Sleep

How people act around others who are sleeping can tell you a lot about them.

This is especially true in dorm rooms where people's sleeping patterns are always different. Whether its someone having a huge lie-in, mid afternoon siesta, early night or (let's be realistic) coming home drunk, there are always people asleep when you're awake or vice versa.

Most backpackers are considerate and try to be quiet but no surprise that some seem to not give a shit. If I  know I will be back late, I have been trying to make preparations for drunk Dion (or 'Jack' as many of you known him) such as making sure my toothbrush, contact lens case and glasses are by my bed and ready for use. Its simple. I don't have to turn the light on and blind people and I don't have to faff through all the, frankly, unnecessary crap I have brought with me to find what I need.

The number times I have awoken to see drunken travellers rummaging through their pack like a post-hibernation bear clumsily savaging a dumpster has surpassed my capacity to find it amusing.
          I'm not exactly complaining- I always knew hostel living would be different to being at home- but it is interesting that some people make less effort than others. I'm also not saying that I've never woken any one up or that no one else is considerate, because most people do try. But I have come across some who seemingly make no effort and I just don't understand it! Its a moot point really as nothing will change them, but mini-rant is therapeutic.

One night I slept in the airport in Sweden as I had to wait from 2230 to 0545 on a transfer. At an airport like Stockholm you can actually get some sleep because its totally dead at these hours, not like Heathrow or somewhere mad which stays awake and lively 24 hours a day.

Sources suggest that if you do need to spend the night in an airport, as I will be doing in Milan later this month, there's a website you can visit; www.sleepinginairports.net. It gives you information on where are the quietest spots in the airport, where there are chairs with no armrests so you can stretch out and where power sockets are.

In addition, I've discovered from this site is that some people go to airports to sleep even if they aren't flying, just to save money on a night's accommodation. I didn't realise that this sort of thing went on but it sort of makes sense. Especially to someone as careful with money (my friends say 'tight' but they're judging it wrong) as me.

Ear plugs have been essential to travel sleep, as has the make-shift blindfold of bandanna around my face so that I look like wardrobe-malfunctioning gang member. On Ischia, I slept in a hostel near a Church, which is to say that I slept near a huge bell that went off every fifteen minutes. With ear plugs in I could still hear it go off when I was awake, but they lessened its tolls enough so that I wasn't woken when sleeping.

At times, ear plugs aren't enough to drown out the hostel noise. In Athens I was assaulted by someone's alarm clock and had to assume that he had left without turning it off. But, looking down from my bunk, he was in the room, presumably in a coma as the idiot was not stirring at all. I had to take my face in his hands and shake it to wake him, and then went back to sleep. On another occasion I had to towel whip someone in the bunk underneath me as he was snoring so loud.

The time when my sleeping gear was most needed was my first night in Santorini, when I was travelling with Eva and Eva who are two wonderful girls from Denmark.

Flipping off the moon 
on the way to Santorini.
As you do.

We had wisely decided that since we would be arriving at 0050 that we would just find somewhere to sleep, maybe on a bear near the port, rather than paying for a room for the night. Eva was up for this, and I was up for this.

 When we arrived we realise two things:

                  1. On the side of the island that we were, there were no beaches.

              2. There were sheers cliffs and there were steep mountain roads.

The hostel we had booked for the following night was telephoned, and they said they could pick us up at 9 in the morning at the earliest. All we needed to do was find a place to sleep until then- no probs.

         
We did not consider the cliff as a sleeping area, but we did wonder what was up the mountain roads. Most likely a safe haven which would be the perfect place for a comfortable night's sleep. But with no street lamps we were unable to see much other than the road twisting in to darkness. Still, that safe haven we imagined seemed pretty tempting, so, torch in mouth, we started hiking. What was realised after only a short walk is that the roads were also lined with cliffs, and since we had already decided against the cliffs as a place to sleep and could not see how far the roads stretched on for, we headed back towards the port.

Eva and Eva, packing up in the morning 
and pleased that the night was over.

We were running out of patience and options and had been wandering around for about 45 minutes. We surveyed some big rocks by the sea which looked large enough to rest on. However  if we rolled off in the night, we would end up in the cold sea which would not have been ideal.

Near the port was a small area on the side of the road which was covered in rocks. At least it was flat(ish). It was decided that if we could move further enough away from the road as to not be run over by a freight truck in the night then this would be our best bet. We did our best to clear the area of the biggest rocks and tried to ensure that there were no animal faeces too near. I told the girls that I think the dingoes will be deterred from eating us as we were near the road, which ultimately was to ill effect as they had no idea what dingoes were (stupid foreigners).

Anyway, a bed of sleeping bags was better than nothing, yet it was soon apparent that the noise of cars on the road was frequent and that ferry drivers love to use the ridiculously loud foghorn at all times of night.
           An up side was that in order to share warmth there was some 'getting to know you' style spooning which was absolutely necessary. Thanks to my sleeping gear I did manage to get some rest, despite rocks rudely jabbing me in the spine all night.

I valued the feeling of not knowing where I would sleep for the night as its something I have never felt before. I don't want to start getting all humble as realistically we weren't in any danger (no dingoes in Greece) and did always have the option of paying for a cab to take us to a hostel or hotel- so we chose to sleep rough rather than having no choice- but it at least begins to put you in other people's shoes.

Having said that, I'm in no rush to sleep on a bed of rocks to repeat the experience any time soon... but you never know what might happen.

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Sleep easy.

My mattress.