sand. There were also some places where the sand was a volcanic black!

The next day we booked ourselves aboard a glass-bottom boat. It took us on the waters around Santorini, including to the now dormant volcano, a muddy hot spring and stopped at several coastal towns. It was in one such town where to my surprise a marvellous underwater world existed right by its jetty. The water was incredibly clear, with visibility up to about 20 meters. There were no corals, but coral fishes of all shades and shapes were aplenty, feasting on the moss and weed by the jetty. It was definitely one of the best swims I have had in my life. Elsewhere we saw underwater ruins in deep water through the glass of the boat.

After the boat trip was over I took a donkey (EUR 3.50) ride up the zigzag stairs from the old port to Fira. If you had wanted to ascend the stairs, this was the preferred way. Else it meant trodding on donkey crap and avoiding donkeys with path-finding problems! A shepherd would gather about 3-4 willing customers before herding all those donkeys carrying people on them up the stairs by foot.

Santorini truly epitomized my Greek adventure – discovering beauty in amounts aplenty to bowl me over at every turn! I yearn for the next time when I shall return to this land of goddesses and heroes.

Meteora

Elsewhere beyond Athens…

After 2 weeks of volunteer work I decided I had had enough and I left for backpacking in central Greece instead. The destination – Meteora!

It turns out that the bus is still the preferred mode of travel in these parts, just like back home.

Puvan and I booked ourselves on one to the hill city-cum-regional transport hub of Trikala, which is linked to Kalambaka, the base city from which we would explore Meteora. Meteora is a place peculiar like no other. Its name actually identifies a host of Christian monasteries dating back to the 1300s. Were they just ordinary monasteries we would not have been so attracted but these are perched precariously on an awe-inspiring, mountainous, rocky landscape. James Bond even had a movie made here. It is also where Linkin Park’s latest album got its name from. Being on a balcony of the Great Meteora, the largest of them all, which has a pretty Zen like interior dotted with many potted plants, bells, arches, shrines and lazy resident cats, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind where the monks here found their peace and perhaps revelation from. We were so high up the houses, trees and farms on the ground below looked miniature, as if we were looking down from a low-flying plane. It is unimaginable to have been given the seemingly impossible task of carrying all the building material all this way up. It begs to ask what motivation or rather belief the monks must have had. I heard that back then the stairs which we used to climb up did not even exist, only ropes and nets to hoist things (and the occasional monk) up!

We actually trekked our way up to the first monastery which was a good one hour uphill on a messy cobble stair) and went from one to another, which were separated by many miles of a single trunk road, by foot. Tourist buses zoomed by as our sweat wet yet another square inch of the dusty ground. Masochistic as it may sound, it felt more satisfying making all this altitude with your own energy, and all of you know the next time when I return I might be 50, if ever!

Taking pictures on the rocky cliffs we felt concerned not only for the shelf-lives of our cameras, but our own lives too as the wind sometimes threatened to sweep everything off!

The one night we spent in Kalambaka we had the good fortune of staying in a hotel with attached bath, air conditioning and TV for only EUR10 (RM 50) a head! Had the Olympics drawn all the tourists away to Athens?

In the afternoon the next day we left again by bus to neighbouring Ioannina (4 hrs away) with the hope of an even bigger conquest – the Vikos Gorge in Zagoria. Vikos Gorge and the national park it resides in are like Europe’s own Grand Canyon. The journey there on roads snaking along mountain sides was quite perilous. A needless overtaking manouvre on a bottleneck bridge jammed up a section of the road for nearly an hour and we had the first class view of things. A family car had tried to overtake a trailer on a tiny bridge and ended up partially squashed! The trailer’s driver who at first was not at fault later turned villain when he refused to budge his vehicle till the police came an hour later!

The only thing we knew before hand about Vikos was that a 7 ½ trek through the gorge awaited. It had to be worth it – where else would you see vertical slopes reaching 1 km high in places!

Little did we know that the whole surrounding area consisted of 2 national parks, and that the Gorge was only one of the highlights in one of the few remaining wildlife refuges in Europe. Unfortunately summer was not the best time to traverse these places, with rivers drying out at this time of year and buses only running the route to the gorge villages twice weekly. We half imagined slumping on the cracked gorge floor with hungry vultures circling overhead. One local even told us frankly to our question of how many people are there exploring the gorge: “At this time of year, just the two of you.” Yikes! Mental note: We would have to come back again sometime.

Our Mod Squad

I am also proud to have assisted our own Malaysian badminton team while I was there. On one occasion I went to the Malaysian Camp as a last minute substitute for a Team Analyst whom I had befriended in Athens to present some material. Before long I was hooking up a projector as fast as I could amidst encouraging words of “don’t kan cheong” (don’t panic) from Yap the coach and the players. All of a sudden it had seemed that the plug would not fit in the socket anymore and the wires were not long enough for anything. Call me star-struck if you will! When you have the world no. 1 doubles pair (Tan Fook - Wan Wah), Chong Wei, Chong Ming and Chew Choon Eng and the coach all sitting around impatiently in the room, fooling about with rackets (were those tennis rackets?) you just knew you had better hurry up. And that was the first time I had ever used a Mac! Fortunately I was not about to make a fool of myself that fateful day and in the end I even got a personal word of thanks from everybody – man I was so filled with pride! The other cool things of being a volunteer are the free public transport and being decked in Adidas from head to toe (well almost, no shoes were provided). The free transport coupled with waived entrance fees for volunteers into museums and historical sites like the Acropolis made it very convenient to travel around Athens! As for food I was among the luckiest of the lot. Working in the Village entitled you to a daily all-you-can-eat buffet in a tent like canteen, which also served the athletes albeit in a separated area which even included a McDonald’s. The downside – volunteers do not get free entry into spectator venues as most people believe, unless of course you had the proper (high level) of accreditation. So I was elated when I got to watch the rehearsal of the Opening Ceremony free of charge.

