"Too Many Kilograms"
Trip Start
Mar 16, 2009
1
40
47
Trip End
Jul 22, 2009
Fethiye,
Muğla Province,
Turkey
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
So we left the next morning from Koycegiz headed for the Sakklikent Gorge and on to Fethiye. I was down, but feeling pretty good, because, among other things, it looked like Phoenix and Jess were going to be on our four day boat cruise leaving the next day, and they were cool. They HAD danced with the male belly dancer and were both fun and down to Earth. By the end of the day, after that day's festivities, we liked them even more. It was only minutes away from the hostel though that Kristen and I learned we had mixed up the dates.
See, we had booked our Gulet cruise online months in advance. On the little sheet with Fez activities, it said that the Gulet cruises left on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturdays... But that only applied to the people booking with V-Go, the secondary carrier in charge of the Gulet cruises, at the last minute. We would be going Sunday, not Saturday like we originally thought, and we would not be hanging out with Jess and Phoenix.
We had booked a paragliding flight for Saturday morning, thinking that we'd go paragliding early over Oludyeniz Beach and then hop on the boat. Hayden told us that early morning was the best time because the beach would be empty. At least we wouldn't have to feel rushed or nervous that we wouldn't make it to the boat on time, because even though we had asked Hayden to book the flight several days earlier, when he let it sit for two days we were only able to get pilots for 8:30. I think that may have actually been the earliest flight of the day, but we were still thrown for a curve since our boat was set to leave at 10:00, and we didn't want to miss paragliding. Now at least we could be confident that we would get a good paraglide in and not be rushed to the boat, and we could visit Oludyeniz beach, which is one of the prettiest in the Mediterranean. But we wouldn't be cruising with Jess and Phoenix, and from the looks of it, we wouldn't be cruising with any fellow Fez Travel people. Once again, Fez wasn't exactly offering much different by way of meeting and getting to know fun people from taking public buses...Oh well.
When we left Koycegiz we picked up a tour guide, for reasons none of us, not even Hayden, could understand. The Sakklikent Gorge is a gorge that was formed when an Earth quake literally split apart a mountain. There is a fast running glacial stream moving through the gorge that turns into a river. We knew from the brochure map that it wasn't far from Fethiye, and it really did look like it might be a short day.
What we didn't know is that Fethiye was about an hour and 15 minutes past Koygeciz...and that our trip to Sakklikent would pass right by Fethiye. Given that we didn't get to go on the mud cruise in Koygeciz, it was very frustrating to pass Fethiye, which was a bigger, cooler town, with a nice harbor and a fantastic fish market (which we would learn about later that night). Our meal by the lake was decent, but that and the male belly dancer did not really warrant a stay in Koygeciz.
I was very entrenched in Shantaram when we arrived at some rock tombs that our tour guide told us little about. His "tour" up to that point had been to tell us that people in the area did a lot of farming...I had already guessed that...by the farms we saw along the road... I wasn't too surprised for whatever reason...
The tombs were on the side of the hill, with some sort of Ottoman compound up top. You could pretty much see everything from where the bus parked, so none of us were keen to pay the 10 lira entrance fee to walk up to the high point, maybe, at most 150 meters above us. That was also the suggestion of our "tour guide," who wasn't about to walk us up to the top. Silly, useless and pointless do not do enough to desribe his roll in our day. We had seen snow capped mountains on the way in, which was sweet in my book, because snow capped mountains make the world a better place, but it was hot and I think we all just wanted to get to the gorge, despite what might have been a good view. We commented that the 10 lira entrance fee was really quite silly, because there was no more than 15 minutes of sight seeing to be had. For 3 lira, we all probably would have paid to go to the top...but for 10 we'd all be content to look at the ruins from outside the compound.
Something had been mentioned about going to a carpet weaving factory that day, and having seen a sign on the way to the rock tombs/Ottoman spot saying that the Sakklikent was within 21 kilometers, we were all excited thinking that we had somehow avoided the "carpet weaving" demonstration, which, incidentally, was the only pointless stop that actually was in the brochure. We were wrong. We went to the carpet weaving factory, where, as I said, I was berated for having purchased a "fake" silk on silk carpet as clearly shown by the fact I did not pay $6000 for it...
