Turkey and bacon sandwiches…Day 8
Day 8, Friday
After a night of practically no sleep (more coughing, FAR too hot!) I could do with a long lie, but we’re up, fed and watered, and out by 11:30 (that’s early in comparison to the rest of the week!) heading to Bodrum. This is where we’ll be flying out from later today, apparently it’s the well-to-do part of Turkey. It’s a journey of about an hour and a half. Once we’re out if the familiar territory of Altinkum it becomes quite hilly. There’s a wind farm up on the hills to the left and to our right I can see what looks like a large hotel on a bay, surrounded by loads of smaller buildings, looks like a resort.
We climb into the hills a bit and eventually the wind farm’s on our right with the sea on our left and mountains towering behind it. The road looks like it should be smooth but as usual is pretty bone shaking! The scenery is like Scotland if it were a hot country, lots of rock faces and greenery, none of which is particularly familiar (I’m presuming a lot of it is olive trees), and the roads are just as hairy as those in the Trossachs. We’ve had a very shoogly looking lorry in front of us for a while and Dad’s loath to try and pass it while the roads are so twisty, although plenty of other people don’t mind and are shooting past both of us and we’re all very relieved when the lorry pulls into a petrol station.
We pass by a construction or road works site and see a JCB that has fallen over down quite a big slope, hope there was nobody in it when that happened! The sea has now vanished & we have mountains either side of us. On our right at one point there’s a sheer drop and I’m very glad when we’re past it! (after all we are driving on the right here…)
After being slowed down by some major road construction we pass through a village. The buildings here are some of the prettiest I’ve seen yet, lots of hanging baskets and trees too. It’s the same mix that I’ve seen all week, of old and rundown next to new and gleaming, with a few still under construction. There’s a lot of building work going on in the area we’ve been in, but some of it has been abandoned as companies run out of money. Half built houses and shops are everywhere you look, and most of the roads and pavements (what there are of them) are half done, running for 10 feet or so before muddy gravel takes over. What every building has is balconies, even most of the older ones. It’s an extra room here, somewhere to hang your washing and store extra chairs etc. Another feature of the majority of buildings here is the hot water tank/solar panel combo on the roof. (didn’t manage to get a photo of any of these though)
We’re now climbing a hill, stuck behind 2 lorries, and we’re crawling along. and when we come over the crest we are heading down into a town. Thankfully both lorries turn away so we can pick up some speed again. It’s quite a nice looking area, definitely more town than village with a fair few hotels. On the other side we’re passing through mainly farm land again as we near Bodrum. We see quite a few cotton fields and some sort of processing centre with mounds of cotton waiting to have who knows what done to it!
We pass a lovely peach coloured, very new school, lines of primary age children are heading down the right dressed in light blue, older students down the left in navy.We’ve been in the car over an hour and 40 minutes now, a few minutes after we passed the school the road widened into a dual carriageway with the loveliest, smoothest road surface we’ve had all week. My aching back is glad of it! We’re definitely nearing Bodrum now, a lot of the roadside adverts are in English, for American companies like Starbucks or Mcdonalds, and the houses are very nice, mostly whitewashed rather than painted in pretty pastel colours. There’s water to the right of us with a smattering of boats, upmarket looking ones rather than wee fishing boats. It’s more of a bay or inlet than open water but a few minutes later the sea is next to us again, looking very inviting in the sunshine. Passing by an enormous whitewashed complex with tennis courts and a huge pool, this is ‘Bodrum Beach Club’, I don’t imagine it’s cheap in there! This area is full of hotels and lush greenery, air conditioned tour buses and fancy looking villas set back from the road with high walls and trees to stop nosey parkers like me getting any more than a quick glance in.
When we arrive in Bodrum itself we are in a one way system, but get parked pretty quickly. Most parking areas are manned and they will look after your car for a small fee, which you pay when you come back. We head out into the town, and I’m immediately struck by how different it is to the areas we’ve been in before. It’s much busier, more like Glasgow, lots of side streets and markets tucked down wee alleyways. I have a mission for today, get a fez (hoping to dress as Tommy Cooper at Halloween) and some Turkish delight. We have a wander along the harbour front, it seems we’ve just missed a week long boat race event, and the harbour id full of very expensive looking boats, quite a few of which look like pirate ships! At the end of the harbour is Bodrum castle, but we don’t have enough time to get in and wander round today as we’re on a schedule. It was built in the 15thC by the Crusaders, and is also known as The Castle of The Knights of St John.
