Dodgy Bowels, Dirty Otogars and Nasty Night busses

I could have sworn that time had turned back by about 8 years as i slept last night, as i woke up in my wooden tree shack today feeling decidedly like i was back in school camp. Though it really doesn't need to be said, Bayrams Treehouses are no Ritz Carlton, in fact, they've got nothing on even the most pov franchise of cockroach festooned highway motels. My back suffered from the centermetres-depth 'mattress', on a slanted floor of questionable structural integrity, parts of which gave a good indication that i might just fall right through it if i stayed there any longer. That, and i kept getting woken up by a rogue chicken roaming carefree in the shrubberies underneath my treehouse throughout the course of the night. Let's face it, i'm taller and heavier than your average Ewok, not quite as hairy, and the novelty of sleeping in a treebox after one night had worn off.

Bayrams bar

Up and adem at a very respectable hour, i jogged to the beach through the overgrown, wild fig and vine covered ruins of ancient Olympos, just as the sun was beginning to find its position in the morning sky, passing my cruise mate Alaskan Dave on the return trip, and feeling extremely better off for indulging in some endorphin generation. What Bayrams lacks in sound structural engineering it certainly makes up for in its chilled, relaxed and ultimately very communal vibe. I sat on my clakker for the better part of the day just hanging around the bar area in a Turkish lounge, listening to an ear-friendly playlist of mostly Aussie bands being pumped across the leafy, shrapnel laden courtyard. In perfect weather, i sat, sipped coffee, drank Efes, and smelled the roses. After all, the cruise was a horribly tough four days of oppresive toil and drudgery, and i really needed a day to unwind and relax for a change. Ha!

Efes tasty

Olympos was a great place to step off and chill briefly, the sort of joint you might find yourself stuck in for weeks, partying and raging, if you werent too vigilant in adhering to some form of timetable. Parting ways with Meg, Ivy and Shannon, the blue cruise crew split again in two, as Berrin, Michael, the yanks, Alaskan Dave and i headed on to the next wild destination - the spectacularly infamous Cappadoccia region in the very heart of the country.

Took a minibus over to the nearest large city, Alanya, and my poor luck with exploding goods was revisited as my bag of mixed Turkish nuts went all over the bus floor. At Alanya, we sat down for the opening World Cup soccer match, and had a tasty, but potentially bowel-liquifying meal at a shady bus terminal diner, and by mistake i ordered two main meals. Let me just say that the ensuing bus ride would be the commencement of days of discomforting stomach pains and dishearteningly excessive sessions with the porcelain. The bus ride was a beast, 10 hours overnight, with excessive wee-hour stops in a number of seedy 'Otogars' (bus stations), some which contained so many smoking Turkish men that you literally had to wade through the smoke in order to get to the WC, as if you were dancing the Monkey through dry ice at a high school disco. And once you paid 50 bloody Turkish cents for the privilege of releasing your goods, which was sending me to the poorhouse considering the current state of my digestive tract, you felt considerably cheated, a little more cancerous, and deliriously exhausted.

ryan Catie and Shannon

But all that aside, as we'd find out soon in the morning, the trip to Cappadoccia, however nasty, would be totally worth it...