Finally finally finally, we made it to the Gorge around lunch time. There was a nice little river side restaurant next to the river coming out of the gorge, where we sat in little "on the floor" style booths. We had delicious trout and good french fries and got to know each other. As I said, Jess and Phoenix were quite fun. I probed them a bit, withas with just about every Aussie and Kiwi I meet, about Gallipoli and ANZAC day and told them Elliot's response to my question about the meaning of ANZAC day and its remembverence. "Ugg," Phoenix said, "That's just the younger generation."
"Yeah," Jess added, "They just have no respect for it, it's not supposed to be like that, it's not just supposed to be a day to drink, but for younger people it is."
We were given the option of going for an hour long tubing ride on the river after lunch and after a walk up into the gorge. Kristen, Jess, Phoenix and I jumped at the offer, and obviously Hayden wanted to and did come too. The gorge was cool, but the water was very very cold, very fast moving, and really hard to navigate without shoes or proper sandles due to the rocks on the bottom. I had also badly cut my feet on the rocks at the waterfall the day before. I soldiered on for a bit into the gorge, but everyone else stayed back. Kristen took a couple funny pictures of ridiculous old men in speedos for whatever perverse reason you want to think of... Ok, it was a joke, but yea...there were way too many old men in speedos. In the middle of the river gorge there is a guy with a camera who takes your picture as you fight your way up river. When you get to the bottom the pictures are all developed... The old men in t-shirts and speedos make for some funny pictures...
After the Gorge we got our tubes and paddles. We all had a tube and a two sided, kayak like paddle. In the end we had almost no control over our tubes, but that didn't matter...
Our guide was a Turkish guy who spoke not a word of English except for "Bottoms up" which is what he told us to do when our tube went into shallow water so that we would not scrape the bottom. He had on a Delbarton T-shirt, as in Delbarton in New Jersey, that has been educating the "finest" youth of "New Jersey," as if there are any fine youth in New Jersey...where they don't pump their gas, they just pump their fists, for years. I was quite amused. Our guide had not the slightest clue what I was saying when I asked him where he got his t-shirt and not the slightest clue how to respond...
Along the sides of the river, there are mud spots that are supposedly theraputic, or what not. All I know is that there was a photographer there ready to take picture of of us all caked in mud. The guide didn't really give us a choice, we got out of the very fast moving but shallow water, which was really quite hard to do, and he just started slinging. He grabbed each of us and plopped huge hand fuls of mud on us. I got him back with several all over him. There was mud, mud and more mud everywhere. It was actually as fun as all the silly pictures you've ever seen of people at mud baths look. Afterwards, washing off in the cold water was not so easy or fun, but it certainly was interesting. I went right under and tried to swim up stream in the foot and a half of very fast moving water, but it was hard. I mostly just held myself in one place while the water washed over me before struggling to stand and get out. The guide grabbed Kristen's arms and held her in place while the water washed over her, which was actually a little scary, since she really had no escape and didn't know if he'd notice when she had to come up for air. I got almost all the mud off me and was read to go. Thank goodness our guide noticed that I had forgotton to get by beloved Stanford hat off the bank where I had left it in hopes that it wouldn't get filled with mud.
After a short ride back to the restaurant/compound by the side of the river, we went for a swim in the small pool on the edge of the river, where Ali and his big belly had been swimming and sunbathing. I tried doing a couple dives off the edge into the pool. Kristen says I am just about the worst diver she has ever seen in her life, and she and Ali sure let me know it with their uproarious laughter.
What was funnier though was Ali's joly swimming. He would point to the water and then motion towards one end of the pool and back, indicating that he intended to swim the length of the pool underwater... But then he would try. He'd take a huge breath puffing his cheeks way out and jump up and then down into the water he'd go. Without pushing off one end of the pool, he'd make 5 or so fitful and pitiful breast strokes which would move his rotund body about 6 feet. Having gone nowhere he would pop up gasping for air, completely out of breath and utter his favorite, and in some ways only, English phrase: "OHHH MY GAWHHHD!" Anything that got a rise out of Ali would lead to a spirited "OHHH MY GAWHHHD!" What a character.
