3 May – My 70th birthday : Oludeniz to Olympos and at Olympos (Turkey)

The campsite man did not get rid of all the roosters last night.There is still one left and let us know that he was still around at 0410 hours this morning. I guess that he will not last too long as he was very noisy! The cats fight just about all night too! I was up at 0445 hours, packed my sleeping bag, mattress and tent then went to light the fire so that breakfast could be ready for 0600 hours. I can now pack everything up in 10 minutes, pretty good going even if I say so myself. A tortoise was found near the fire and safely taken away.

Jackie with the breakfast tortoise

To prove I was up making the fire

Apart from being wished a happy birthday I was allowed to have the first piece of toast off the fire, a real honour. I even sat near the front of the truck for the first time, not that I wanted to but I had the cake under the seat and hoped that the truck would not bounce about too much to damage the cake.

For the first time in Turkey I saw children going to school or waiting for a bus, this at 07.30 hours. Why this should take so long to happen I do not know. On the way to Olympos the dual carriageway had roundabouts in the central reservation so that once the vehicle was on the roundabout on two sides the traffic could still be going past at 60 mph and it would then have to re-enter the roundabout taking this into consideration. Really weird! The road followed the coast which was all hilly and very rocky but a very pretty ride. Most of the coves had holiday accommodation of different sorts and many had yacht berths, some quite extensive. At one time nearly thirty coaches full of tourists passed us going the other way and I assumed that the planes had just landed at Finike, which would have been the tourist airport for this area. Near Finike I estimated that there were greenhouses and poly tunnels covering an area of about six square miles with both being of interesting shapes, not all rectangular or square. The poly tunnels even had gutters and drainpipes with the rain water collected in man made pools. There were miles and miles of these structures with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and aubergines being grown.

It was a grey day but you can see what is meant by the extent of the poly tunnels and greenhouses

We arrived at the Saban Pension, Kumluca in the district of Antalia at 1445 hours where three of us had to clean the inside of the truck before being able to do anything else. The accommodation was a ‘tree house’ but which I said was a wooden house on stilts. Very basic, two mattresses on the floor, sheets, pillow and blankets. A door which did not fit and windows with no glass, but it was clean. Luxury compared with the way we have been living up to now. I shared the room with Derek, which suited me.

The 'tree houses'

The inside of our 'tree house'

It rained for a while after we arrived then cleared up by 1900 hours when everyone arrived at the bar in their party clothes. Considering that they had on a couple of hours to sort out what they wanted to be and make some sort of costume I think that they did a magnificent job with the very little material available, which can be judged from the photographs.

The girls plus one! Drag Queen (Jay), Dirt (Rebecca), Doll (Stephanie), Dalmatian (Laura), Disaster (Emily), Daiquiri (Libby).

All of us at the big orange truck

Death and the Druid

Jay the Drag Queen

Tim as 'Dragoman'

Dinner

A hearty dinner was eaten at 2000 hours and tasted much better than normal as someone else cooked it for us. We are paying an extra £5 per day for breakfast and dinner while we are here and it is worth the money for just not having to do the cooking and washing up!

My birthday cake was then brought to the table, one I had only seen 15 minutes ago when it was taken out of the fridge and the 70 candles put on it. The staff here thought it was hilarious with the dressing up and then the cake with them delivering it to the table with the candles lit. Seventy candles make a big flame and had to be blown out before the cake melted again. The cake itself was a real surprise to all of us and was enjoyed by all with some of the girls having three pieces. They said that they likes chocolate cake, and proved it to be so!

The cake!

A few drinks later and we were all in bed by midnight. There were other photographs taken but they are in all sorts of cameras and I cannot get hold of them just yet. Perhaps I do not want to!

The party

Presents of a card from my family, Turkish Delight from Adam and Helen then Dan and Vicki with the glass from the girls Stephanie, Libby, Laura, Rebecca and Emily who call themselves my adopted daughters, truck daughter and tell me that I have no choice in the matter.

70 years old today and this was a sneaky photo

2 May - At Oludeniz (Turkey)

A quieter night but one rooster was left to wake everyone up well before dawn. Just as we had finished our meal last night one of the camping site staff went past mumbling that the roosters had been keeping him awake during the night, then there was a ‘bang bang!’ and he walked passed with what I took to be two roosters hanging in his hand and asked if we wanted a chicken to cook. I think people were too shocked to answer him as there were no takers!

At 1000 hours we went to the beach to have a trip round the bay. The boat left at 1100 hours, Turkish time! After the first hour or so it was not really worth it as the trip just repeated itself. We would go to a cove, it was too cold to swim for any length of time, not me though, and then move to another cove. One actually had warmer water being affected by some warm spring but it made very little difference to those in the water. Lunch was terrible as well, certainly not as shown in the brochure. Maybe it would be better in the real tourist season but somehow I doubt that it would be so. Altogether a place to keep away from!


