Our Turkey Experience

We started our trip unexpectedly driving to TelAviv. The train was closed for the weekend (due to construction) so we ended up getting up at 5am and drove to Tel Aviv to catch the plane to Turkey. Ken's boss had warned us that this would be an interesting flight for us (not a normal domestic flight with business travelers). He told us to expect at least an hour delay, lots of kids, and chaos... Even with that advice we were amazed at the amount of cutting in line and pushing (every man for himself here). Any time we had turbulence kids would yell whoah... like they were on a roller coaster. Its also interesting that everybody claps both on take off and landing. Even though it was only a one hour flight, as soon as they could everyone was up and walking around the cabin. Instead of peanuts they served fruticake. Mmmmmm.

Well we made it to Turkey and now we had to find our bag and go through passport control.. We hadn't planned on checking it but at the last minute they told us we should. Finding it was not an issue, throwing a few elbows to get at it is a different story :-) At passport control they asked us for our VISA to enter the country. We looked at each other and said, we don't have one (the travel agent never said we needed one!). The guard sent us back to a window to buy a VISA - good thing we had that option (vs being sent back to Israel)! Passport control personnel seems to be the same no matter where you go. I think they go to a specific school where they learn to stamp the papers as hard as they can and scowl at the tourists.

We finally found our way to the tour bus and looked forward to the 40 minute ride to the hotel (the other place we could have stayed was over an hour away so we chose the shorter route). Apparently it's 40 minutes if you didn't stop at every hotel along the way to drop off other tourists :-) 2 hours later we arrived at the last stop (our hotel). The bus driver gave us a piece of paper with potential tours we could do but it was all in Hebrew. There were only 2 other tourists from Israel that got off with us. They were stopped at the front gate by a guard and tried to explain both in Hebrew and then in English that they had reservations for this hotel. The guard made them wait and then had them talk on the phone with the front desk... they looked at us and said do you speak Russian? Sorry we can't help you there. Finally they pushed their way through the gate and we followed (we didn't want to go through the same thing). All that to say, later on these girls (around 25 yrs old) became very helpful to us.

After checking in we went to the hotel room and realized the room was very warm so we tried to turn on the air conditioning with no success. We tried a quick call to the front desk to ask how it worked. With the language barrier all we were able to communicate was there was a problem and that they would be sending someone to help us. After about an hour with no assistance we decided to find something to eat at this all inclusive hotel. I guess they don't have anything from 3:30pm till 7pm. Yikes. We were both really hungry. We tried to kill some time by checking out the hotel and the beach. We went to the front desk again to ask for help about the AC (when it's over 100 and humid it would be really nice to have AC). Again they said they would send someone, but nobody came :-( We ate dinner and walked around a bit more. We were tired so we tried to go to bed. There were shows going on at our hotel and neighboring hotels well past midnight so it was hard to sleep. By 2am we were ready to ask for a new room. The front desk said there weren't any available but someone would come in the morning to assist us. We woke up early (or did we ever get to sleep in that hot/muggy room?) and had breakfast.

I had hoped to find out about some day trips around the city. I had looked at a book before we came and had a few ideas of what we might want to see but needed to set something up. Much to our dismay the only information available was in Russian and Turkish. The concierge didn't speak any English and we were running out of options. I haven't taken enough Hebrew yet to read the tour info we got from the bus driver. If only we could find those girls that got off the bus with us. Maybe they could read the paper to us. Ken thought he saw them at breakfast so we went back to the cafeteria but it had been almost an hour and they were nowhere to be seen.

We decided to go to the beach. The beach in Turkey was all rock/gravel. We found some lawn chairs (in the shade) and went for a swim. The water felt nice and cool as the gentle waves rolled over us. The activities director from the hotel walked by and announced they were playing beach volleyball soon at the sand court. Hmmm that sounds like fun. I suspected it would be pretty loosely played, but I did expect they would use the same basic rules I am used to. I was disappointed. I was the only English speaker so I couldn't even figure out what the score was. One guy kept making really bad passes and then telling me I should have gotten the ball. I hung in there for 2 games and then felt like I had been out in the sun long enough. The sun over here feels really intense. I didn't bring any suntan lotion because I didn't want them to throw it out when we went through airport security so I was constantly trying to stay in the shade.

After volleyball we went back to the hotel to check in on our AC dilemma and finally got someone to move us to a different room. When we got to the new room we immediately checked the AC before unpacking and this one seemed to be not working either. (Red flag here... maybe it's the Americans and not the hotel? We searched again for directions to the AC in the guest book or for a picture/diagram on the wall) We saw a cleaning lady down the hall and asked her (through hand gestures) how to work the AC. She seemed to understand us and showed us in the room she was cleaning. We felt the air coming through the vents and thought we would try it again in our room. No luck :-(. Back to the front desk to ask the manager to come with us to the room. There is obviously something we are not getting here... The manager said in one hour I can come help you. Okay. So we went to lunch and come back after a little more than an hour. A different girl was at the desk and she says he will be 20 more minutes.... and then 15 more minutes... and finally he is available. (I feel like we are spending our whole vacation trying to figure out the AC and what tour to go on.... wouldn't it be nice to be back in Israel where we know what to expect?) The manager comes with a technician to our room ... feels the cool air coming through the vent and says it looks like it's working just fine. How did you do that?! He said, you put the room key in the slot on the wall by the bathroom and turn the dials. This way the AC only runs while you are in the room and if you open the back door it will turn off. Hmmm that would have been a helpful piece of information. I haven't ever seen anything like that before even in my travels to Europe. We felt a little sheepish.