The poor older Aussies hadn't gone tubing and hadn't spent much time in the gorge either, but they seemed ok sipping beers on the side of the river. The tour guide was REALLY ok though... He had done NOTHING. He didn't lead us up to the gorge or anything. He was a waste of space. And when we went to have a cup of tea before a 4 PM departure from the gorge (that should have been earlier, but for whatever reason it was deemed we should stay there longer) we found the tour guide sitting alone at a table having a smoke, talking on his cell phone, and drinking a beer. What a joke.
It was about an hour and a half back to Fethiye, during which I finally reached the climax of Shantaram and all of the pieces came together! I'm not going to ruin it, but it happens somewhere in the 700s, so if you are getting tired and worn out from such a long book, you can do it, just keep going and you'll love it!
The main hostel where most of the bus passengers stay in Fethiye didn't have any doubles left, so we said goodbye to Jess and Phoenix, hoping to see them again in Olympus, and goodbye to the three elder Aussies, they would be going on by bus and we'd miss them entirely. We weren't sure if we'd run into Hayden again, though it turns out he had days off that allowed us to catch up to him again, and we knew we'd never see Ali again. We were at Hayden and Ali's hotel, but even though we contemplated meeting up for dinner at the fish market, Hayden and Ali weren't really in the mood and we didn't see them when we went. No more Ali and his "Oh My GAWHHHHD." Oh well.
Fethiye is a cool little harbor town. Like seemingly every other town on the Turkish Coast, there is, of course a over 1600 year old Roman Theater in town, which was cool, and countless other ruins. The streets are lined with nice little shops, most of which sell the same knock off clothing as everywhere else in Turkey or, my personal favorite, "Genuine fake watches!"
The fish market in Fethiye though, is really its best spot. It is a big courtyard with restaurants all around. In the middle there is a rectangular island divided into roughly 16 sections with various fishemermen selling their catch of the day. You choose the fish and they gut it for you right there and give it to you in a bag. You take it to one of the restaurants where for 5 lira a person they grill the fish for you and provide bread and a salad. It was great. We got a bunch of prawns...delicious...and a sea bass and sea bream to try. I just loved the spot.
After a walk around town, I returned to the hotel where I was just too tired to work on the blog, and too wired to go to sleep and so I read and read Shantaram past midnight and then turned out the light. Even though the next day we were set to do just about the coolest thing ever, go paragliding over the Olyudinez Beach, jumping off a mountain over 2000 meters high and flying in over the sea, and we were supposed to wake up at 7:15 am to do it, I just couldn't sleep. My mind was racing and I just still felt down. There had been some good moments that day, and some frustrations, but something was just eating at me.
Traveling is just exhausting for so many reasons, and it is just so tough sometimes in part because you don't want to let yourself be down or frustrated. The result is compound frustration, and sometimes there is nothing worse than being mad at yourself for being mad, or down on yourself for being down. When you are traveling, pouring all your energy into the pursuit of "fun" and when that pursuit takes effort and, perhaps most importantly, money, you never want to be frustrated or down. But the truth is that its not always fun. Even more importantly, the truth is that sometimes the very experiences you have that are "unfun" is are what offer you very fun memories.
Take for example, Kristen and my experience on a Jordanian public pus to the Dead Sea. It was tense and crazy, we had no idea where we were going. We smiled at each other and laughed a bit at the chickens ahead of us, but we were both still a little on edge. Then we hopped into an unmarked van serving as a cab for a ride with a guy who spoke no English. And all this happened because the easy route suddenly was not availible, there were "no buses" to the Dead Sea that day. It wasn't the worst experience we've had, but it sure wasn't the best. But, it is one of my favorite stories of the trip. Our rides on Jordanian public buses and the stories we have are like our own little merit badges that prove we were uncomfortable and we did it, and we cherish those memories.
Sometimes traveling is like hiking, the best thing about it is being done and remembering and looking back on what you have done...not actually doing it. That's something hard to come to grips with. Another great example was one of our fellow travelers in Egypt who spen t much of our trip very upset with the way things were going and down and out about the vvarious problems that arose. Then again, when that person got home, facebook proclaimed that "Egypt was amazing!"
