9 to 5

This post is all about the rest of our holiday in Turkey. There isn't really very much to report :-) We spent the vast majority of our time "in the office" - on our regular sun loungers by the hotel pool. We became so attached to our particular loungers that we even did that German thing of reserving them with our towels when we went down for breakfast. Vorsprung durch Tücher!


That's pretty much it. We did manage to go to Fethiye and have a Hamam, which was lovely. Not so lovely was the glimpse Debs caught up the towel of a nude Dutch lady... cover yourself up, meisje!

Otherwise, we ate, we drank, we lazed around all day and chatted with new friends Sterling and Louise (who, it turned out, know our other new friends Mel and Phil from NZ), Idris and Matthew, and the Neal family (and it turns out that Jane was at school with both me and my sister). Hello you lot!

Oh yeah, we did manage to haul ourselves off to Kalkan again, in order to spend the day sitting on a boat and swimming in the sea, rather than lounging by the pool. That was pretty cool. We got covered in mud on a beach and Ben went and chatted to some little fish underwater. It was deeper than it looked.


By the end of our stay we were INCREDIBLY EXCITED about going home, and spent the whole journey buzzing, and shifting uncomfortably in our horribly cramped Thomas Cook cheap seats. Don't think we'll be flying with them again.

So, that's the end of all that travelling. Well nearly - next up is a week in London.

Ben

Barbershops of the world, part 25 and a half

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Last day in Turkey - so I went back to Nasif to get my face in shape for our triumphant return to civilisation. He did the business again: a cracking, precision job on my cheeks, same stuff as before, ear singeing and all.

No photos cos it's the same as last time, innit.

Cost YTL 8 (EUR 4.50), plus a YTL 2 tip

Cut quality 10/10

Fear factor 0/10

Oh, this time he used his special massage machine on me. it buzzed my backbone. Bit odd, but not entirely unpleasant.

Ben

Barbershops of the world, part 25

OMFG! We have a winner. İ have just awarded my first and only 10 out of 10 to Nasif's Unisex Barber Shop in Patara, Turkey. Why? Here's why:

• First ever nose hair trim
• First ever ear singe
• Best cleanup action ever
• Aftershave!

Basically, this was a tour de force of barbering. Stretching over a leisurely 45 minutes (yes, Debs did get a bit bored), and including a full head shave, crisp beard trim, plenty of cut-throat razor action with suds, and some mildly terrifying "singeing" where he soaked a little cotton bud in lighter fluid, lit it and then tapped it on my ears to burn off the little fluffy hairs - awesome stuff!

He also trimmed my nose hair, washed my face and head afterwards (and used cotton wool to clean out my ears), slapped a bit of aftershave on my cheeks and then gave me a head, neck and shoulder massage... total perfection, in other words.

To top it all off, there was a moment halfway through the cut where Nasif paused, gave a little sigh and wistfully said "İ like hair"... then just carried on as normal. Perfect!

Cost YTL 20 (EUR 11), plus a YTL 5 tip

Cut quality 10/10!!!

Fear factor 2/10 (my ears are on fire!)

No hesitation at all in awarding the full 10 points for this magnificent performance. Turkey, I salute you and your barbers!

Also, props to my Dad for recommending Turkish barbers! I would have gone anyway, but it boosted the anticipation excitement substantially.

Ben

Evacuate! Evacuate!

Wow, Turkey's hot! It's so hot that the sun set the hills on fire! We'd just returned from a day trip to Kaş and were cooling down in the pool when a big cloud of smoke descended and, what started as a little fire in the distance quickly turned into an enormous fire that surrounded our hotel and threated to burn the whole village of Patara down. Yikes!

The fire was incredibly fast moving, and closing in on all sides, so we had to evacuate to the safety of the beach. There were lots of guests wıth kids, who were understandably worried, but we weren't really scared, just excited! It was exactly what we needed after a week of doing nothing. The beach resembled a scene from Armageddon - lines of people wandering up the sand, smoke billowıng towards us; helicopters and planes flyıng over, picking up water from a nearby pond to drop on the fire - but after about a 2 hours the fire was under control and we were free to go back to the hotel. Phew!





But the drama wasn't over yet. No sir-ree! We only managed half a glass of beer to celebrate our survival, when the flames flared up again, and we had to be evacuated, again. The owners of our hotel were great though, and this time we were taken to Kalkan to spend the night in a luxury villa - complete with its own private pool. Result! We didn't actually get a chance to swim in ıt- but it was nice knowing we had one :)


Anyway, all the fires are out now, and everything's fine.


Debs

Hoş Geldenız!

You know that feeling of pure relief? Like a glass of wine at home after a rubbish day at work, or finally going to the loo after holding it in too long? Well, that's how Turkey feels after being in İndia.

As advertised in a previous post, we're in Patara on the Aegean coast, a good distance away from the chav-havens of Bodrum and Marmaris. We rubbed shoulders with a few chavs on the Thomas Cook flight over - amusing, but definitely best limited to short exposure.

Speaking of exposure, it's incredibly hot out here - like up to about 45 celsius or so. We're spending most days huddled in the shade on sun loungers by the pool, or down on the lovely beach. Despite barely entering the full sun ever, we're nut brown and glowing after just a couple of days. İt will be much better to return home looking and feeling rested and healthy, rather than all stressed and unhappy as we would have been if we had stayed in İndia.

We were really pretty pleased to get outta there, as regular readers might imagine. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable night (really!) at Gatwick's Premier İnn, marvelling at being back in England again, although we did wonder where all the English people had gone - everyone who served us was a Czech, Slovak, or Pole...

And now here we are. Really not doing much beyond snoozing, eating delicious breakfasts and mezze lunches, and taking the odd day trip to nearby towns. Absolutely no sight seeing though - we're sick of it.

İ reckon we might just about be able to fit in a visit to a Hamam before we come home...

Ben

India vs Turkey

Just arrived in Mumbai, 5 hours late cos the train had to swim the last 150KM or so.

Logged in to iGoogle and saw the weather forecasts for here, and also (roughly) where we'll be in a week's time. SunLOLz!

Looking forward to Tai Chi on the beach, a glass or two of wine, olives, mezze and all the rest.

Gonna need some new shades and a new hat. The old one went all mouldy.

Ben

We're going on holiday!

We've squeezed as much fun as we know how to have out of India's, so we're moving on. In about 2 weeks we'll be in Turkey, on holiday! We're so excited! We originally planned to end our trip on the beach in Goa, but it's monsoon season, so we're bailing for sunnier shores.

Ben did a fantastic job of searching for a hotel, as always, and found the Viewpoint Hotel in Patara, so we're going there. It gets great reviews on Tripadvisor, and there's even a comment on how nice their Turkish breakfasts are (as recommended by Ben's dad). Cheese, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers for breakfast sounds like a winner to me too, Tony :)

We're staying here another week so Ben can finish Tai Chi, then taking the train - 1st class! - to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. After that we head to Bombay for a few days, then we're flying to London, dossing in Gatwick overnight then zooming straight off to Turkey. It's a plan!

Debs and Ben