Turkey - on your own!
So, I will try to sketch out my report and impressions of our first independent trip abroad (to Turkey) from August 18 to September 01.2009 (with a prologue, main part and epilogue : ))) )
Prologue- (to fly or not to fly, that is the question : ) )
The idea of an independent trip was born during our last year trip to Marmaris (on a tour), and so, walking around this glorious city, we came across an office that rents apartments, and after talking with a manager, we realized that it turns out to be NOT more expensive than on a tour , plus it's more interesting : ) BUT, it was autumn, followed by winter, then spring (and the crisis did its job), in general, the idea of an independent tour somewhat hung in the air until better times... BUT, spring did come, and we have already got used to the crisis, in general, at the beginning of summer we finally matured, and decided to start planning our two-week independent vacation in Turkey. Why Turkey? Yes, I would like to go to Cyprus, or to Greece, BUT, I was embarrassed by the issue of visas (they don’t want to make our TA visas (without tours), and the prices for them are rather high). Yes, and the budget was still not rubber, in general, in terms of price / quality ratio, we settled on this option.
So, the first thing you need to get for this adventure is a VISA card (or MASTERCARD), dollar or euro, it doesn’t matter anymore, in order to be able to book hotels / apartments through Internet and buy air tickets. I made a card at Raiffeisen Bank for $25 and 2 weeks. At the same time, I started looking for air tickets. Initially, there was a desire to take to Dalaman, and from there to get to Marmaris, but, as it turned out, there were no tickets at reasonable prices : ( The cheapest option I found is $ 60.2 tickets Kyiv - Dalaman - Kyiv for a charter flight... This is an unpleasant event somewhat spoiled my mood, and the thought of buying a tour appeared in my head, BUT, thanks to the dear forum users who told me about WIZZAIR flights Kyiv-Antalya-Kyiv. on many factors that can change several times during the week. In general, after waiting for the moment when the price reached a minimum on the dates I was interested in, I booked 2 tickets for us Kyiv-Antalya-Kyiv for $ 270. The amount is also rather big (I paid in hryvnias through a private bank) but this is the minimum cost that I found. When the tickets are already booked, and the dates of the trip are known, we begin to work out the route in more detail. We decided to stay in Antalya for 3 days and then go to Marmaris.
Since we have never been to Antalya, it was not important for us which hotel or apartment to book. Using the site, we settled on the White Garden Pansion, the reviews on it were pleasant, and the price was generally fine, double with BB $ 110 for 3 nights. Throwing $ 125 on the card, we booked this boarding house from August 18 to 21, about which we immediately received confirmation from the site, and, having written off with the boarding house, we received a booking confirmation and a transfer offer from the airport for $ 20. Further, according to our plan, the question arose of booking a hotel in Marmaris, and since there were no interesting options on booking, we had to look in another direction... And then the devil pulled me to take advice from a travel forum and turn to the site. Their prices were nice, and the options too... In general, we booked the Maris Beach Hotel for 10 nights, paid the money, and, as always, debited the hotel. In response, we received a strange letter, such as "We do not communicate with tourists, but work only with agencies, and in general, where are you actually going from... " Upon learning that we are not citizens of Great Britain, but the bulk of Ukraine, we were immediately told what this unfortunate fact was we will be required to pay an additional fee of 15 pounds per day!! ! Of course, such a state of affairs did not suit us at all, and having contacted us, we demanded an explanation of this issue... In the end, we were returned the ALL amount back (to the honor of the agency, it must be said that they did it promptly, literally in 2 days), and we successfully booked double room at the OCAKTAN hotel (where we were last year), for 10 nights, from August 21st to 31st for $520. This time we already phoned the hotel, where we were confirmed the fact of booking, without even asking about our citizenship : ) (at the same time we took out insurance (120 hryvnia for two for 2 weeks)) and began to wait for the long-awaited vacation : ))
And so, on August 17, having collected all the things and taking a laptop with us, we are moving forward on an independent road, we will see what adventures await us ahead : ))
Having reached Kyiv at 23-30, having a snack at the station McDonald's, we went to the southern train station, from where minibuses go to Boryspil (by the way, taxi drivers and other entrepreneurs who stand near the entrance to the central railway station in Kyiv will assure you that buses/minibuses do not go to Boryspil until 5 am, and you can only get there by taxi, hryvnia for 150-200 : ))), so, don't believe them, minibuses run around the clock, with an interval of 30-50 minutes).
