Where does the time go I ask myself…..
Well, as you all probably know one way or another, we are back from Turkey and I still have yet to update all my photo albums and add Turkey in there with them. I found a nice little app that I am tossing up with using but just haven’t had a chance to do test it out yet.
Anyway, the holiday was great, wayyyyy better than I had expected. Unfortunately I was pretty beat up because of a number of bike accidents (one occurring the evening before flying out) but regardless it was still ok. I limped around for the first few days in Istanbul (one rather sore hip on one side and one very sore sole of my foot on the other side) and couldn’t really walk for too long but it was ok. Ina reckons that about 80% of the time we are traveling somewhere I’m damaged in one way or another – the price of an extreme lifestyle hehehe!
Istanbul is a pretty big city, 12.8 million inhabitants that grows to around 14 – 15 million in the day, and you can feel it. There is always something going on, any night of the week you can go out and do anything you want – go to a jazz bar, club, restaurant, go shopping….the list goes on….and all this until way late into the evening. But wow was it hot!!! Every day was well over 30°c and that was a very pleasant surprise – coming from Berlin where the Summer has been pretty average. The people there are also so nice and friendly, I must say I really wasn’t expecting that, coming from Berlin one has a number of (bad) opinions regarding Turkish people and I can honestly say that the people in Turkey are nothing like the ones here in Berlin. Anyway, met some really nice Turkish people over there and hope to keep in touch with them – in fact, already am.
So from Istanbul we traveled to the south coast of Ölüdeniz to a place called Kabak, we had to do this by bus because there really isn’t any easier way (which meant an intimidating 12-14 hour bus ride) but the buses in Turkey are so modern and the roads are pretty good so it really was ok. Another thing about Turkey which is great is that everything runs smoothly, things also run for the better part on time (early even – look out!) and everything is so organized, very similar to any westernized city really.
Kabak is a really remote location that is in a National Park (which means people can’t build “proper” houses there) so there is only camping type accommodation available. We stayed at a place called Reflections in a little bungalow which had a great view, great food (half board included in the price – there really isn’t anywhere else to get food if they didn’t provide that) and great people. It was so relaxing and comfortable that we decided not to travel any further and just chill out there. So we stayed there for a little over a week and then returned to Istanbul for a couple of days before returning to Berlin. We will go back over there at another point to travel more around, this time it was just great to relax and swim every day.
And now here I am, still in Summer in Berlin but getting highs of around 15°c, a far cry from the beautiful weather we experienced there. The days are once again becoming shorter and the rain is increasing – oh the joy!
Well, that was a brief run-down of the holiday, I couldn’t recommend Turkey enough to anyone who wants to have a nice relaxing interesting holiday, it is one of those places that exceeds all expectations, and thank God, since the last miserable holiday we had in shit-hole Morocco; I needed it!