Washington Resort Hotel Manavgat

Day 53

Not much to say today. I was pretty lazy for some reason and did not leave the hotel until 11am. Someone else had borrowed the hotel bicycle so I had to get the local bus out to Anemurium ('place of the winds') to see the ancient ruins built by the Byzantines. The city was founded in the 1st century AD but hit hard by an earthquake around 580.

Since it was 110 km / 3 hour ...

... nahen und f**nen Dorfminaretten üb** das Land. Wir w**den es imm** wied** hören, weitgehend noch live gesungen, fünf Mal am Tag, and**s als in den arabischen Länd**n wo meist das Tonband bemüht wird. Kein Mensch auß** uns genießt den Blick üb** die idyllische Szen**ie, nur am Aquädukt hält kurz ein Reisebus und spuckt eine Busladung bunt** Ameisen aus, nur um sie gleich wied** einzufangen. Auf d** Weit**fahrt nach Alanya kommt man vorbei an imm** mehr ...

... we spotted next to a petrol station was closed, so we bought some snacks and continued towards Alanya. Twenty kilometres of beach for 110000 inhabitants and about twenty tourists at this moment. But the rows upon rows of similar looking, eight to twelve story high, hotel blocks valid the expectation that the number of beach users can be such that a napkin sized plot is all each gets during the high season, including sixteen litres of seawater. Have fun. For ...

... Damo felt energetic and even swam out to the castle while I lay like a lazy whale on the beach! From Kizkalesi we headed along the coast road towards Alanya. Unfortunately the coastal road was slow as it wound it and out so we made a decision to head inland. Not the best decision ever made on our part. It took us 9 hours and part of the road wasn't sealed and ...

Was up early this morning. Had breakfast, got on a bus, and rode for an hour from Antalya to Manavgat, to see the Manavgat Waterfalls, on the Manavgat River. (Manavgat Manavgat Manavgat...) They're not really anything huge; they're photogenic but not terribly interesting. They have, however, been developed as a tourist attraction, with a restaurant and ice cream stands and tons of little shops selling ...

... where we stayed in the a very cool camping ground called the suger beach club. Next morning was a ruins free day and we took a cruise round the coast in a small cruise boat stopping along the way to swim eat drink very relaxing and hot. Next day we had a short drive to saklikent which had an amazing gorge. We stayed at the mouth of the gorge in tree houses or just lay on raised platforms in ...

... straıt, vısıted the spice market and grand bazaar where two merchants told me (Ants) to go away cause they couldn't handle the Kohıtı barterıng strategy or they just dıdn't lıke dealıng wıth a gırl, and went down to the seashore to eat sunflower seeds wıth the locals. Cy and Astro shot slug guns at bottles on the shore while Suze and I watched the dolphins. Left on ...

... on the boat but it turns out that one of them was the captain, the other was a mate of his (İ think a skipper of another boat) and the deckhand was the 3rd guy. 20min later we're still bobbing along in the harbour waiting for any other tourists to join to make it worth his while to venture out, so I make some excuse about a bus leaving at 2pm and get my cash back and bugger off. The moral of this story - Turkish Travel Law No. 2 (to go after no.1 about not ...

Yo. Well just a quick entry today. This morning I explored the ruins of Side - its colonnaded st, slave market, theatre (capacity 15000), agora & temples and saw my first Turkish beach too. Then it was time to drive to a nearby waterfall which was v nice but very, very touristy - with loads of cheap souvenir stalls gaudying up the place. İf Cappadocia was full of Frenchies then so far ...

... Lycean), the highlight being the 'sunken city' of Kekova from 4th Century AD. We did a boat trip stopping at Kekova Island and the remote village of Simena with some truly chilling swimming stops and a bbq. All very tough. Fethiye, a few miles down the coast is a bit larger and a lot more feral! It has a huge marina and a town heaving with surf brand shops, bars showing the footie and kebab shops. Not at all the classy boutique ...