Istanbul to the Coast (with plenty of Tavuk Doners in between)

:: The Magnificent Hagia Sophia ::

After being prisoner on the train for three days we welcomed two days of marching around Istanbul´s many sights. We really enjoyed our time in Istanbul - a great choice of food , beautiful buildings to visit and the European nature of the city made for a busy few days. Back to the world of fantastic vegetables, alcoholic beer and wardrobe freedom. The big ticket items such the Blue Mosque, Haga Sofia and the Grand Bazaar certainly didn´t disappoint. One thing that did irk me about the Blue Mosque was that there were signs up requesting women to kindly cover their heads whilst in the mosque. Headscarves were provided and all visitors had them going in the door but most never covered the heads, instead the scarves were draped over shoulders as if it were a fashion accessory. To my mind people blatantly disregarding a simple request to cover their head is totally disrespectful to the Muslim congregation particularly the women, that gather daily in the mosque. It certainly doesn´t cast a favourable light on tourists if we can´t alter our behaviour, respect a request that isn´t enforced, and cover up for a couple of minutes.

Our visit to Istanbul coincided with Ataturk´s (founder and first president of the Turkish Republic) birthday celebrations which included a big open air concert and the city´s museum doors being thrown open for the day. Throes of Istanbul came out on the streets to celebrate, all the little boys were dressed up in Ottoman/Sultan white outfits with a huge plum in their hats. One lasting impression we got of Istanbul was the great festive, outdoor lifestyle that revolves around food. In untouristy neighbourhoods the streets are lined with enticing restaurant tables full of the locals enjoying the evening sunshine.

:: The Blue Mosque at night ::

Moving south we caught a night bus to the southern city of Selcuk. Unfortunately we picked a night where everyone else was at bus stations all over the country. We figured that families must have been sending their sons off to the army, whatever it was, the scene at every bus station we pulled into was the same. Thousands of relatives, men, women, children emotionally cheering and crying at the same time, singing songs, shouting slogans and even giving each other the bumps. Our bus crawled through these going away celebration scenes. We reached the cute flower abundant town of Selcuk the following morning. It such a quiet place that when you use the pedestrian crossing it´s usually a couple of farmers on tractors that stop and wave to let you across.

:: Poppies at Ephesus ::

Our main reason for coming to Selcuk was to see the stunning Roman ruins of Ephesus - the well preserved ancient city nearby. Once home to 250,000 people at it´s zenith it has been restored to a degree that you can clearly picture how magnificent it was in it´s heyday. In spite of all obligatory tour buses that arrive on mass carrying lobster coloured bikini-ed tourists it´s still a hot spot that´s well worth the look. The other, more interesting tourist, that comes here are the Koreans and Japanese. You can´t help but admire how nimble they all regardless of age. They´re also up for a laugh. In Ephesus they were the one group who sat in a line on the ancient public toilets and had a good laugh about it. Later in the ampitheartre a couple of them didn´t hesitate in belting out an opera song to test out the acoustics - to the appalause of other tourists.

Over the past few months we´ve been passing through low cost countries and have been used to our money stretching a long way. Turkey is a bit of a shock after the easy ride, prices hover at Western European highs so we found ourselves having to adjust our tolerance. The first big change was having to move back into the dreaded dorm accommodation. We hadn´t stayed in a dorm in well over a year and we´d got very used to having our own personal space and in most cases en suite facilities. To go back to dorms is to go back to the life of rustling plastic bags at 6am in the morning, having to super secure everything and put up with other people´s hygiene problems.

:: View to the Library ::

The next leg of our journey threw us into the gauntlet of backpacking through package holiday territory. On our first foray we hit was the seaside town of Bodrum just a few weeks before it got completely slammed for the high season. Bodrum and nearby Gumbet have expanded so much recently that the two towns have been joined by the sprawl of resorts that have been developed. It was a total eyeopener after some of the isolated spots we've been in recently. Bodrum and Gumbet exist solely for the package tourist (we knew that so it was no surprise) but so much so that no local town exists anymore. Almost every restaurant menu has the exact same "chips and eggs" fare and all have a blackboard outside proclaiming "The BEST all day, all you can eat English breakfast (including REAL pork bangers)" obviously one can distinguish the more upmarket restaurants if the blackboard print ran on say "REAL HP sauce and Tetley's teabags" or "English Chef". Bodrum is all very well and good if you're coming on a two week holiday to watch sport, drink beer and eat homely food guaranteed not to make you ill. For us it was a nightmare, all the local touts spoke with an English accent and persistently badgered us about how our holiday was and had we gone jet skiing or taken a boat trip etc. etc. One of the things we were most looking forward to was a swim in the sea with the luxury for not offending anyone by our western "skimpy" attire. That was dashed once we saw the teeny tiny strip of stones interspersed with sand lapped by stagnant looking pond water. Even in low season there wasn't much space between all the large 60+ topless women and speedoed men barbecuing themselves on the beach - they certainly made our "skimpy" board shorts and a two part bikini seem completely overdressed.

:: Mamas stuffed peppers @ Hotel Kalendar ::

Anyhow no matter how daunting a place is we've always managed to find a path through and this was no exception. We found a little gem of a place to stay a bit outside all the touristy mayhem called Kalendar Hostel, with it's whitewashed walls, enticing pool and spectacular breakfast terrace, it was a haven away from all the hustle and bustle of the resorts. The locating of a small local tavuk doner outfit around the corner was the cherry on the cake. For the rest of our stay there we pretended that package holidays didn't exist - well of course that was until the Heineken Rugby Cup final when we made an exception and dropped into one of the many Irish bars!