Having reached Boryspil for 50 UAH (for two) at one in the morning, we waited for the start of registration for our flight, and after going through all the necessary formalities, at 04-30 in the morning we flew to Antalya : )) Departure, everything is clear, punctual, on schedule, the plane is practically new Airbus A-320, clean and tidy.
Our flight attendants are Ukrainians, the pilot seems to be a foreigner because he spoke only in English. The cabin was about 1/3 filled with passengers, so the stewards had to evenly seat the passengers : )) The whole flight took 2 hours and 15 minutes, and on the way we even managed to take a nap, which was very useful, given the sleepless night and the upcoming day ahead.
On the way, only drinks were served (mineral juice, and tea and coffee to choose from), but in principle there was no need for more, given such an early morning... During the flight, thanks to the weather, we could admire the dawn and watch the sunrise sun over Turkey, the Mediterranean in the morning, Antalya spread out below from a very high bird's eye view, so to speak : ) The picture is very beautiful, and the colors and shades of the horizon sky are almost impossible to convey in photographs. . .
On August 18, at 06-45 (15 minutes ahead of schedule), we arrived at the airport, and, due to the fact that there were still few people, we went through visa and passport procedures quite quickly, also quickly received our luggage, and left the airport building,
where we were supposed to be transferred to the boarding house we booked (we did not change the currency at the airport, because the exchange rate was very unfavorable, 1 dollar - 1.33 lira, and in the city center 1 dollar - 1.48 lira).
This is where the first test awaited us, and, so to speak, a clear example of Turkish commitment... Nobody expected us and did not meet us. There were guides from travel companies (teztour, turtess, coral, etc. ), there were some individuals who met the same individuals, but they seemed to have forgotten about us... Having overcome a moment of confusion, I remembered that there was a bus from the airport to the city , and there were plenty of taxis, but, just in case, we decided to clarify this issue with the guides who met other (organized) tourists, to which, surprisingly, we did not receive any intelligible answer, or even hints, only hints of a taxi for 30-40 dollars. But, since we are adventurous, I went to a couple of local minibuses who were sitting nearby, and starting with the greeting Mirab, I found out that there is a bus stop right next to us, which is already standing there, and in 5 minutes it leaves for the city! ! ! (By the way, it should be noted that these minibuses did not know either Russian or English, so the dialogue took place on a mixture of gestures and individual words of the Turkish language, which I had previously looked at in a microphrasebook, printed out in advance at home). In general, for 3 (!! ) dollars, we drove in 25-30 minutes to the center of Antalya, near the Kaleici district, where the driver dropped us off, showing us where to go next.
The weather was sunny, morning, there were a lot of people around, but not much else, +35 degrees Celsius, and not very noticeable humidity : ) did we get to our boarding house (we showed him a printout from the Internet with the details and the address of the boarding house), he once again showed us the direction of travel, assuring us that we should not go more than 500 meters (fortunately, he at least spoke some English). BUT, the distance in Turkey is a very conditional thing, and having trampled the required 500 meters, we have not yet reached our destination. In general, in half an hour and after talking with a dozen people, we finally found what we were looking for, that is, the place of our stop is the White Garden boarding house.
By the way, everyone who advised us showed exceptional friendliness and really tried to help us, despite the fact that it was probably very difficult to understand my Turkish and English : ), so at the beginning of ten in the morning we were there.
The guesthouse turned out to be a modest, but clean and tidy establishment, where the hostess met us, and after registering in a few minutes, having received payment (84 euros for 3 nights with breakfast), she offered us breakfast (typical for Turkey). After 40-50 minutes, our room was cleaned (after the guests left) and we safely settled there : ) The room was modest (even very modest : ) ) Large bed, bedside table, wardrobe, air conditioning, and, separately, a bathroom, BUT, I repeat again once, everything was clean and nice. The window looked out onto a narrow street paved with tiles, on which a yellow Volkswagen beetle flaunted : )
In the distance you could see the mountains and the sea, as well as the roofs of neighboring boarding houses : ), on which there were tables, chairs and sun loungers : )
Having gone down to the reception, we asked to find out about the excursion to Kekkova-Demre-Mira, and at the same time about the possibility of buying bus tickets to Marmaris. The price for the tour was announced to us quite quickly (55 euros per person), which did not suit us a little, but the owner of the boarding house promised to find out about the tickets (which he soon forgot, a very peculiar person : ) ) BUT, our mood was excellent, and we naturally immediately went to the nearest beach (it was a 5-7 minute walk from the guesthouse). Entrance to the beach (private beach at the restaurant) was, of course, paid, 8 lire per person, but since there was no alternative (except for swimming on stones 200-300 meters from the beach), we paid this amount and started to beach : ) )) The amount is paid for the whole day, and according to the issued ticket, you can leave and return to the beach as much as you like : )
The Mediterranean Sea turned out to be surprisingly clean and warm (+25... 27 degrees), but "striped", that is, warm water zones alternated with cold ones. What was even more surprising, the sand and small pebbles were warm only from above, and deeper they were quite cool. The beach is small (about 150-200 meters long), but clean, with a view of the same miniature, about a triple waterfall, almost all was filled. Directly behind the beach rose a sheer wall with steps and a small semblance of a terrace. The main contingent of vacationers are English-speaking tourists, with a fair share of Turks. Of the Russian speakers, besides us, there were literally 2-3 couples.
