Post 3a: Arriving in Turkey

So here we are in Gumusluk, at the Hera Apartments, recommended by Tawa friends Sue & Tony. Gorgeous.

First impressions of Turkey:

• Bloody hot! Apparently they’ve just had the hottest summer in 150 years – a month ago temps were 40-45! The car seems constantly to indicate temps in the range of 30-38. Dry and mountainous. Today (27th I think) it was 40!! For the first time ever, MC is complaining about dry heat!
• Lovely people. Keen to help, and not necessarily in a mercenary way either, at least off the tourist tracks..
• Pide bread. Compared to Greece, where you were often served semi-stale bread with meals, here it’s Pide (Turkish Pita) straight out of the oven. Lovely.
• Diesel is expensive: $2.80/litre. Ouch!
• Quite a secular country for one that is supposedly 98% Muslim or something. We are in the middle of Ramadan (good Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset). Obviously not all do, certainly down here on the Mediterranean/Aegean coast. Even here we’ve noticed a distinct pick-up in restaurant activity after dark – and in smaller towns inland, it’s apparently 100%. And we were going off to sleep last night with the twin strains of the wailing Arabic call to prayer from the mosque and Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven’ from one of the local bars! Modern Turkey?
• Wailing from minarets at mosques, presumably encouraging people to pray. We’ve decided to treat it as the Angelus bells, as a reminder to turn and give thanks!
• Communities concentrated in small areas with nothing much in between, and the climate obviously doesn’t allow much landscaping. So it all looks quite stark, bare, at least until you get to the coast.
• Roads a bit hairy once you get off the toll motorways. The speed limit is 90kph and often it’s just not possible to go any faster.
• Turkish breakfasts: tomato, cucumber, feta cheese, luncheon sausage, boiled egg. We’ve bought some muesli and yoghurt!
• Fabulous peaches everywhere. Absolutely magnificent and peach juice is almost a staple!
• Sea pleasant, water warm!

Quite a process getting off the ferry. We physically were off the boat about 0830 but queuing first for Customs, then to get the cars cleared (paranoia apparently that people will sell their cars in Turkey), and it was 11am until we left the port!

We made a Turkish friend on the ferry – one of the stewards. Name is Can, but in Turkish, ‘C' is pronounced as the English ‘j” – so he’s John! Speaks good English. His home was on our route so we dropped him off at a more convenient us depot before heading on south.

We had plans to visit a recommended Lake (couldn’t find it!) and three ancient sites (Priene, Miletus, Didyma). We made it to Priene at about 1pm. Got out of the car and almost fainted with the heat. Made a sort of token stagger up the hill in the blazing sun, locals looking on with I suspect not terribly charitable thoughts about mad foreigners, saw our third Temple of Diana, made a passing acquaintance with what looked like some 2500 year old loos, then slid back down to the car. Temp gauge said 41 degrees! Even allowing for some over-egging given it was standing still, you get the idea.

So all ideas of tourist nonsense scrubbed by a determination to get to Gumusluk and our hotel. We stopped for lunch at the end of the Didim peninsular at a beach called Altinkum. Lonely Planet suggested it might have a British package holiday flavour, but gor-blimey!! “Genuine English Pub”; real English Breakfasts”, “Proper Fish & Chips – no bones or skin” etc etc. And just a brief look at the clientele suggested we were wise not to have included it on our itinerary. Nice (Turkish) lunch though.

Then we headed for here. ‘Emily’, the voice on our Garmin had been in much better form in Turkey so we had no real trouble finding the way. Great welcome from a lovely hospitable family, as we’d been told to expect. Apartment has two bedrooms, bathroom (wet room) and small kitchen with just a pair of gas hobs. So basic, but clean and functional. Your genuine cheap and cheerful!

Showered, and down for dinner. Like most restaurants down here – and possibly elsewhere at least on the coast, there’s a fridge outside with whole fish on ice. There’s a standard menu as well but we chose a fish suitable for the two of us. It was ‘butterflied” and grilled whole, then brought to the table and served onto our plates sans bones and, thankfully from MC’s perspective, head and eyes. Very nice, with a fresh salad and the fabulous pide bread.

Then a few quiet days: swimming, a trip or two into Bodrum to shop, and to see Bodrum castle – a 15th century Knights of St John Affair, another painful encounter with a British beach colony and it was ‘home' to our refuge. Nice meal on the waters edge after a couple of night cooking and eating simply.

Ironic that, 500 years after the Turks drove out the Brits from Bodrum Castke, they’re taking over the beaches – or at least some of them!

Beer is cheap - about $2 for 500ml bottles in the supermarket, but Turkish wine isn’t (looks to be $15-$30.

Heading along the coast tomorrow, to celebrate 30 years married, and will be joined by Simon and Nic for a week o so. Great!