Here's the really confusing thing: It WAS! The bad times don't necessarily outweigh the good, and even when they do, the "bad" can be a "good" memory... in that case it's better than a wash, the experience trumps not having the experience.
But while just being "tired" was eating at me, I don't think that was it. It was really that I was missing home. I realized what was going on and it hit me so hard jumped out of bed and I had to write it down in my journal, given to me by a friend I at the time felt quite out of touch with.
Probably the best thing about traveling is not actually going to different locations, or seeing new landscapes. A new place is great. But ultimately, people generally trump place. Traveling is made better by the people you meet and the human experiences you share with others. As good as the descriptions of the slums and the things Lin sees in Shantaram are, it's the characters that fill his sometimes transient world that make it special. But while traveling, for every connection there is a far more powerful, far more real, disconnection. When Ali walked out the door of the hotel to go to dinner, I knew there was a 99.9% chance I'd never see him again, and he classifies still as my favorite "character" of the trip. I started thinking of all the people we'd met over the months, people who had walked into my life and left just as quickly. There was that night of chatting it up with Johnny and Kerry after our caving experience in Waitomo. There was the 4 hour conversation with Karla and James ont hat first night in Whitianga. There was Byron, the biggest Brett Favre fan int he world...Brett's not playing anymore so I can't even track him down at a Jets game. Frank Mary and Allison all made for a great trip through China...might never see them again. I know that I'll never see Mr. Deng again, who like Ali spoke not a word of English but was as kind and fun as can be. I wracked my brain to realize that the guy I had written down in the blog as "Ken" from just three nights ago in Gallipoli was really named Keith...I think... Soam, our beloved assistant guide in Nepal, always ready to answer yes, no matter what you asked him, nope probably not going to see him.
You hope to see people again, but you know that for the vast majority of people wou won't. Days of Facebook offer hope and keep you in contact, but it's almost just a tease, and some people you know will one day purge their "friend lists" and eliminate you just as easily as you were added.
A great thing about meeting people from other countries is that they are from other countries. A terrible thing about meeting people from other countries is that they are from other countries...and live in other countries.
To some degree these feelings and these situations are true of many many forms of social interaction, especially in big cities, or in a country like America, which is vast beyond belief. Many of the people that you meet every day you may never run into again. And I am about to move across the country, leaving behind many close friends. But you do form relationships that are everlasting, and I do know that there are people who, though I will be far from them next year, I will talk to regularly, just as there are some people who I was far from this year and talked to regularly.
Travel throws that all into a knot in some ways. The people you meet and spend time with get to know you very well and very fast, in part due to the hardships of travel that you go through together, in part due to the sheer amount of time spent together. By the end of our trek in Nepal, spending hours upon hours day after day with the same people, I felt like I really knew them. But it's an experience that nevertheless occurs in a vacuum outside "the real world" and it all ends too damned fast. I will try to stay in touch, but I know that with some people it won't be possible and I know that it certainly won't be as easy as staying in touch with those who I have formed "real world" friendships with, even though when I go home I am moving across the country for law school. Those still at home while I am off going around the world probably feel like I just fell out of their lives for a bit, so it's not like they're always the quickest to stay in touch which is more than understandable.
More than home, I think I just miss real friendship, friendship that doesn't end (or seemingly end, because it doesn't always end...that's too cynical a view) when you say goodbye, or the day you leave the country or city or where ever it was that you were spending time. That, I think, is really what after a while makes traveling tough, because at first it is just fun and new. At the end of our trip in Nepal, when Kristen and I felt very close with three other people, Kristen said to me that the last few nights out together while so fun, just really made her miss having friends, being in a place with people you know and like...being...home.
Of course, I guess I shouldn't be too melodramatic...because after a fitfull night sleep we got up and went... Paragliding! There are definitely perks to travel as well, believe me...but as I said earlier, I think it's important to try to give the full picture, including the duldrums.