We rested, sunbathed and swam before and after lunch, after which we decided to make a trip to the city, so to speak, to get acquainted with the environment around us : )
The entire Kaleici region is essentially a miniature town in the city of Antalya itself. It consists of intricately woven streets, small, medium and large shops / shops, cafes and restaurants, and various levels of pensions and hotels. Perhaps this is the first place in Turkey where we felt the color, taste and smell of this particular country, and not some common European standard.
Walking around the city and having lunch doner kebab with ayran (5 lira for two), we were able to call home using a phone card (pre-purchased for 5 lira, 50 contours is 15 minutes of conversation), for which we had to enlist the help of the local population (it turns out for calls to Ukraine, in particular to Dnepropetrovsk, you need to dial 00380562ХХХХХХ, and not +0380562ХХХХХХ.
Having found a bus ticket office, we bought 2 tickets to Marmaris for 60 lira, BUT, you should have seen this process!! ! : ))) The bottom line is, the seller didn’t understand Russian, of course, but he also spoke English at the elementary school level : ))) In general, we went to the neighboring Antik hotel, where the girl at the reception helped us with translation, drew on a piece of paper, the time of departure, the name of the destination and point of departure... Largely thanks to the Turk who approached us, who knew English quite tolerably, we nevertheless came to a common agreement and bought tickets : ) We were also promised that we would be picked up from this office for otogar, BUT, as I wrote above, the Turks do not differ in commitment and punctuality, this is not their character trait : )))
The second open question for us was an excursion for tomorrow in Kekkova-Demre. If you are in Antalya, then you are unlikely to find a tour desk in the city center, almost all of them are concentrated in the same area of Kaleici, where we went, and passing through several of these offices each time we heard slightly different amounts : ) In the end, despite to the groaning and moaning of the tour agent that he sells his goods to us almost at a loss, we persuaded the owner of such an institution and he sold us a tour for 2 for $ 100 (after all, it's a little cheaper than 110 euros : ) ) in passing, I note that the price turned out to be quite acceptable, because it also included a transfer to Kemer.
The evening of the first day of our stay in Turkey crept up unnoticed, and we went to dinner in the city center, outside of Kaleici, where Antalya's nightlife boils and boils : ))) There were a lot of people, surprisingly a lot : )) Sometimes, among the dissonance of English , German, Turkish and other languages, and phrases in Russian flew by, but not enough : )
Evening Antalya is a beautiful place,
all shops and cafes are open, ice cream men in national Turkish costumes take out a large cylinder with ice cream with special sticks, and turning it around several times around their axis, they plop it back : ) To be honest, I still didn’t understand why they were doing it, but they did it recklessly and briskly : ) Rapan mussels and other oysters are also sold here, as well as small fruits of cacti and zucchini, peeled and laid out on ice : )
On the way back to our boarding house, we got lost in Kaleici (which was very easy to do : ) ) and for almost an hour we walked through all these intricacies of streets, shops, cafes to the loud (I would say deafening!!! ) crackling of cicadas, I feel that we are in a kind of steam room-sauna (in the evening the humidity becomes more noticeable) until we finally reached the place of our stop : ) My advice to you, if you get to Kaleici - remember the road according to signs, such as a minaret / some kind of inscription, etc. , otherwise – you will have a walking walk through the rather large territory of this old city : )). . . although, in the light of lanterns and with your loved one nearby, it is very romantic and pleasant. . . : )
When we got to our room, we fell asleep very quickly, because we didn’t really sleep for almost 40 hours, and in the morning we had a long-awaited excursion to the sunken city of Kekkova, the ancient city of Demre Mirra, and to the church of St. Nicholas...