As expected security issues had affected the Games drastically for the audience. Unlike the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games for example, in Athens you were barred entry into the compound of the main stadium unless you had tickets to an event there.

Looking back on our contingent’s performance in Athens I think we had some gutsy performances although none garnered medals. Brian Nickson, Chong Wei and our women’s badminton doubles pair Pei Tty - Eei Hui were most impressive in their events. They certainly gave hope that the Malaysian fire is still burning! However we must really take heed from the Greeks. With a population of just 10 million they had still managed a string of golds!

The Olympics

The Olympics

Meeting Dr. Jegathesan, our Chef-de-Mission for the first time was quite a hilarious experience! I actually thought he was a journalist when I first bumped into him wearing a vest jacket in the Olympic Village, where I was stationed as a Transport Venue Assistant for 2 weeks. But somewhere at the back of my head I was sure he was Malaysian! Puvan, on the other hand was working as a Malay Language Specialist at the Goudi Olympic Complex which hosted badminton along with a few other sports. Throughout the Games both of us would meet many Malaysian athletes and officials, who welcomed us warmly at the Malaysian Camp. I also got to know many other volunteers, among them from Greece, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Austria and Belgium. If you had been to the Transport Desk it would have been weird because most of the staff there spoke German! All the volunteers who I met were very friendly and keen to know about Malaysia. Just for the record, we had Austrian and Mexican support at badminton! But regrettably my fellow Transport Volunteers and I were quite disillusioned with the job towards the end. Let’s just say we were all overqualified for our jobs! I served at the VIP/ Media entrance, alternately helping invited guests to find their drivers who came in official Hyundai Sonatas and Matrices (most interesting), organizing the parking bays (a.k.a jaga kereta, seriously bad) and serving information and directions to confused people (pretty interesting). Maybe it was due to the fact that foreign volunteers like me could not attend the long term training programs held in Greece which could have equipped us for more challenging tasks. On the flip side the job gave me an ample amount of free time, in which I had a lot of fun striking up conversation with media people from all over the world who even gave me useful career advice, soldiers and other security forces who gave me travel tips on Greek islands, getting into the pins exchange fever which is a tradition of the Olympics and other large sports events and of course spotting celebrities or athletes. It turns out Maurice Greene is REALLY fast. He disappeared even before I got the chance to get his autograph and picture! I also measured up to China’s gigantic NBA Star Yao Ming as I walked past him one day. My head would reach no higher than up to his armpit! Another peculiar experience was getting Haile Gebrselassie’s autograph. All that the 10,000m great scribbled on my book was a star!

Ugly Side

In all fairness Greeks too have their ugly side. They love shouting at each other! Some press people had worried looks on their faces and were wondering if they should board a bus in the Olympic Village as the driver and the venue manager were having a verbal sparring session. Also they are much too laidback. I remember meeting a paid Olympic staff who was half an hour late for work and she assures me it was okay! Not to mention the Games Aquatics Centre, which was missing a roof due to a late construction schedule. And believe me they are not shy to tell you that this is what they are. Optimism is their identity.

My Summer as an Olympic Volunteer: Part II

About Greece

The moment I stepped out of the new Elefterios Venizelos airport in Athens one thing began to sink in: Greeks are a seriously beautiful people! From changing trains at a Metro station or just lounging at a sidewalk café in Kifissia you would be seriously hard-pressed not to catch a large-eyed, dark-haired beauty with a porcelain complexion walking by. So now I know which country other than Russia (and of course not forgetting Malaysia) has an unfairly large population of chicks! Immediately then I called Mike, another Malaysian friend of mine in Germany and bragged. To our amazement (and his own) the following week he joined Puvan and me in Athens!

Greece is a country which in many ways is very similar to Malaysia. Maybe that was why I loved it so much while I was there. The people speak English, are typically warm and friendly (I just had to look lost on the streets and people would come to my aid), laidback (Greek time is worse than Malaysian time) and entertain some very late hours. Despite this they do not rise too late in the mornings, but like the other peoples native to the Mediterranean region, they siesta in the afternoons (businesses close temporarily too). Then in the evening they wake up again reenergized to party and work till wee hours of the morning. So just imagine having a traffic jam in Athens at 1 something a.m., or bumping into crowds of people who were only beginning to come out for dinner at 10 p.m. The recent Greek heroics at the Portugal Euro 2004 had also given them a new favourite topic of conversation – football! Victory in Portugal had visibly given the Greeks a renewed feeling of national pride that carried through to the Olympics. Whenever I was at a loss at what to say to a Greek I just needed to fall back on 2 words that always drew a smiling response: efcharisto which means thank you and Charisteas, the Greek Euro 2004 top scorer.

Greek food too was very good but has less variety than Malaysian food. I found the Giros (crunchy, fatty small slices of grilled pork or chicken served with yoghurt, tomatoes and salad in an oily, salty pita bread) in Monastiraki the best around. It totally beats kebabs (the Turkish counterpart) which I have been so bored of eating in Germany. Also worth mentioning is Mousaka, which is a pie of minced meat, cheese and aubergine served in a clay pot. Their local aniseed liquor Ouzo (pronounced oo-zo) has a lovely, old smell. It is transparent pure but turns into a cloudy white once you drop an ice cube into it.

Welcome dudes!

Hello world!
OMG I bet all of you guys out there who have ever learnt to write code must be going aiyoh upon hearing that but what the heck - you are witnessing the humble beginnings of my blog. Yeah that means as of today I'm laying out my heart for you to embrace or God-forbid trample on!
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