I spent the last week or so in Malia [Crete] with Kingand77 (Andy), his brothers and some friends. We got there in the early hours of Wednesday morning and after a short coach journey from the smallest airport known to man, we reached our accomodation. At first glance it seemed OK, considering what we had paid for the trip (not a lot lol). It had a deep spacious pool, a bar (obv important), and it wasn't right in the centre of town, but close enough to get there in a short walk....seems good.
However the rooms were tiny and the beds left a fair bit to be desired. Andy's brothers are 6'2'' and 6'5'', I'm 6'5'' and Andy is 6'8''! Single 6' beds don't cut it lol. But alas we were there for a week so no point moaning (try telling Andy that :P) and time for some kip before the next day.
Quads but not as we know 'em
Up we get and we weren't in time for breakfast as it was 14:30, so we got lunch which was distinctly average (and that's generous). The food in the town centre and the surounding area is some of the worst I've ever had, and it isn't massively cheap either - probably about standard paying €17 for filet steak and getting nothing short of bad food....
We also hired quad bikes on the first day and payed around €20 for the hire, €10 for petrol, €20 for the insurance AND they suggested €20 for servicing if it was needed. We weren't sure of the difference between servicing and insurance, so we felt like we were being mugged off, and declined the servicing. Yep, sure enough on the first day the biggest tard we were with decided to own himself by crashing his bike, destroying it and nearly killing himself. He was OK though, the stupid tard. The bikes were good fun if you didn't drive like you had no brain, and we generally enjoyed them but Jesus Christ there are some stupid people about ....lol.
Panic at the disco
The nights out were entertaining, drinks as cheap as you wanted as long as you could get a good deal. Everything is watered down but they give you so much of it that it's easy to get smashed. As you would expect, the women are dressed in less than nothing and were generally of a high standard. On a couple of nights, I got home without much knowledge of how, found once outside the room asleep on a chair with my shoes off...
The locals in Malia aren't fond of tourists, as we found out when we went onto some private land with the quads. An old man came out followed by a few locals, and he started trying to slap some of the guys. It's like 'ermmmm wtf is going on here?' so we swiftly talked our way out of it, apologised and left as quickly as we'd come.
All in all, probably not the best holiday I've been on. Don't get me wrong - there were times when we had lots of fun and I definitely needed the break from poker. I have returned with a determination to get things back on track, plus I have the English Poker Open to look forward to next week, run good one time ??? [Karl ran not so good, and busted from the EPO near the end of Day 1]
Laterzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,
Karl 'discomonkey' Fenton