The Osmanli Hani Dalyan

... to the mud baths and I was abandoned for an hour to go and explore.



You had to pay to enter the mud baths, even if you didn't go in and I have to admit (at the risk of sounding a snob - after visiting the blue lagoon (Iceland) there was no way I getting in the water/mud here!! It was hard to distinguish where the actual 'natural healing' spring started and where it was ...

I was really overdue my holidays, finally getting to take it in October and I just signed up to two weeks of not doing much in Turkey with a couple of friends in a group. For me though not doing much isn't my cup of tea so I took every chance to re-live my old Turkey memories, from food, sights, sea, dancing and ahem, yes the men, again :)

Please come back soon as I update all the stories from the two weeks. Thanks.

I hate coming to places that have been ruined by tourism. Marmaris in Turkey is one such place. I have absolutely loved Turkey - fantastic people, interesting cities and some of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The sole exception was Marmaris, which whilst not a bad experience can be used to explain the negative things that happen when an area goes too far into the tourist market place.

So is a touristy area a bad thing? Not ...

... want him! It is him I want!!!”

After awhile they left. And I remained. And for the first time in several years, I felt lonely. Very lonely. “Why can’t I have THAT?”, “Where is mine???”

So I ‘dealt with it’ the way I know to deal with challenges. I meditated, practiced Yoga, breathed into my heart. Kept on training my mind towards being generous, peaceful and humble. To some degree it worked. The anxiousness ...

Awoke near Pamukkale and paid a scandalous amount to get in. 10 pounds each to see some tepid pools of water. Even the initially striking karstic rock was pretty much covered in faint brown footprints. The extorsion didn't end there as it turned out that Cleopatra's Baths, the hot spring at the top was an additional cost. We thought we could get away with just paying for one of us to get in and then swapping the ...

... by default. Certainly Islam is less in your face, so to speak, in a country where alcohol is plentifula nd girls are actually not allowed to wear headscarves to school (which is a major source of contention), but I suspect that the Aussies were under a false impression regardless of what their tour guide said. Islamist parties as recently as 1997 were actually able to acheive a plurality within the Turkish Republic, before they were forced to disband due to rules of ...

We're walking the Lycian Way. Starting tomorrow. Taken a long time to get here but I know it's gonna be worth it.

Gonna be beautiful.

Staying at a really nice hotel.

There's a few pics of where we're staying near.

Looking forward to getting completely destroyed by the hotness and longness of the walk. :)

... and I went snorkeling and saw side ways fish (it had both eyes on one side of its body) and starfish. I got to jump off the gangplank and kayak some more. I also caught a little fish with some bread and a hook that Luqmin gave me. The fish did not look real at all. Luqmin told me not to touch it when he saw it because it is a poisonous fish. He used gloves and had to leave the hook in its mouth, because if it bit us it would be bad. We threw it back in and it ...

... house. The next vıllage was deserted, but we wandered around and found a flowıng sprıng wıth happy frogs and tortoıses. We finished this bit of the walk by treatıng ourselves to a fancy pansiyonu opposite some increadıble ruıns under reconstructıon ınto the temples of APollo and Leto at Letoon and more at Xanthos. Then caught a bus a bıt further along the coast for another stınt....................

... around Byron Bay), Glenys from New Zealand, Evelyn from the US somewhere, Ross and Sam who I thınk are both from Townsville (Australia) and Aaron and Vanessa, also from Australia. Dad you would love it here - there are so many amazing birds, the town is alongside a river and near masses of marshland... I can hear frogs and birdsong everywhere and there are huge stretches of forested hills and ruins. In summer it would be unbearable with the volume of tourists but just ...