The Olyudeniz Beach stretches out into the Mediterranean in a peninsula. But there is another peninsula such that the two peninsulas form a virtual T, with a narrow straight preventing a total T. Thus a blue lagoon, with the blue waters of the Med, is formed. High above the blue lagoon there is a mountain that rises over 2000 meters out of the sea. That is where you can paraglide from over Olyudeniz, coming down through the mountains, ending up over the sea, and landing on the beach. It is one of the best places in the world to paraglide, or so I have read, and I believe it.
We were picked up a little late in a truck and driven about a half hour from Fethiye to Olyudeniz. There we all piled into the back of the rickety pick up, on seats, with our guides in the cab and a solo paraglider and his guide in back with us. The guide, armed with an SLR camera to record the client's flight, wore a t-shirt emblazoned with Che Guevara references. I wondered what the third world revolutionary would think about this man now living off helping tourist fly off mountains... Hmm, what would Che think of what tourism is today?
The ride up the mountain on a rickety one lane dirt road was far far scarier than the flight down. There were several sheer drop offs only feet from the side of the truck, which I was almost sure we would fall out of... And though the brochure said the ride up was about 45 minutes, it was more like an hour and 10, so I just couldn't believe how high we were going and I kept thinking we were about to reach the top.
Because we went early, it was about 9:20 when we jumped off, we were the only ones at the top and we were assured that we could use the top launch spot at around 6500 feet, instead of the one about 200 meters below. It was just Kristen and I flying tandem and the two solos, though they both waited a little for us to leave and get out of their way and with less weight they were able to stay up for longer.
Kristen got a great guide who spoke good English and was a crafty camera man, using a monopod to hold the camera out from his body and get good shots. I got Ibo, who spoke very little English, was not as good a camera man, with only the camera in his hand, and asked me on the way down if I spoke German...
Kristen took off by running down the hill...you don't really jump off anything...and immediately caught an updraft, doing several circles while Ibo and I readied for take off. We ran off the mountain and immediately started to drop like flies...
"Let's go up, let's go up like them!"
"Too many kilograms!" Ibo told me, "Your girlfriend not so many kilograms, but us too many kilograms, not enough air, too many kilos."
Ugg...I knew I had a reason to lose some weight...
The flight, though short because of my weight, was spectacular...and I got great pictures...which will be uploaded...at some point...
We came over the mounatins, with snow capped mountains off in the distance away from the sea. We looked down on Olyudeniz, which appeared as a mere postage stamp from 6000 feet. We went out over the Mediteranean and looked down on ships that looked like little toys from the game battleship.
Paragliders are incredibly manoeuverable and Kristen and I went down in tandem in addition to riding tandem with a guide. Kristen was able to actually sit on top of my glider and has pictures of her feet touching the top of my glider, which is what I think caused its lack of aerodynamicness and its freefall. I blame her foot as much as my weight.
Out over the ocean, they pull down one side of the glider and you go into a big spin, the G-Forces hitting you quite hard. Thankfully I didn't get sick. It was awesome!
The landing was far too soon. Our flight was a little over 20 mintues, though they say the typical one takes 30-45 (but like so many time estimates, that's probably an overstatement). But we had come down over the beach with not a soul on it, which was the benefit of going early, even if the air wasn't as good. For some reason I guess no one goes to the beach early in Olyudeniz, the swanky beach town. I of course tortured myself a bit over the merits of going early or late, when probably i should have been
After watching our videos we bought Kristen's, because even though it was way too expensive, it was way too cool not to have. I patted myself on the back for some pictures of Kristen's flight that were postcard worthy...she did not have many of me... she was a little too scared to use her camera. It's understandable, and she probably had more fun just enjoying it. I, however, always need that photo.
We had brunch, which was for Kristen scrambled eggs, toast and apple tea and for me a Pide and a beer, and got ready to go to the famous beach. One thing came to us that was really funny. Standing outside our restaurant was a paragliding guide trying to sell trips to passing tourists. The guide had semi-bleached hair that was dissheveled, a hip paragliding t-shirt and pink board shorts with flip flops. He was Turkish, but he could have been anything. What he was was a paragliding guide, plain and simple, and you could have found his type in Jackson, Wyoming, or Queenstown, NZ, or anywhere else around the world and he could have grown up in a village in Turkey, a city in the States, a city in Turkey, a farm in the states, etc. Sometimes subcultures seem to trump macroculture and ethnicity.