August 19. (Demre - Kekkova - we are together again : )
Good morning never happens, very correct words of an unknown author : ) On vacation, of course, I want to sleep, but at the same time, the desire to see new places overcame drowsiness and, getting up at 06-30 in the morning, we cheerfully got into a car that took us to Beldibi in 40 minutes (a suburb of Kemer), where they landed near one of the many travel agencies, handing over to the local tour guide. There was also an elderly couple, who, like us, was waiting for a tour bus.
To be honest, the Beldibi area reminded me very much of Crimea, in particular Koktebel, or something similar. Numerous hotels were located along the road that winds along the coast, from the sea side, and on the opposite side there were no less numerous shops and shopping centers, lurid and devoid of style and taste. At least a third of the inscriptions and signs were in Russian, though often with curious grammatical errors : ) Although it was not far from Antalya (about 50 km. ), But it was not much like it. As the classic said, “Here is the Russian spirit, here it smells of Russia” : )
After 10 minutes, a tour bus came for us, and since we were practically the first passengers, we got quite comfortable seats : ) Then we headed to Kemer, where we gathered our entire Russian-speaking group along the way.
Kemer also gave me a kind of impression of a town consisting of hotels and shopping centers. There were no less inscriptions in Russian here than in Beldibi.
Having taken the last sightseers already from the suburb of Tekkirova, and having filled the bus completely (and the bus is rather big, about 60-70 people), we drove towards Demre. Guide Natasha (from the Turkish company GinzaTravel) turned out to be a very erudite young lady, and we didn’t get bored on the way : ) Along the way, we made a stop for breakfast (at our own expense, but which was very useful, because we didn’t have time to have breakfast) in a roadside cafe, from where a panorama of the sea bay and the city of Kumlucha opened.
Having passed the cities of Kumluca, Phoenicia, etc. at the beginning of the eleventh morning, we were landed in a small bay on the Mediterranean coast, where a sightseeing boat was waiting for us, a kind of wide vessel with small portholes at the bottom, through which you can supposedly see the bottom : )))
I note - what to consider is very problematic : ))). In addition to our group, 2 more buses with tourists also arrived, in general, a lot of people crowded, about 150 people. By and large, this was not felt on the scale of the boat, and each of the tourists found where to attach their mortal body, it was convenient, fun, a light refreshing breeze blew and the expanses of the Mediterranean Sea opened ahead : )
On the way to Kekkova, one stop was made for swimming, which everyone gladly took advantage of : ) Also, the guides collected money for visiting (those who wished) the church of St. Nicholas (15 dollars or 20 lira, it is more profitable to pay with lira).
Kekkova is an interesting Lycian city, half of which was flooded after the earthquake, and the other half remained on the formed island. To be honest, I expected to see more, but either the Lycians were inexpressive city planners, or the earthquake seriously destroyed their city, but very, very little remained of it... so, separate scattered fragments and hardly guessed outlines of houses, stairs, and other urban structures.
The flooded part was also practically invisible, only occasionally through the portholes at the bottom of the boat one could see fragments of tiles and amphoras... BUT, the guide (one of the three present with us on the boat) told us in quite an interesting and detailed way about the ruins floating overboard, so overall it was educational. On the way back, from Kekkov, we sailed past a few, but very well-preserved Lycian tombs - in the form of an inverted boat, which were located on the coastal rocks.
After 3 hours, the boat returned to the same bay from which it took us, and we, returning to our buses, moved to the ancient city of Demre. Before Demre, there was a stop at an icon shop where icons, crosses, candles and other similar items were sold, according to the guide, made by monks. It is quite possible that this was true. The prices, of course, were rather high (the price of the simplest icons started from $ 10), but this is a tourist area, and it was difficult to expect anything else here.
The weather was sunny and cloudless, the air temperature reached +40 degrees, but, with all our organized “crowd”, we nevertheless entered Demre Mirra : )) Surprisingly, despite the small scale, it was preserved quite well, and the Lycian rock tombs are quite peaceful we were next to the amphitheater : )) In half an hour of the time allotted to us, we managed to see all the most interesting things and return to the bus ! ! : )) Under cool kondishen!! ! : )))).
