No Turkish Bath No Cry

Sorry, it’s me again; we didn’t quite make the Turkish bath this morning. We were up bright and early, bought a phone card, eventually managed to get through to confirm our transfer and they said please ring back after 10am. This left us an hour to kill before our Turkish Bath that Claire had been looking forward to so much so we decided to have a drive around the west side of the bay past where we had walked the first day.

Last night we went to our local to put the blog on and they had acquired a tortoise that they had found on the street. We had a couple of drinks and asked for the bill and were given so much pressure to stay, we don’t feel like going back again; as if we haven’t spent enough time and money I there. We have the same “hard sales” every time we leave our hotel, it wears you down after a while; it’s a good job we are coming home soon otherwise I wouldn’t be able to bite my tongue for much longer. We ate in the English owners bar that we had a drink in with Danny and Sharon and had promised them that we would eat there before we went home. I’m not very good at eating at night and drinking afterwards so that was me finished once we had ate. An early night with the usual pressure from our hotel staff on the way in to watch the show that we can hear from our room until midnight.
Anyway, we had a drive past a fountain that we hadn’t seen to the yacht harbour and found the road that goes around the west bay but didn’t have time to drive there as we had to be back for our Turkish bath. We parked up and found the guy that had sold us the ticket and he passed us over to another guy that took our slip and showed us the way down. I had decided to pay up front in case our money was stolen while we were in there and handed him our remaining 50TL. He said “50 Euros”. I said, “No 50TL as it says on the slip, we already gave him 20TL deposit”. He went back to find the guy that sold us the deal. Claire said that she felt ripped off and didn’t want to go down any more anyway, even if they agreed to 50TL. It didn’t take long for me to agree and we walked back up the stairs again and collected the rest of our money and left. Just explaining it again now has made me realize that it couldn’t have been a mistake because he told us it was 35TL each. Claire tried to get him down to 50TL for both but he wouldn’t budge insisting on 70 euros for both. If he had meant 70 Euros and we gave him 20TL deposit then we should have owed 60 Euros not 50 anyway. If we had had the treatment first we would have had to pay the rest in Euros and would have been well and truly stitched up. Why do they always have to try and cheat you because you will never go back? I suppose with it being all new tourists they don’t need a reputation.

With almost an hour and a half of our morning wasted and our mood changed for the worst we set off for the north coast of the peninsula aiming for Camlikoy. Again we missed all the turn off’s and ended up in Akcapinar which is supposed to be in the river mouth at the beginning of the peninsula. As you can see from the photo, its not much of a river mouth; only one thing for it, to head back the way we had come looking harder for our missed turnings. After a couple of false turnings we eventually found the one to Camlikoy where the streets were filled with cars and bikes everywhere. Something must have being going on there so we thought we might have a look on the way back after we had found the sea.

Our first glimpse of the sea was by a little port where you could get boat trips to the islands and they were only charging about 10TL each (it may have been Euros) but you had to pay another 10TL tax each to land on the island. The islands looked pretty small and I don’t think there would have been any shops or restaurants there so we decided against it. We had a drink and watched the Cockerel and all the Turkish tourists boarding the boats and they all seemed to have lots of bags with them. I guess they were all taking picnics. We noticed that the road continued along the coast but it wasn’t shown on our map so when our drinks were empty we headed off to explore. It was a pretty coastline but nowhere to stop except where I took the photo; probably the least impressive view the whole way along but you will have to take our word for it. The road was very windy, steep and bumpy with hairpin bends everywhere and it ended in a large car park so we parked and had a look what was happening there. There was a big board in Turkish but it had a timetable on so we thought it might be another boat trip place. A queue of people were paying and waiting. I spoke to the man and asked if we could go to the beach. He said that we could but you could only get there by tractor and that is what the timetable was for. No mater how many guesses we had had, I don’t think we would have come up with a tractor time table. He said that the beach was very small but the only one with sand. Again, they only had a toilet there and no refreshments so we decided not to wait for the tractor even though it was at the bargain price of 3TL (or Euros).

We headed back down into town and parked up to see what all the fuss was about. Good job we had a bike as we even struggled to park that as there were so many cars everywhere. It appeared that they were all going into the only restaurant in this small town in the middle of nowhere. We had to have a look around to try and understand why it was so popular. Lots of little tables everywhere under the trees with little streams running by and under the pavements to the next pond area; very pretty and everyone seemed to be enjoying their lunch so we found a seat and waited. We waited some more and finally grabbed a waiter to get drinks and a menu. The place was called “Cinar” and they had English translations on the menu but we didn’t spot any English in there. I had lamb shish with salad while Claire had chicken shish with salad and they brought half a loaf of bread that was too hot to touch. Probably the best bread that I have ever eaten. I noticed after I had ordered that you could have Trout for 7TL or around £3. The food was simple, fabulous and cheap, that’s why so many people were in there. We ate our lunch while watching the hen with her little chicks running around picking up the crumbs; well it makes a change from cats anyway.

Suitable charged, we headed home picking up a bottle of wine for Claire and some more cold water for me; good boy! Only one day left now and we just found out that our transfer picks us up from our hotel at 1.40am Monday morning so effectively this is our last night. Better nip back to that shop and get another bottle.

Do you like Claire's hat, since we got the bike she think's she's a Grebo's bird!