The next touristy stop was the town of Feithye and from the outset things were on the up. Feithye is more a living town and caters to the upper end of the market when it comes to tourism. Restaurants here are expensive but thankfully bravely risk giving people the option to taste some real Turkish food. Along with some resorts Feithye has a healthy peppering of small family run hotels. Our accommodation search here proved very interesting. We visited a couple of almost full popular hostels and saw very average dorm beds in 8 bed dorm rooms, then on chance stuck out head into a small pension (literally a few doors up the street) to find it was cheaper to have our own room, with balcony, en suite and the best view in town than it was to stay with six other randomers in a smelly dorm room. The owner was delighted to have our business and gave us the best room in the house. Forgot to mention our place also had our own pool, which ended up being just for our use, coincidentally there was a boutique hotel/apartment next door charging top dollar for the same facilities we had. Even better to loll around and peek over the wall in true keeping up with the Jones' fashion.

:: Sunset Views ::

After walking around the town, checking out all the yachts the next almost compulsory thing to do is to venture out on a "12 island tour". Once you get to Feithye agents and touts practically herd you onto one of these trips. We found the best time to buy tickets was about five minutes before ten am when the boats are all pulling out of the dock and are desperate for another bum on a seat. The price drops dramatically. There are tens of operators all offering the same tour and comforts so it was hard to decide on which one .... that was until we came across the water slide boat. On the top of the boat there was an enclosed water slide chute that ran through the length of the boat's interior and spat sliders out into the sea port side a couple of seconds later. On sheer novelty value it won. So the rest of the day was spent pulling into little coves, the captain would announce the water slide was open and happy holiday makers would fling themselves down the scarily steep chute into pitch darkness.


The day pretty much revolved around the slide, crowds would watch someone disappear into the shoot and lean out to see them plunge out the pipe. Around late afternoon everyone was sun burnt, sick of counting islands and nursing a few bruises from unorthodox descents of the slide. Instead of heading back to base the tour squeezed in an unnecessary disastrous stop - an opportunity to visit an island with a mud pool. Our fellow passengers fell into the category of tourists who live life to the max. They didn't need to be asked twice, they were down the chute quick smart and wading out to the island to explore the mud pool. Somewhere between the chute and the shore someone erroneously dropped the word "medicinal" into a sentence with the word mud pool - probably talking about another holiday destination. Cue a crowd wallowing in 2 ft deep mud (think flowerbed variety) and lathering it all over their limbs as a cure all. The resulting spectacle was hilarious, the more enthusiastic were coated hairline to toe in the mud, after a couple of minutes out in the sun the mud dried and stiffened immobilising them completely. They staggered back to the water's edge like Zombies. Others quickly realised, as they frantically scrubbed themselves in the sea, that it was extremely difficult to get the mud off. Best efforts still left people with a white coat streaked on their skin. Numerous bikinis were ruined and the talk on the way back to shore turned to whether vanish would get it all out. Entertaining to say the least.

We attempted a day trip over to Oludeniz, it was scaled back to a two hour excursion, package holiday horrors and an overrated muddy lagoon didn't really do it for us so we escaped back to Feithye. All in all it ended up being a hard place to leave, we got used to rustling up evening picnics from Carrefour on our balcony, savouring our view and debating whether it could get any better or was this.

An unbelievably it did... we moved on to Kas, a tiny little town perched on rocks by the sea. We couldn't recommend Kas enough to anyone passing this way. Large scale tourism has not arrived here (yet) the little town has lots of small pensions and hotels, many many beautiful candlelit restaurants and smart characterful bars but it lacks the tackiness of other touristy places in Turkey. It's the kind of place where you don't mind sunbathing on stony rocks and jumping off a ladder for a swim. It's quiet, classy, romantic and truly beautiful. An added bonus for us was a terrace and bbq on the roof of our pension. Marcus, anxious not to get rusty on his barbie skills, cooked up a storm over the nights we were there. The view, the food, the atmosphere was just perfect. Put it on a to visit list for the future.

:: Just like riding a bike ... ::

Our experience of the coastline of Turkey got better with every stop along the way (so far) .For the record Kas was the pinnacle from then on it went downhill.

Olympos was our next port of call - a popular backpacker hangout - is its billing. We hear faint alarm bells when we head to these places, and this didnt really prove us wrong. From the backpacker only overpriced local bus connection, to the wooden cabin accomodation (reminicent of Thai Beach shanty towns), full board only option and beach admission charge it ticked quite a few of our "leave on the next bus" triggers. We gave it a go; sat down for our meal at the planned time and explored the ruins beachside, and then promptly ran out of things to do and left the next morning.

:: Balloons at Dawn ::

Cappadocia is a highlight of Turkey. Stepping off the bus just after dawn we were welcomed to Goreme by at least 20 hot air balloons bobbing over the incredible landscapes. Its big business here and a great place to try the fun of ballooning.
Our days were spent exploring the valleys surrounding the town. We did all of this on foot , taking our time to enjoy the peaceful surroundings, exploring fairy chimney houses and viewpoints. From Goreme we set sail for Aleppo in Syria.....one of our favourite countries, so stay tuned for our next installment.

:: Goreme Sunset View ::