Brindisi turned out to be quite a nice place, contrary to my expectations of a dirty port town where the water would be basically a mixture of oil and diesel. Emerging from the station was like suddenly being transported into the middle of Las Vegas, but during the daytime. Booking agents competed to produce the largest, loudest and flashiest sign advertising low fares on ferries to Greece.We were wary of these offers, as I’d read reports of many of them being scams. Someone else seemed to be concerned too, and was hanging around the station looking at the various signs. We joined forces and went to the first agent we spotted with an HML (Hellenic Mediterranean Lines) logo, but only to ask them where the HML head office was.

After a fair amount of legwork we had worked out that the HML boat to Patras would cost €6 port tax, but would take 20 hours and we’d be travelling deck class. For the benefit of anyone who has not been backpacking before, ‘deck’ class means you do not get a cabin, and officially you don’t get a seat either. You are supposed to make the trip on deck, outdoors. Now we certainly weren’t completely opposed to this idea (except Chris, who quite categorically set out his need for a cabin), but there was an alternative boat operated by Med Link lines, which left at the same time but only took 14 hours to reach Patras. We’d get seats too, and all for a bargain €31. Well, not really that much of a bargain I suppose, but the six hour difference would save us a whole day in the long run, so it was worth it.

We left the office of Med Link Lines with three seat tickets and one cabin ticket (Chris had not budged on this issue, he was even a bit annoyed that he might have to share his cabin with three others). Breakfast was the next priority, and we ended up sitting in the one café for much of the rest of the day, getting to know our new travelling companion.

Nathalia is a Columbian architect/translator who had about €200 and two weeks to get to Germany via Greece. This was serious budgeting, and she seemed to regard us as a bad influence. I thought she looked about 24, so we were all shocked to discover she was nine years older than us.

At lunchtime everything closed. For ages. I could hardly believe how Brindisi seemed to change abruptly from a sleepy but surprisingly nice port town into a completely deserted one. It was almost eerily silent, even the restaurants seemed to close for lunch. This was annoying, because I’d decided to have my hair cut, and of course the hairdresser was now closed. We did have an entire day to kill, but I’m not known for my patience, and I got increasingly irritated with the length of the lunchbreak.

When the town woke up again, I found the salon and went in. The guy who was cutting my hair looked quite worried at first, which I suppose is understandable since he assumed he wouldn’t understand a word of what the customer asked for, but fortunately for him the style I wanted is extremely difficult to get wrong, and I did know how to say ‘number one’.

The others were ready to go when I returned – we took a free shuttle bus to the port, and checked in. On the journey it became obvious that the town was actually some distance from the commercial ferry part of the port, which probably explained why Brindisi managed to look (and particularly smell) respectable.

The four of us (time for a quick recap: Nathalia, Chris, Sunil and me, Andrew. John had gone home from Rome) had to hang around the port for another hour or so, and apart from being approached by a Korean girl who asked about our boat, we just stood, talked and looked out upon the concretey vastness of it all.

We boarded the boat at 6 and set sail at 8. While Chris was escorted to his cabin, which I was quite sure he would then spent the next 30 minutes complaining about, I went with Nathalia and Sunil to find the seats. We found them in an area of the ship marked as ‘airline style seating’ on the deck plan, and sure enough, it looked as though someone had taken the inside of a 747 and plonked it in the middle of the boat.

Journey 9: Brindisi to Athens
2 legs, 950km, 18 hr. Average speed: 52kph
Origin/Destination	Departs	Arrives	Carrier	My Rating
Brindisi Patras	20:00	10:00	Med Link
Patras Athens	11:00	14:00	Greek Railways

Once we were under way, it became clear that the boat was virtually empty. The seats were maybe 30% full, but the cabins were certainly almost deserted, and on deck there were just a few people wandering around. Chris walked in and started gloating about his room which he had all to himself, explaining how he was going to use all three empty beds to store different pieces of luggage.

We had other plans. Over the course of half an hour or so, three seats in the ‘airline style seating’ area became vacant, and three extra bunks were occupied in cabin 118. To be fair, we did have a debate about the ethical issues associated with, ahem, issuing ourselves complimentary upgrades, but after at least a minute of heated debate it was decided that it wasn’t going to do any harm. As I moved the last of our stuff into Chris’s cabin, I noticed that our oriental friend from the dock was sitting in the airline style seating area.