Butterfly Cove

The local bar in Butterfly Cove

One cove had been taken over by a co-operative to keep it more like its' natural self. It must have been the last refuge of the hippies judging by the pretty tractor! Behind the cove was a waterfall, which I would not pay to see. There is too much of the asking on money here just to see things with no real value. Quite a few of the group are no longer paying for things as I think they are getting short of money. The co-operative had built huts, cafes and food places with camping allowed. They also had security company staff there and when I questioned them why they were necessary they said that it was due to problems with drink. It just looks that the pursuit of money had gone too far! The only local people left on the site were the old people.

  


I could not find out the make of tractor as certain people are likely to ask!

Apart from the normal refreshments fresh pancakes were provided by a lady sitting near the beach. It is not often that one can obtain a photograph of a ladies face here but this lady was happy to let me take her photograph, which I actually like.

The lady making pancakes

At the evening meal, cooked by us at the campsite, it was agreed that, as the following day was to be my 70th birthday, a fancy dress party would be held in the next place with the theme being ‘D’ for David. I picked up the cake I ordered but was not able to see it as the box was sealed and I did not want to open it as it had to be secure for travelling tomorrow.

A boat passing an island in the bay

30 April and 1 May – Burdur il Siniri from and at Oludeniz (Turkey)

Starting to notice the change in the toilets now. The sit-on ones are slowly not there, the footprint ones are more to be seen. For a while we have had to put toilet paper into a bin and not in the toilet, things change!

Leaving Burdur il Siniri early in the morning we travelled down the mountain roads with snow on the hills around us, poppies in the fields, lovely dry stone walls and even more lovely brilliant red roses. Outside the towns there are farms everywhere and now grape vines can be seen again. There does not appear to be a shortage of water here, probably melt water from the snowy mountains. Turkey is a beautiful country spoilt only by the rubbish dumped by the truck load in places on the side of the road, but thankfully not everywhere. I was surprised to see mosques with shops as part of the building.

A general view of the area

A mosque with integral shops

Block of flats with hot water solar panels

We stopped at Saklikent Gorge and the Karacay River late in the morning. The gorge is 18 kilometres long but because of the flooding river we could not walk very far along the gorge as what was seen was interesting. There was a tourist complex with hotels at the entry to the gorge and tree houses for hire as well. Apart from the river being very noisy it was a pleasant place to stay for a while.



                        Views of the gorge

Springs coming out of the mountain

                                       The tree house

At 1330 hours we arrived at the Sugar Beach Campsite in the village of Oludeniz. Chickens, dogs, cats and one rabbit run round here as they feel like. It was hot when we arrived and became hotter as the afternoon progressed. Those who were to go paragliding tomorrow had a meeting with the company concerned while the rest of us kept out of the sun.



To prove that all the campsites are luxury living. My tent is by the bin!

The camp site caters to the British for weddings using the bay, which is called the Blue Lagoon, and the mountains around the bay as a beautiful backdrop. Everything is available here for the wedding including £1000 for the legal paper work to be completed. Anyone interested contact the Sugar Beach Club!

The nearby village, about ten minutes walk away, is a tourist paradise and a rip-off. All prices are inflated and the place looks like Yarmouth beach front though the beach here is much better. There is nothing but restaurants, cafes, bars and small shops with different grades of hotels. Included in this is the obligatory British man who is topless and horribly frontly challenged. Ugh!

Views of the main shopping roads in Oludeniz (there are hardly any other) and a map of the area (if it can be read).

I decided to treat myself to a haircut and beard trim requiring two translators to make it clear to the barber that I did not want all the hair taken off. The haircut included having my eyebrows plucked, the hairs at the side of my eyes and the hairs on the top of my nose plucked. This was not quite the end as he then used a flame to burn the hairs in my ears! I have never had burnt ears before and they did smell as well! I did have tears in the corner of my eyes at the end of the 'haircut'. This concluded after more than an hour with a head, back and arm massage, and all for £7. I even bargained for the cost of the haircut!

Having a  haircut


                                                 Pick your breakfast

After the haircut I treated myself to a full English breakfast, at 13.00 hours (1 o'clock in the afternoon, really living it up). Care had to be taken that the board advertising the meal was read beforehand as it had to include tea, if not it was an extra, and that there were one or two eggs, one or two rashers of bacon, proper English sausages, and not to be forgotten, HP sauce. I did see the bottle and it looked like and tasted as the real thing! One board advertised a full Sunday roast beef and yorkshire pudding meal. Some of the others in the group went paragliding and I saw them land on the beach. They all enjoyed themselves and celebrated with cocktails!

Breakfast

Coming in to land

Most of the voices to be heard were British. Talking to the staff at the campsite they said that the biggest number of tourists came from the UK and the second from South Korea, not expatriates but direct from South Korea. The reason is the paragliding as Oludeniz is considered to be the second best place in the world for paragliding. I do not know where the first best place is though. There was certainly a lot going on while we were there. The bay is said to be rated as one of the best five in the world and we definitely disagreed with this as it is a pebble beach, where there is sand it is very coarse and the sea has an oily scum on it where the tourist boats near the shore. There are definitely better beaches than this, even in Turkey.