After lunch (as always - a buffet - extra drinks) we arrived at the church of St. Nicholas. Apparently, restoration work is still going on there and will continue, and outwardly it was in scaffolding and other attributes of reconstruction, but inside everything looked quite even at the level. Unfortunately, flash photography was not allowed there, so I apologize for the poor quality photos. . .
The tomb of St. Nicholas was partially destroyed (by the Genoese, in the Middle Ages), and the rest of it was behind glass. The altar was also under restoration, but in general everything looked good : ) The wall frescoes were surprisingly well preserved, especially considering their age!! ! About a thousand years!!!
In general, a certain atmosphere of the church is felt in the temple, calmness is felt... a pleasant place, very pleasant...
In the city of Demre itself, near the temple, there are several monuments to St. Nicholas, but this is more a tribute to tourists than a real embodiment of anything, however, it is possible that I was wrong.
At 5 o'clock in the evening we set off on the way back (after having previously stopped at the onyx factory for shopping, where without it : ) ),
under the guide's comments, the road passed quickly and tirelessly...
The only fragment that blurred the whole picture is that our guide left the bus in the Tekkirova area (along with the first tourists leaving), and left us (i. e. most of the tourists) alone with the driver, who, apart from Turkish, did not know any languages . As a result, he stopped either where the tourists themselves suggested to him (these are tourists who at least somehow oriented themselves in Kemer), then where he liked : ) In general, when we left Kemer for the Beldibi area, a couple of Kemer, which never got out where they needed : (... At that time, I was already tormented by vague doubts that the driver would not drop us off where he picked us up and I carefully looked around, trying to find familiar shops, BUT, they were all so similar to each other - so the task turned out to be very difficult....In general, on the third attempt, we did get off at our stop, where we were also safely picked up by a passenger car, and we returned to our boarding house...
Excursions are certainly an interesting thing, but quite tedious, so we spent the rest of the evening at dinner in the city center, and then drinking coffee and looking at the stars from the roof of our guesthouse, which offered an amazing view of Antalya at night and the Mediterranean Sea....
August 20 (Lazy Day)
Not every morning is unkind : ) Sometimes it's nice to wake up during a vacation and just lie around, slowly going on an excursion, and even more so to work : ) This is how our morning began on August 20 - the third day of our stay in Turkey.
On this day, we were scheduled to visit Park Beach, and the Antalya Historical Museum, which, apparently, was located somewhere near this beach.
During breakfast, the owner of the boarding house approached us with a request to help him with the newly arrived tourists, who, to our surprise, turned out to be Russian : ) at a minimum level of English (not to mention Turkish). Well, okay, in general, the Russians turned out to be two young guys and a girl from the city of Orel, who, like us on Wizzair, flew to Antalya and stayed for 10 days in our boarding house. Having settled all the formalities (with our help, as translators from Russian), they quickly settled in and went to bed, since their young organisms were not as strong as ours, and a sleepless night completely weakened them (here it is, a young tribe !!! ), Well, we went by tram to Park Beach : )
Leaving Kaleici through the Adrian Gates (by the way, very well preserved, with two towers on the sides and a roadway left in the middle, on which potholes were visible from the chariots, carts and other vehicles of antiquity passing under them : ) ),
on the glass bridge we got to the tram stop, on which we drove (in 15 minutes and 2.4 lira for two, not without a hint from the local population, fortunately we came across a girl who speaks English) to the beach.
The beach turned out to be not so close (about a kilometer from the stop), but there was a historical museum nearby !! ! BUT, we left it for lunch : ) Fortunately for us, almost from the stop directly to the beach runs (once an hour) a kind of tractor train, with trailed open wagons, on which we reached the entrance to the beach along a winding microserpentine in about 7 minutes (please note that they don’t take money for the fare, this is almost the only thing I saw there for free !!! ).
The beach, unlike yesterday, was much larger in size, it stretched for several kilometers in length, and about 150 meters wide, made of medium and small pebbles, with a rather steep coast.
Fortunately, the tractor paravozik was standing at the final stop, so I got to the museum in 10 minutes, BUT, then the question arose of how to get there !! ! (along the perimeter it would be fenced with a high fence, and the entrance was clearly not visible) Having walked around (as it turned out, I was still walking in the wrong direction), I wandered into the territory of a Turkish kindergarten, where palm trees and pine trees grew nearby, so if you see cones on palm trees , you can safely say that you are in Turkey : )
Any fence has a gate/wicket, so after walking around the museum (and not only the museum : ) ) I still got to the main entrance, where several ancient statues were picturesquely located.
