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Published: August 5th 2007
Spices in Market
Plethora of spices in Fethiye old townIt is hard to put into words what we have just experienced in the last six days in Turkey. We took the fast ferry (supposed to be 45 minutes and turned into almost 2 hours) from Rhodes to Marmaris but that is Turkey time. Trevor has extremely fond memories of Turkey and from minute one, it lived up to its billing (after conferring with Marla, that should be reputation, not billing). Well, almost from minute one - that is after we re-mortgaged the house to actually enter the country. If one is coming to Turkey, be prepared to pay for the experience. We paid 125 Euros for the ferry ($190 Can.), but then there was a port tax to leave Greece (another $100 Euros for the family - $150 Can.). We bit the bullet and felt that all of this was worthwhile. Grabbing our backpacks, we were heading through customs when Trevor was asked in halting English whether we had our visas. Big Gulp and I am not talking 7-Eleven?? Visas???? Trevor was sent back to the visa lady (otherwise known as CASHIER) and asked to give over our passports. Trevor quickly grabbed the Lonely Planet guide, flipped through the index
Carpet Store for tea
Wonderful couple has us for tea in their carpet shop and located “visas”. For some reason only known to the Ataturk (founder of modern Turkey), Canadians are required to pay 45 Euros per person to enter Turkey (much more than anyone else). Now, pull out your calculators boys and girls. This 2 hour ferry ride has turned into a weeklong stay at an all inclusive resort for a family of 10. Well, maybe just one person.
Okay, now that we are broke, Turkey looks awesome. Bread and water (and may be olives) are delicious and we are set for the next 3 weeks. We took a taxi to the nearest bus station and our experience truly began. As soon as we pull our bags out of the taxi, we are surrounded by men asking where we wanted to go. We said Fethiye and they asked, “11 or 11:30am”. Seeing as how it was 10:58am, we decided to go on Turkey time and wait the ½ hour. The man then replied with the new mantra of our trip, “NO PROBLEM.” Whenever someone in Turkey tells you, no problem, no matter how much you really don’t believe them, it really is NO PROBLEM. We remove our 1500 lbs of backpacks and
Gulet Adventure
New friend Rory and his Dad Duncan (prof at SFU)getting settled in for the 1st of 4 amazing days decide to head over to one of the bus station restaurants. One man says, go ahead, no problem with the bags. Trusting him, we go get something to drink and a bit to eat (remember we are still in 40 C weather). Trevor takes a look back at where we dropped our bags and notices that nothing is there. He casually walks back and the man who was watching our bags simply points to the bus. “11:30am bus, you go there.” This bus was all the way across the bus depot but when Trevor got there, all 10 of our bags were loaded on the bus and ready to go. This is a bit longwinded but it epitomizes the experience that we have had all along the way. The people are amazing and if they know what you want, they will make it happen.
Now we can fast forward to Fethiye and then our Gulet trip. We had a similar experience in Fethiye in that when we got off the bus, we told them the name of our hotel and they said, No problem. Forty minutes later, a small dolmus pulls up and takes us (along with some other
Sun and Sea
Notice that Trevor is wearing a sea sick patch - the room is still floating as we write this- keep smiling strangers) to our hotel. This ends up being a great place to hang for a day and a half (pool overlooking the harbour). Turkey seems to be a place where each pension or small hotel offers you a meal at night if you wish. We decided to try it our first night and food was great. It should be noted that this area has a different weight loss problem. Instead of adversely affecting your bowels, they make you sweat out the pounds in humidity that would impress most saunas (this intensified after you had eaten your evening meal). We have had fantastic meals each night although this tourist fare is going to get fairly repetitive we think. Dinner consisted of fish, chicken or meatballs, along with lots of veggies (salad) cooked in a variety of sauces and rice or potatoes (french fries sometimes).
We stayed at the hotel of the company we were cruising with (V-Gp travel) and this began a particularly wonderful faze of our trip. This is where we finally started to typical process of meeting and bonding with fellow travelers (one of the best parts of traveling for Trevor and Marla no matter where you
Bird's eye view
Parasailing from 5000 ft above the amazing waters of Oludeniz (I will try to show some video too) are in the world). The pool provided a playspace where the kids met some similar aged kids from France (who spoke relatively no English). This proved to a great experience for Matthew and Courtney who are in French immersion. Within an hour or so, life long friendships were born (well at least for the next day or two). Our stay in Fethiye was spent enjoying the people at the hotel (we met a great Kiwi couple and the first of our Gulet Friends (a family from Burnaby with a 14 yr old son!!!)) as well as the town. Fethiye is a nice coastal town on the “Turquosie Coast” that has been by passed by tourists over the last few years in favour of the more spectacular Oledeniz. One of our more interesting experiences in town was running across a Turkish couple in the local supermarket who wanted to speak English. Theirs was quite good and we had a pleasant conversation. They invited us back to their shop for tea. We weren’t sure but we ended up running into them again as we wandered the old market sampling and eventually buying some Turkish delight (very different and very delicious as compared
Cruising the Med
Wind in your face and sun at your back, what more can you ask? to what you run across in Canada - not sure about the claim that it has a shelf-life of 9 months at room temperature). We went to have tea with this couple in their quaint little carpet store. The only awkward moment was the looking at the carpets with the realization that nothing in the shop appealed to us.