Hot water solar panels are really the thing here. I did find one hotel that had an array of 72 panels in the garden. They are absolutely everywhere as I have mentioned before. 

I have ordered a chocolate cake for my birthday which will be ready to be picked up tomorrow.

28 and 29 April – At Selcuk and Selcuk to Burdur il Siniri (Turkey)

Our 'extreme' chiropractor

A day of rest at Selcuk! The first thing to be done on getting up in the morning here is to remove the small snails from the outside of the tent. Those inside get squashed by the sound of it when moving around! Polly and James had arrived during the night having stayed behind in Istanbul to collect our passports with the Iranian visas, none of which had been rejected.

I went with Jay for a walk down to the river to see the boats there. We could not figure out how they arrived at the mooring and on the land as there were bridges both sides of them which were too low for the boats to go under. When I asked later I was told that they were built as museum pieces and were not intended to be sailed anywhere. By this time a number of people had been badly sunburnt and some badly bitten by other than mosquitoes.

The boat on the river

The boat on the river

A carving near the boat

I liked his face!

Being an easy day and with an early start the next morning all were in bed by 2100 hours.

While travelling the following day the intensive farming for oranges and olives continued. There was snow on the mountains round us as well. I had noticed over a number of days that a local man was up early hand cutting some lush grass on small patches at the side of fields and loading it into a hand cart, probably to feed animals. The irrigation system was quite extensive with miles and miles of a concrete race about 18 inches high and 6 inches wide supplying water from canals, the canals having gates and spillways to control the flow of water. The concrete race had small doors in it to let water into the fields with the fields being generally quite small and at slightly different levels so that the water flowed naturally from one to another. I was more than impressed with the way this water race crossed the road as it was so simple, taking me a little time to work out how it was done. The race ended in a vertical concrete pipe about 2 feet in diameter and was sealed into the top side of the pipe. Another pipe was set into the other side of the road at the same level and there must have been a horizontal pipe under the road sealed into the two vertical pipes so that the water flowed from one side to the other, kept the same level and then flowed away through the opposite race. No pumping required, so simple!

A view from the truck

A view from the truck

I took some money out of a machine when we stopped in a small town as there were no money changers there. When I put the card in the machine ‘Hello Mr Watkins’ came up on the screen. It then indicated what language I wanted the screen to show, did I want Turkish lire, Euros or US dollars before indicating what amount of money was required. Most impressive I thought!

About 1300 hours we stopped to visit Pamukkale Hierapolis, initially inhabited in 1900 BC, rebuilt in 133 BC then destroyed by an earthquake in 17 AD during the reign of Tiberius. Nero rebuilt the city in 60 AD and it gained importance because of the spas and mineral waters. The remains I saw today were the remnants of Roman construction. Hierapolis is 1840m high (5400 ft approximately) and up to 150 m (450 ft) above the valley floor. Water containing potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron and aluminium chloride flows from springs at the top of the valley and leave calcium deposits on the ground and forms the white layer seen today. The various springs are at different temperatures with the larger spring supplying water to an hotel swimming pool. The various constituents of the water are good for different purposes and various pools are available to swim or soak in depending what one wants.

I liked the wall!

The top entrance to Pamukkale

Various views of the calcium deposits

The antique baths

It is I

The Theatre was built in the 2nd century AD and can take 15 to 20 thousand people with the four entrance gates being made of marble. I must admit I was more impressed with this theatre than the Grand Theatre of Ephesus perhaps because it appeared to be deeper and it was by itself on a mountain side. There were other ruins on the site but they were far apart and not possible to visit in the time allowed.

The Hierapolis Theatre

The Hierapolis Theatre from below

The exit from the site was by walking across the face of the calcium deposits. I thought that this would be no trouble so proceeded to walk through the water which continually flowed along this path to have a large Turkish lady blow her whistle at me because I was wearing walking boots. No shoes or boots allowed! I think what followed was the Turkish equivalent of torture specially manufactured for the tourist! The surface of the walkway was smooth, thus slippery in places; covered in small stones which were hard to walk on or corrugated where the water had flowed. All in all torture to walk on! I was more than glad to put my boots on after this!

Showing the use of tin sheet not tiles

Home from home in the mountains

Leaving Pamukkale we travelled until 1730 hours and then pulled off the main road to look for a camp site. After going through small villages and along narrow twisty roads we camped on the top of a hill at somewhere called Burdur il Siniri. The ground was very rocky and the debris from the trees very spikey so quite a few people had splinters/thorns in their feet. In the villages it looked as though buildings were left to fall into ruins when they were no longer needed and any repairs were not done a traditional way as tin sheet was more than obvious on roofs and sides of houses where tiles and brick could have been expected to be used.

Dinner is served

Dinner escaping (goats) or experience the rural life

Two local men turned up at about 2000 hours, one with a guitar, but there was no serenade and they went after playing two songs to themselves up in the trees. I think that some were disappointed that the did not stay! It was cooler up here and we all wore coats in the evening and with so so much to do all went to bed at 2030 hours.

This is the second time I have done this posting. I hope it does not get messed up again!