The entrance to the museum is of course paid, and not very cheap, 15 lira, but it's worth it! Since no one could clearly explain anything to me about the presence of a guide, I decided to inspect it myself, since everything was quite complete and clearly signed in English and Turkish.
The exposition starts from the prehistoric period, and smoothly passes into the Stone Age, Lycian / Phoenician and others to the Roman / Greek peoples, then several rooms are dedicated to the ancient period, with marble statues larger than a person (most of the exhibits are from Pergamum, Demre, Ephesus and other ancient cities), of varying degrees of preservation, then 2 rooms are dedicated to tombs (impressive, even very impressive), and on the second floor there is an exhibition of small figures, coins and icons of the early Christian period.
Strange, but for some reason the Muslim period is not shown, maybe there is also a museum in Antalya? Will have to look next time. There are very few visitors, surprisingly many Turks, and in the gloomy halls you can calmly and slowly contemplate all this, thinking about their creators, who have long been dead. Although the halls are rather dimly lit, but, as I understand it, there are motion sensors in front of the exhibits, so when approaching the showcase, the lamp lights up and illuminates the internal contents. You can take pictures freely, and there is no additional charge for this.
Two hours in the museum flew by unnoticed, and having bought peaches and grapes on the way (2 lira per kg. ), I went back to Park Beach. Alas, luck is a fickle thing, and having not seen a free vehicle, the way back was overcome on foot, which was not at all tiring (considering that the road went down, not up : )).
As it turned out, it was generally impossible to bring your own food to the beach (which we were told in the Anglo-Turkish mixture of beach-fight), BUT, pretending that we didn’t really understand what we were talking about, without being impudent, of course, we modestly ignored his indignation towards us : )
At half past four in the evening we moved towards the boarding house, as in the morning we agreed to meet with the newly arrived Russians and show them the city : ))) and besides, they spoke English and a little Turkish : ) ). Alas, we did not find the tractor truck, and we went up on foot, overtaken by the Turks in solid cars, and in the company of the same pedestrians - also mostly Turks.
At the tram stop, there was also a surprise waiting for us, there were a lot of people, but there was no tram to be seen : ( And there is only one track (tram), so as I understand it, the tram also runs along it in a single copy. Heat (+45), humidity and post-beach fatigue they didn’t add optimism either, BUT, fortunately for us, a bus drove up, and after making sure the driver that it was going through Kaleici, we boldly got into it. places, so, again, focusing on the tips of local residents through quarter 3 (passing by an incredible number of shops, shops, cafes and other similar establishments filled with both tourists and local inhabitants), we finally came to what has already become quite familiar to us Kaleici area : )
Our new acquaintances were already waiting for us at the boarding house, who were joined by another girl, as it turned out from Poltava, almost a countrywoman : ), who was resting with her parents in the same boarding house. So, in a small mixed Ukrainian / Russian landing, we went to the center of Antalya. After taking the guys to a cafe we knew, and having a bite to eat there, we explained to them the specifics and local prices along the way, in general, we got used to the role of guides : )
Since the guys had just arrived, despite the approaching evening, they went to the sea (to the Marina area, where you can swim from the breakwater for free), and we also walked around the center of Antalya for the last time (the next day in the morning we left for Marmaris), changing money along the way in the exchange office in Antalya (because we assumed that the exchange rate in Marma would be less favorable). Also, along the way, we scouted the locations of shops with Turkish delight, and the current prices for this delicious product (to our joy, it fell in price compared to last year, and cost 15 lire ($10) per kg. ), and, with At sunset, almost without getting lost, we walked through the entire area of Kaleici and went to the Marina, where our Russian acquaintances were swimming.
In general, the Marina area is a small portico where pleasure boats and yachts are based, and surprisingly there is practically no dirt and debris. Across the breakwater is the beach we visited yesterday, and those who do not want to pay for entry to a private beach swim directly from the breakwater. The water is as clean as on the beach, although the bottom consists of rather big stones, but if you can swim (this does not apply to me : )), then there are no problems. Our brave Russians even dared to swim to the nearby waterfall (a risky undertaking, because these pleasure boats constantly ply there), which was immediately noticed by the local police. On a small motor boat, they picked up the Russians and brought them to the breakwater, where they landed. Surprisingly, no fine was taken from them, although we assumed such a development of events.