It’s definitely time for some food, and we stop off at one of the many cafes in the area. G and his Mum have pizza, Dad and I have doner in tomato sauce. I decided I’d give it a try, as I’d seen from Dad’s doner the night before that it looks like roast beef, like real meat, not that over processed crap we get in Britain! And it was very tasty too! There were chunks of fried bread and potato mixed through it all and yoghurt on the side of the plate incase it was too spicy, but it was just right. We all had fanta lemon, which I’ve never seen before, and it is very tasty too. Mum and I had to go to the loo afterwards and they were basically cubicles, in the kitchen, with folding plastic doors and no locks! Had I seen that before I ate I may not have ordered! We then had to wash our hands in the kitchen sink. Another strange thing, in Bodrum we had to put used loo roll in a special bin next to the toilet rather than flush it away, which seems odd but I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for it.
We start the wander again, and now I’m seriously looking for a fez, without one I’ll need to recycle an old Halloween outfit as I won’t have time to organise a different one! There are some lovely looking buildings down here and I’m snapping away again. I spot a hat shop, and sure enough there’s a small selection of fez’s. I try a few on and pick the right size for me. They’re a bit expensive though, and after a few minutes I eventually get 2 for 30 lira, as I’m bringing one home for a mate. Needless to say about 10 minutes later when we’re a bit further away from the touristy area I see them for 6 lira each! Oh well, never mind! Every second shop is selling Turkish Delight too, and most of them are 5 boxes for 12 lira. I only want 2 so a wee bit of haggling is done and I get them for 5 lira. I get a standard ‘rose’ one for my mum and a pistachio one for myself. We need a cool drink so stop at a bar for some Effes. They only have it on draught, but G and I have one anyway, the folks stick to coke, and the barmen chat away to us. When Glasgow is mentioned they’re soon asking ‘Celtic or Rangers?, G and I are Celtic and his Dad is Rangers, different barmen declare they are one or the other, and the main guy puts on his See You Jimmy hat complete with orange wig! I ask for a photo of him and Dad decides I should pose with him!
It’s soon time to head back to the car so we can get to the airport, which is about 20 minutes away, so we buy some water and get going. There’s a traffic jam which we have to sit in for around 5 minutes, but we’re soon on our way. As we’re driving out of town I notice a massive spider on the inside of dad’s window, and we warn him, he opens the window a bit and lets it be sooked out by the wind. A few minutes later it appears on my window, on the outside thankfully!! It hangs on for dear life all the way to the airport, where it runs down and hides in the wheel arch. Goodbyes are said and Mum and Dad start the long drive back to Altinkum, G and I get into the airport for a 2 hour wait. We have crisps and pretzel sticks so we’re not left hungry, and the time passes fairly quickly. We don’t bother with beer, we’re both quite tired, and just stick to our water. Once we’re on the plane we find we have a woman sitting next to us so we think we’ll be stuck with her all the way home, but as soon as the seatbelt light is off she’s up and away a few aisles back to sit on her own. This flight is just as cramped s the one on the way in, but we don’t have selfish buggers in front of us, and there are wee tv screens that have come down out the ceiling and show various things throughout the journey. First of all our flight safety information is played out, then a few adverts for Turkish companies. As the flight progresses it shows us places of interest that we’re passing over, we go over Italy, Germany and France on the way. It also shows a couple of wee cartoons about a bear that gets himself into scrapes, and our flight info, how many thousands of feet up we are (34 for most of the journey) and that it’s -46 outside the plane! It also counts down how long we have left to go, and as the hours tick by I grow increasingly tired. I play my DS for a while, but mostly listen to music and try and nap, never happening, the seats are too uncomfortable! As we’re flying over France the night sky is clear of clouds and we can see a large city underneath us spread out like jewels. It could have been Paris, but I think we actually didn’t fly close enough to it (according to our map).
Once we’re landed it’s the usual wait for the luggage. I go and get a seat, text my Mum to tell her we’ve landed, and I see G waving at me. Our case was 1st off! Sweet miracles! We hurry down to the front of the building, seeing an M&S Food we duck in and buy some sandwiches and juice. Heading down to the front of the building I phone a taxi and we are taken to the Premier Inn where we’re spending the night. By this time it’s almost 11pm, and we inhale our sandwiches and fall into bed, alarm set for full English breakfast O’clock!