Now that that issue is resolved we can go to the pool and relax. While we were down there we saw the Israeli girls and thought maybe we should ask them if they are doing a tour tomorrow. They were really helpful and said they were planning a river cruise and trip to the market and that we should join them. It sounded like it was an all day excursion and we thought why not. So they called and set up the tour for themselves and included us as well. We met them at 8am the next morning and jumped on the tour bus, we drove and drove (nice to see some of Turkey's coastline) stopping at a few hotels along the way to pick up other Israeli tourists. I guess this tour was specifically designed for Israeli tourists and everything was in Hebrew. We stuck close to the two girls who translated the important stuff for us.

The bus stopped in a city called Side, where we walked through a little market (reminded me of Saturday market with jewlery, art and clothing for sale), got on a horse drawn cart and were taken to the middle of the town. Here we walked down to the pier and as we passed all the shops we heard "nice couple, I have something to show you" or "hello, come to my store". At the end of the boardwalk we saw some ancient ruins of Apollos Temple. The front of it still seemed to be in tact. It was pretty cool. After that we kept wandering through the ruins (the Israeli girls headed back to the market).

We found a man with a couple camels that was offering a ride to us for $25 each. Ken practiced his bartering skills and got it down to $10! The ride was only about 20 minutes but that was enough. It was actually pretty uncomfortable. Camels walk very "choppy" and I wasn't sure if I was going to fall out of the saddle or not. I was trying to tell myself if I have to let go... let go of the camera (I don't want to have to go to the doctor in Turkey!) It was a fun experience and we finished just in time. The girls told us we were only staying for 1 hour at this market so we had to hustle back to the meeting spot. Our only regret is we didn't spend more time in the amphitheater which looked to be in good shape still.

Back on the bus, we headed towards the boat for the River Cruise. The cruise ride was about an hour down the river. We docked at a beach and I just had to go swimming it was soooo hot. I didn't care if it was salt water and I would be sticky for the afternoon. The girls told us we were only stopping for 20 minutes and then would get back on the boat and eat lunch. About half the boat seemed to head to the beach and jump in the water. After a few minutes of cooling off I got out and sat on a beach chair under an umbrella for a few minutes. Ken sat next to me. I had a bit of a headache so I took some Tylenol and closed my eyes for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes, no one was in the water and there were only a couple people to my right and left. I looked back at the boat and it was sailing away, yikes... just kidding. It was getting full though so we quickly packed up our stuff and headed to the boat. There were a few people swimming around the boat so I decided to jump in... it was a river so the water was cool and not salty! How refreshing I stayed in for just a bit and then got out. I convinced Ken he should jump in and he was glad to feel the cool water too.

On the boat they just started serving lunch: Chicken or Fish and coleslaw, rice, potatoes -we thought this was pineapple, and bread. Maybe not my first choice for food, but when your hungry it's amazing what you can eat! We thought the tour would be over once we made it back up the river, but we had two stops to go. They took us to an outlet store where you can buy Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren shirts for $15. Suspiciously low to be the real thing. Regardless, the tourists were buying clothing like crazy! Ken and I sat back and enjoyed the free juice and AC at the front of the store.

The last stop was the Manavgut Waterfalls. It was a nice final destination. There were lots of tourists so it took awhile to get a picture of the falls. Ken also tried his hand at bartering again and picked up 6 postcards for $1! Not bad. The guy also tried to sell Ken a map. He said it was $5. Ken said no thanks and started to walk away, the guy came up to him, put his arm around him and said "for you my friend $4." I told Ken I didn't need the map and we walked away. It had been a full day and we were ready to head home. It took about 2.5 hours to get back to the hotel and we just made it in the dinner window so we were happy about that.

That night we went to the evening entertainment which consisted of all the little kids from the hotel doing a little dance for their parents (it was cute) and then they played Bingo. This was the most entertaining Bingo game I have ever seen. The cards only had 3 lines and 5 column (but the columns didn't have any letters associated with it). Basically you had to get a whole line completed in the first game, any two lines completed in the second game and all three (blackout) in the third game. They did have an extra rule that anyone who called a false bingo would be thrown into the pool. Hmmm that sounds interesting. I tried to get Ken to yell Bingo even though he didn't have a card but was unsuccessful. The speaker called the numbers in Russian, Turkish and English (mom- someone asked for Flemish numbers since they were from Belgium). The second game is where it got interesting. A kid (maybe 12) in the front row yelled Bingo so they stopped the game and had them come up with their card. He took one look at the card and said to the lady who was sitting next to the kid, you maam please come up here. Are you with this child? She was his older sister (maybe 25?). He asked her if they remembered rules of the game, reiterated that a false bingo meant a swim in the pool and the entertainment staff rushed her off stage to the pool. Immediately it seemed like a 1000 children ran after them towards the pool to witness the event. It was pretty funny! She seemed to be a pretty good sport and they did offer her a towel and an alcoholic beverage when she returned. Most entertaining Bingo game I've seen in a long time :-)

Sunday we had a leisurely breakfast and packed our bags for the trip home. Interesting trip. We think we saw enough of Turkey... we would have loved to see Ephesus and Istanbul but with our limited time and language skills it just wasn't possible. We chatted a bit more with the Israeli girls on the way back to the airport and offered to take them back to their homes which was on our way home. I hope we run into them again sometime. They were real lifesavers!