Late evening came, and the cicadas again began to sing their loud oratorios : )
As it turned out, our new acquaintances got married just a week ago, and we decided to celebrate this event. We bought a bottle of Pamukkale wine (we bought it that year, and in theory it was good) for 15 lira (at that time it cost us $ 15), beer, taking nuts under it, went up to the roof of the boarding house. As I already wrote, the view from there was magnificent, so we spent the rest of the evening quite nicely. At 11 pm, our whole gang of the watering can went swimming in the boarding pool : ) After spending about an hour with the guys, we returned to our room, and having finally put all our things together, we safely fell asleep to the rehashing of incessant cicada trills. Tomorrow we were expected to move to Marmaris. . .
August 21 (Road to Marmaris)
As I already said, the Turks are not distinguished by punctuality, so we were not at all surprised when we arrived at 8-30 in the morning to the office where we took bus tickets, and there was no one there.
Having breakfast at a nearby cafe
and after waiting for the representative of the bus company, we suddenly realized that the transfer to the otogar was that he simply showed us the bus stop where you can get to this very otogar !! ! Kick-ass, transfer in Turkish : ( (as we later learned, it was necessary to buy tickets for larger bus carrier companies, such as Pamukkale, which deliver their passengers to the bus station, we will take into account for the future).
In general, with "songs and dances" in the company of the Turks, in 25 minutes and 4 lira we got to the otogar. The bus came straight to the main entrance, and going inside we saw a lot of small offices in which representatives of hauliers sat. Having found the office we needed, and immediately taking return tickets (60 lira 2 tickets) from Marmaris to Antalya (to our surprise, the tickets turned out to be open, that is, without indicating the date and places), we moved to our busik : ).
Otogar in Antalya - to put it mildly, bears little resemblance to our Dnepropetrovsk bus station. I can’t say that it is much larger, but it looks somehow more spacious and lighter than ours. There are a lot of people, but there is no crowd, and it’s clean around, the floors are made of well-fitted tiles, so rolling a suitcase on wheels is a pleasure : )
Throwing our things, and the things of all the other passengers in the trunk, the driver muttered under his breath in Turkish “Let's go” (or something else similar : )) and sat behind the wheel and took our bass to the road to Marmaris.
The bus was small, there were few people, the seats were comfortable, so it was safe to take a nap (especially since the path was not long, and according to the schedule we had to arrive at 17 o'clock). In addition to the driver, there was also a steward on the bus (or the second driver), who, after about an hour, offered to rinse his hands with liquid, with the smell of lemon and alcohol, and then smashed everyone a cookie and a glass of fanta. A trifle, but nice : )
The road passed through relatively flat places, and the mountains were visible only in the distance in the form of huge arrays.
Turkish drivers are a whole different story : ) On the way, they pick up all the people they meet (though they help everyone to carry their luggage and get on the bus), they manage to beep almost every driver they know, scroll through the entire repertoire of Turkish pop music and chat with with his partner about the "essence of being" or other problems : )
After two stops in small towns, at about 13-30 we arrived in Fethiye, where the stop lasted about half an hour, so we even managed to have lunch at the railway station eatery and catch a glimpse of this city. So-so, a nice, but small place, with a small bus station and a noticeably larger number of foreigners than in Antalya.
Further, through Dalaman we moved towards Marmaris. At the entrance to the city, 30 kilometers before it, on one of the passes there was a gendarme post, and after checking our passports (they checked some certificates with the locals), we arrived at Marmaris at 17 o'clock. By and large, you can’t call it an otogar, so, a small bus station : )
A minibus runs from the otogar through the whole of Marmaris, but, as always, we didn’t get into it, but into the one that goes only to the center, and we had to walk the path from the center to the Ocaktan hotel, with bags, of course... There were people on the street a lot, and against the backdrop of idle tourists, we looked pretty ridiculous... The dollar exchange rate was lower than in Antalya, so we did the right thing by changing part of our money not in Marma.
Here and there I heard Russian speech, which was very surprising after Antalya, but, by and large, did not play any role : )
At the hotel (Ocaktan), the guys at the reception recognized us (we rested in this hotel in September last year) and did not even look at the printout from the Internet with the booking confirmation, but simply by recognizing our names they immediately gave us the keys to room 201. Knowing the location rooms I realized that this is one of the most failures
