Marmaris The journey

For the money we had a remarkably easy run until we arrived in Turkey. Only really one hitch, we had a weirdo sat in front of us on the plane. It started when his elbow appeared by my window; it was as if he was trying to get his hand into my space but couldn’t bend it round. A while later he was shuffling around and I felt his hand on my feet, he was groping around under it so I moved my feet back under my seat to avoid him. A while later still a hand appeared in the gap between the head rests of the seats in front of Claire and myself and it was trying to grasp something, anything like a claw from a horror movie. Claire and I recoiled backwards and noticed that the lady sat next to him was fighting with him, trying to get his hand back again and eventually succeeded before he managed to grab either of us. She apologised profusely saying that he wasn’t normal. I new that already! Trouble was he wasn’t a child but a fully grown strong man and she had trouble with him during the whole journey; his hand appearing several more times trying to grab Claire. When the lady went to the toilet, she replaced herself with another lady to keep an eye on him but he was twice as bad with the new one. Next thing his hand is under my seat again, the lady returned from the toilet to get him back and say that he had lost his “yellow ball” under my seat. Claire managed to retrieve it while the lady dragged him back again. Anyway, we arrived in one piece, no harm done, but we always seem to get someone odd in front of us or the family from hell behind us.

We arrived about 30 minutes late but had an easy run through immigration and baggage claim, found our transfer bus and waited. We waited some more and sweated a little before waiting some more and sweating a little more. I complained outside and asked how long before we left and he said another 15 minutes. I went out again after 15 minutes soaked with sweat and he said that I should take my shirt off. I said that he should turn on the engine and aircon but he only laughed. I wandered over to where we booked the transfer from and complained again, asking when we would be leaving and was told another 20 minutes when the next plane had landed. I asked him to tell the driver to put on the aircon as the almost full bus was full of people almost unconscious by now. After about an hour the driver eventually put on the aircon and we left about 15 minutes later. At last we were on our way; almost, he seemed to drive ridiculously slowly whilst reading a bit of paper and making phone calls on his mobile. All the traffic behind us were blowing their horns and overtaking us. Eventually he put his phone down and the bit of paper and then seemed to drive even more slowly when he wasn’t distracted. After about 45 minutes of what was supposed to be a 50 minute transfer he pulled in at a transport café and said that we had 15 minutes. I said that we would rather get to our hotel, especially as he had made us wait for so long. I looked around at the other passengers and asked if anyone wanted to stop and they all said they would rather just get to our hotels. It made no difference, he got off and said to be back in 10 minutes and went to collect his free drink and food. Twenty minutes later we set off again and arrived after 2 hours from what should have been a 50 minute transfer; of course, our hotel was the last to be dropped at, even though we were top on his list on the bit of paper he found so interesting.

By this time we were starving as we had only bought the meal deal from Boots before we left which we ate on the plane. We dropped our bags off and went straight down for dinner and a beer. The prices are about the same as at home which is expensive for Turkey; I guess that we will need to get out on a bike before we find cheaper places that the locals eat in. It was 6.50TL for a large glass of wine which is around £3 but when I asked how much for the bottle he wanted 60TL so we stuck to the glass. He realized his mistake and came back later saying that the chef was new and he had made a mistake, it was only 35TL a bottle. I asked for a cocktail as it was 2 for 1 (241 which is the same as a BOGOF) but somehow they managed to bring 3 in total but they didn’t charge for them so I got 3 for 1 (341). They can be as stupid as they like when it goes in my favour. It was all a little Faulty Towers but all the waiters were Manuel. Also it looked totally different from the picture on the internet and we suspected that it had only recently reopened. The restaurant that was so highly recommended on the internet was gone and replaced with a hotel one but at least all the rooms were newly decorated and had brand new fittings and furniture so we were lucky at the price we paid. There wasn’t a cat in the room which was just as well as we wouldn’t have been able to swing it anyway. In fact it was so tight that you can’t open the door with your room key in the slot to enable the electric; you have to pull out the key and be plunged into darkness to open the door. The bathroom is very practical though; you can go to the toilet, clean your teeth and have a shower all at the same time.

After dinner we had a walk to a little restaurant further towards the sea and had a beer or two where we asked if our Hotel called, “My Way” was new. He said that it had only just opened 2 weeks earlier and before the restaurant was great but the hotel crap and now it was the other way around which we knew but it actually suits us as we are staying there. At our hotel they wanted 35TL to enable our aircon but we found that it already works so it’s not worth paying extra for.

We ended up back at our hotel for our last drink and ended up talking to a Welsh couple that had already been here a week and had to get up early in the morning to be ready for a boat trip at 7.30am. We did keep them up talking for a while though; I hope they still got up as we didn’t get to bed until after 3.30am. It all seemed a very long day for us as our day started at 5am the morning before; can’t wait until tomorrow.