The beach at Olyudeniz was nice, but it was really really rocky. There wasn't any sand. I guess that's a big knock on Mediterranean beachs. The water is blue and clear and great, but very salty. I went for a nice swim but got out and spent most of my time reading Shantaram and getting a totally uneven burn due to crappy old sunscreen (don't worry, we bought better stuff) that only worked in palces where the glob had actually been applied, but worked nowhere that the glob had been rubbed in. After about 2 and a half hours we were more than ready to head to Fethiye.
The dolmish ride took about 45 mintues, though the beach is only 15 km from Fethiye. Kristen fell asleep immediately and I read Shantaram, the ride ending with me having only 2 pages left of the 933 page novel! It was frustrating that Fethiye ended up being far less accessible to Oluydeniz than we thought, but it was fine if you started the day out with a "free" transfer for paragliding...
I don't understand why sitting at the beach is so exhuasting...but it is... The afternoon was a long long nap.
That night I spent most of the night working on my earlier blog post on Istanbul, but we did venture out to go to dinner. We got Doner Iskender, which is the best way to get Doner Kabob with the best sauce. Yum, yum yum.
On the way back we did some shopping to get some beach towels for our upcoming boat cruise. That was where I probably had the funniest conversation of my time abroad.
I bought two towels and two knock off polo shirts off a nice guy...
"Where are you from?" he asked.
"America," I replied.
"Ahh, America. Ahh, Obama. You like Obama?"
"Yes I do," I said.
"Oh. I got a question. Obama, is he capitalist or is he regular? Because the Americans, they suck the blood of the world," he explained, taking a mock bite out of his arm. "I am not Muslim but you know, I like all of us, we all hate Americans. But the American people I meet, they are not capitalist, they are friendly."
I just laughed as I handed him my money to buy new pieces of private property in the market place... I wonder, was that shopkeeper capitalist, or was he regular?
It was a late night of blog writing that felt like it had gone nowhere when I was forced to shut down at 12:30. Up early the next morning, I did dome more work, but in an attempt to not monopolize the computer too much, I gave it to an Aussie woman and American woman, both in their early 50s I would guess, traveling together and blogging at travelblog under the handle "Two blondes on holiday" or something like that. I have not bothered to look at their blog.
I've realized that there is one major problem with meeting other travelers while traveling, and its a reason why meeting locals is and always will be in some ways much more fun: everyone has had THE PERFECT trip. If they haven't had the perfect trip, they have certainly had the ONLY trip worth having and anything you have seen and experienced differently, well, you've experienced it WRONG. (I was admonished for liking a hotel that someone else had had a bad night at once...oh how could it be!) They had traveled to Syria, which is something I really would have loved to do, but I admittedly sort of chickened out on (lesson number two: if it is there, people will travel to it, so never chicken out...just make a decision that you'd rather go somewhere else). The had also been to Jordan. They, of course, couldn't believe that I'd been to Jordan and not Syria. I, of course, can't believe they went to Jordan and Syria and not Nepal, or China, or...or Peru!...what idiots! But really what got me was when they actually started talking about the nearly 3 weeks they had spent in Jordan, as opposed my 5 full days there.
"You didn't go to Jerash?" one asked, shocked. "It's fantastic, it has the absolute best Roman ruins outside of Rome itself. It's so much better than Petra!"
"Oh, yeah, oops, I didn't have time to get there, but I loved Petra."
"Oh, well Petra is good, but it's just so spread out you know. Like you have to walk all over the place and stuff. At Jerash it's all just there, so accessible and you don't have to walk everywhere."
I loved Petra because you got to walk everywhere, across these wide open expanses of beautiful rock and mountain filled desert. The fact it was more spread out meant that there weren't people everywhere as well. It was a major added bonus.
"You really should have gone to Jerash, you missed out," one of the "two blonde chicks on holiday" told me.
You really should go for a walk...then maybe your appearence would live up to your blog handle...
And we were soon off on our Gulet cruise...
