Hiking the hills to Oludeniz and a ghost town
Trip Start
Apr 25, 2007
1
21
31
Trip End
Jun 20, 2007
Fethiye and Oludeniz,
Turkey
Saturday, May 26, 2007
We stayed at another pansiyon in Fethiye that from the outside did not look too bad at all. Unfortunately, 3 women had to share a triple again and Jo, Sherrin and I agreed to bunk in again. We were quite disappointed with their version of a "triple". The size of the room was obviously built to accommodate only 2 beds. We could barely move around and to make matters worse, the bathroom door was quite unco-operative where in order to keep it shut, we had to use a filled mineral water bottle as a door stop, and had to leave the door ajar at night in case one of us needed to use the toilet without having to wake the others up
Another castle at top of another town in Turkey!
. Okay, maybe too much detail for my friends but you know me, you cannot say you do not get very detailed descriptions when necessary (necessary as defined by me of course!) Writing this after the end of my holiday, I can say this was the only lowlight of my trip to Turkey, seriously.The rest of the day was spent chilling out and exploring the town. Fiona and I decided to go shopping together and found some nice handpainted glassware for a very reasonable price. Bumped into Sherrin for a coffee/beer served by a very enthusiastic young boy who was practicing his English. Took some photos of the harbour front with the mountain ranges providing the background and sat down to write some postcards with a nice cold beer. Called my brother instead, who had just returned to L.A. from the Cannes Film Festival and was still jet-lagged. Had a nice catch up sitting by the waterfront enjoying the sunset and Efes before it was time to meet the others for dinner.
Dinner was a cheap and simple affair as we decided to save some money. It was a good move as we got to spend some time chatting with the owner who spoke English fluently and could give an insight into the town, Fethiye Gen X lives and lifestyles and employment challenges. And their observations of the transitional phased where the majority of tourists are now from the UK instead of Germany
Another nice sunset
.The next day we decided to hike over to Oluzeniz (lagoon and fab beaches) but starting from Kaya Koyu.
Kaya Koyu is the largest late-medieval ghost town in Asia Minor (source: Rough Guide). It was inhabited by Greek Orthodox Christians and who were removed to Greece during the compulsory population exchange when Turkey was formed after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. Macedonian Muslims moved in but thought the place much less fertile than Greece and most of them moved away including migration to other countries ie Australia.
It has been left this way by the Turkish government thereafter and approvals for archaeological restoration are granted, but not for tourism development. Greco-Turkish reconciliation festivals still happen and the Greek diaspora from the old Ottoman empire still visits to this day.
The history of this place was much discussed between Erkut and Paul arguing from different points of view and possibly what has been taught to Turks about how all this came about which is a somewhat different version from what you will find in your Lonely Planets and Rough Guides
Another sarcophagus in Fethiye
. We spent the most part of the first half of our hike listening to the arguments...lively!It's amazing to walk through such a place. I don't think I have come across anything like this in Asia. The buildings are mostly intact with some walls missing due to neglect but as it was the start of summer, the flowers were in full bloom everywhere and some rare butterflies were enjoying the gorgeous morning, nature's priorities on everything that was important was evident.
There are 2 churches built from the 19th century whose walls are very much intact at two different ends of the village well worth visiting. Behind the first one (after you pay the entrance fee) lies a small "shed" that use to store the remains of the dead that had been dug up. At one stage earlier, human bones could be seen as the villagers who had to move to Greece took the skulls of the forebears with them.
We started the hike going uphill from the second church and started looking for the trail markers. Similar colour coding to the ones in Scotland, we found green and yellow marker arrows painted onto stones. Thereafter, it was a relatively easy trail to follow until we came over the first hill and lost the trail to traverse down to get onto the second hill
Couple old buildings in Fethiye
. Luckily this hill had enough rocks to be able to get down without the help of trail markers until we found them again about 30 metres down.The views were amazing of course, a little like doing the Maclehose trail in Hong Kong trails #2 and #3 but this time it was the clear blue Mediterranean sea below instead! After that, I enjoyed a really nice fast hike and wished I had my trail runners for the down hill portion!
Calories burned, we were ready for a nice big lunch and Alex didn't disappoint. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the restaurant of a chalet and camp ground space in the lagoon. Most of us opted for nice juicy burgers although Erkut ordered an equally delicious dish of spicy chicken pasta. Fruit smoothies were real fruit smoothies with no added sugar nor ice-cream, yeah! I was in heaven! From nice cushy lounge tables and chairs, we moved to nice cushy lounge huts for a quick snooze. Then it was time to head back.
We walked along the main beach at Oludeniz which was just as stunning. The surf was up thanks to the afternoon winds. On good weather days, paragliding would be a great experience but do be careful as there 3 deaths recently caught in an accident
Having a beer and enjoying the scene
. We caught a dolmus back to Fethiye and this is where we had another cultural experience but with the English. Overheard topics of discussion included how one could (or could not) live the champagne lifestyle in WAG accent, and also how a couple had been in Turkey for 2 weeks already and still had not met or spoken to a single Turk so the husband was in no place to comment on something he had said. We later found out why as we passed a town mid-way through that looked like a little replica of Little Britain...at least 3 Indian restaurants, countless pubs and lots of little shops selling trinkets etc. Big women with generous chests in skimpy enough tank tops without support....so not a good look. We could not get back to Fethiye soon enough after those last visuals. Luckily for us, that was the only town we came across that was like
that in Turkey. Begs the question....what are they thinking and why
are they here at all???
By now, it had started to rain and we opted to catch a movie just across the street instead of downtown. The experience was fun but the movie was painful. We had the whole theatre to ourselves :) fun
Lunch - Quick! take a shot !
! but the movie turned out to be awfully made starring Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore in something titled "Because I said so". Disappointing that Ms Keaton could be part of a movie this badly directed and written. She came across as a hysterical cartoon on HRT overdrive sad to say.Dinner was another delicious but very simple tavuk (chicken) durum on lavas bread. I bagged another one for breakfast since we were on an early bus ride to get to Pamukkale the next day and it cost too much at the Pansiyon (8 TYL)
Would I visit Fethiye again? Yes, but beware of the English invasion!
