Faliraki

On our way across the island of Rhodes, we make a one-day stopover in Faliraki. Faliraki is the Greek word for “stupid wine”, a very fitting and concise quintessence of everything that is important there: sex and alcohol. The latter, of course, only to get the former.

There is nothing left of the fishing village. A thousand hotels, hundreds of bars and strip clubs and two shops selling Armani towels for four euros. Everything is empty, far too much has been built and nobody earns anything. The many Brits don’t care. Worse is always possible, and lobster is not red even when cooked.

We move into the night. There are pushers outside every bar. The feeling is reminiscent of Thailand or Egypt. Except that everything is empty. We stop off at the first bar with a handful of guests. Anyone who can drink eight shots gets everything for free. The menu boasts big special offers such as 60 cocktails for 50 euros. Served in a bucket as a watering hole. Mäh!

The owner is a drunken old Greek. In between bad Euro-pop, he keeps shouting witty lines like “Without the Birmingham girls Faliraki is nothing.” into the microphone. He’s right. One of the Birmingham hydrogen blondes is a waitress and keeps snogging guests in front of the loo. The others are being worked on by a bloke who couldn’t stand up at 10pm. Never mind, now he can sit down.

A decent seven cocktails later, we end up in an English stag party. The barrel is full. Almost apocalyptically, a police car driving through the main lane of pubs several times causes a brief wave of music-free calm – then all the bars are back in full swing.