The next morning, we were up and ready to board our Gulet. A Gulet is a large, old wooden sailboat (they don’t sail these ones anymore) that holds between 16 and 24 passengers. Each person has a cabin (2-4 people with their own separate washroom) but everyone sleeps on the deck as the heat down below is unbearable. So here you are, at the mercy of your crew, but more importantly, at the mercy of the myriad passengers that they place you with. We are a family and typically the travelers here have been young couples or friends as we had done when we were that age. Suffice it to say, we were blessed with a cruise made from heaven. Our version of the SS Minnow (think back to Gilligan’s) had a movie star, a professor, and Marianne. This amazing
Getting ready to launch
Have you ever wanted to soar like an eagle? This is it, Go Matt!!! group of people took no time in becoming “family” and perhaps could be called the Commonwealth Cruise. We had 10 Canadians (North Van, Burnaby and Maple Ridge believe it or not), two Brits, two Aussies and a pair of Americans. The special part of the whole experience was the ability for 16 strangers to feel so comfortable around each other so quickly. They embraced our children and played games and swam with them more than you can imagine over the 4 days. They all learned new card games, backgammon and improved on their chess while also swimming with everyone 12 hours each day. This is one part where we are probably going to have to share with you the depth of the experience when we get back as words are inadequate. All 11 other people on the cruise at some point spent time alone playing with our kids, including them in a swim and snorkel over to a reef, jumping off the side of the boat as well as just finding out who they were (our kids) as people. It was simply a truly unforgettable and amazing experience.
Experiential highlights of the Gulet trip include: the amazing beach of
Turkish delight
True turkish delight - shelf life 9 months at room temp (can that be good??) Oledeniz, swimming and snorkeling in turquoise water for 4 days, Matthew and Trevor paragliding from 5000 feet, viewing the sunken city, exploring the hamlet of Kaya Koy, swimming in an underwater cave, jumping off the boat, laying on the mats and reading, sleeping outside under the stars on the deck, 5pm tea time, 16 person “Cheat” cards games, fantastic conversations shared around the meal table, playing cards and backgammon, and learning about about the lives of our fellow travelers who ranged in age from 9 - 60 years old.
We got off in Demre and all took the bus towards Olympos. Sincere and heartfelt goodbyes (lots of hugs) were said along the side of the road as we headed to Cirali with the rest (sans Richard) went to Olympos. We are now having two days of R & R at the Canada Hotel and will head out to Antayla tomorrow with a 9 hour overnight bus ride awaiting us on the road to Cappadocia and the town of Goreme (central Turkey- near Urgup and Kayseri if you are looking on a map). We just realized that we are a 12 hour bus ride to Iraq (we are going to
Crepes anyone
Daily service for whatever you want (ice cream, jet ski and of course, chocolate crepes). Life is rough have to make sure the we don’t miss our turnoff). Tonight we are going out to see some volcanic vents that spew out bursts of fire. There is a lot of mythical and historical meaning attached to these little vents but we just think it is cool geology.
We hope the weather has changed at home and everyone is getting the summer they deserve. Cheers
Kids Corner and Quotes
Courtney - “Only the Connors get on a bus that they have no clue where it is going and get off 30 minutes from where they want to be!!!!” This was a LONG WALK back in 45 C weather.
Sydney - “Aren’t we great travelers Mom. We’ll go anywhere, do anything and eat anything (well, at least try).”
Matthew - “Travel tip #47: Never go out in the heat of day.”
“Jumping off the boat was amazing but we are very sorry that we broke one of the railings.”
“Paragliding was indescribable but felt like “Soaring over California” in Disneyland only this is Turkey and if that parasail breaks, it’s a long ways down. Check out the video from out blog.”
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Emre Erdogan
non-member comment
Hi
hi my name is emre i saw our turkish delight and spices shop photos :) Did You like our shop ?