In June 1999 I went to Corfu with long standing friends Pat and Nick (last names left out). To be more precise, I went to Kavos. This could have been anywhere and bears no resemblance to what has been written about this island. It is simply a strip of beach with a road running parallel lined with bars, pharmacies, and eateries. What more does a holiday need? When you are young, not much else, and on this kind of holiday you are under no illusion as to what you are going to get.

After being in the work force for a number of years and with our hard drinking university days behind us, this kind of holiday meant it was always going to be hard slog. Hard as in hard drinking every night. To make things worse, we arrived during a heatwave that sent the temperatures shooting from the hot mid and high 30's to the 40+ degree Celsius mark. Not nice for me and even worse for my two portly chums more suited to cold weather. This contributed to our lack of enthusiasm to see anything interesting on the island. The will to venture more than a few minutes away from a body of water tended to be non-existent and our prime concern was keeping cool and moving slowly.

As I am writing this more than two years after the trip my memory of what went on escapes me. Only a few points stick in my mind.

We booked our holiday separately for some reason - I have no recollection why but this meant that I stayed in a hotel which was a death march 15 to 20 minutes walk away from Pat and Nick. On a number of nights I was in no position to walk back and stayed with them.

The main street where the bars and clubs are get very busy. I remember a car trying to drive down the street full of drunken revellers and it was a good idea to climb on top of the roof while others climbed onto the bonnet, and had a short jig to the blaring music from the bars and clubs alongside before getting down to enter a club.

The drinking was heavy and later in the week I suffered. Bodily rejection of alcohol led to me waking up on two consecutive nights at about 6am. This was followed by 10 hour vomiting and projectile defecation. At some points I was doing both simultaneously and believe me, that places a hell of a strain on your body. Why? WHY? Isn't this supposed to be a holiday? With no air conditioning in our rooms, respite from the heat was lying on the marble floor, dozing and waiting for any alcohol to exit our bodies.

On one night I woke up on the beach at about 6am not knowing where I was or how I got there but I think I had made a 'good' tactical choice and hid myself between the sunbeds. What I did know though was that nature was desperately calling me, and thankful to be woken by my body I had no choice other than to spray a deposit on the beach, between the sunbeds, and not far away from a series of hotels. At this point, not wanting to contaminate my underwear, and to avoid chaffing on the long walk back to my hotel, urgent measures had to be taken to remedy this. No problem, ground floor hotel dwelling tourists with their towels hanging over their balconies were my saviors. Then with soiled towels put back where i found them I made a swift exit to regale the lads with my disgusting tale. Waking up in a daze and operating on autopilot makes you do these things. Is that a fair excuse? I think it probably is though it would have been better to have not been in such a position. Fortunately I wasn't robbed or worse.

The sex ratio was pretty poor unless you are female, the age gap wide with no happy middle (us being at the top end) and for many of the people there, Kavos represents the ultimate in foreign travel. Real classy like. Lines like "I work in a shoe shop and me mate's a carer, what do you do?" spring to mind. My reply of. "I'm a business analyst" kind of killed the conversations.

Even compared to other resorts such as Kardemana on Kos, Kavos seems like a haven for the very young but I accept that things can change from year to year.

Anyway, another misadventure over and I'm sure that the same mistakes will be made when deciding on my next summer meet up. I'm writing this in the hope that I read it before booking the next hell hole.

Where are the photos?

Nothing to see here.