oludeniz, turkey

i managed to convince jerome shortly after becoming friends with me that it would be a good idea for him and i to head to turkey for the bank holiday in august.  turns out that aussie was in need of some serious beach time and so was i!

oludeniz is on the south west coast of turkey on the mediterranean sea, and overrun with british tourists (more on that later).  we got into dalaman (nearest airport) at roughly 3am and was greeted with extremely humid and warm weather.  perfect.  we were picked up by our airbnb lady and her husband (we assume) and were off to fethiye.  after getting in at 4am, we allowed ourselves to sleep for a few hours before forcing ourselves to get up.

our airbnb place was great minus the lack of wifi and any maps which made it a bit tough for us to get our bearings straight.  olga was nice, and spoke some english, but by no means did she prepare us nearly as well as other airbnb hosts have in the past which just made it more interesting!  for example: olga gave us directions on how to get to the famous oludeniz area via dolmuş (aka mini bus shuttles), but not how to get back.  one could also argue it was our own fault for not asking which direction to return, haha.  but i digress...

the first morning, we made it our way to the town of oludeniz which is where the famous blue lagoon is.  after arriving, jerome and i saw the water and headed straight towards some umbrella chairs after getting the first of several doner kebaps!  after paying for our chairs and laying there for an hour, we had come to the realization that we were not at the right place!  we both had distinctly read that you had to pay to get into the area where the lagoon was, and it didn't look like the pictures i'd seen online.  low and behold, had we read some signs, we would've walked about 5 minutes more westward and would've found it.  i blame jet lag for this.  regardless, we were very happy to lay there for the afternoon soaking in some sun, when bearable, and then cooling off in the water.  it was a high of 100 that day!  oludeniz is also famous for paragliding so we watched tons of paragliders soar by ahead and land just a few hundred meters from where we were.  this was really exciting to see, since we were going to have our go at it the next morning

paragliders everywhere!

that night, as we headed out of the flat to find some dinner, we were stuck behind our gate for about a minute which was happenstance because one of our neighbors was just returning home and was a huge help!  i asked if he could kindly point us towards the happening area of fethiye because at this point, we still had no clue what was where.  he gave us a quick run down of what was around and sent us along with his business card in case we needed any help later on in the night!  after finding the promenade at calis beach (15 min walk from our flat), we decided on some seafood for dinner, then went home and passed out.

the next morning was an early wake up call because we were getting picked up at 8am for paragliding!!  i've been skydiving once before, so i wasn't too nervous about paragliding.  we were driven up mt. babadag and were taken to the take off point where all paragliders congregated.  when it was our turn, my pilot, dennis, basically told me that i needed to run when he said run, and don't sit until he told me so, even if that means roadrunner in the air.  they strapped the seat cradle to us, then we were attached to our pilot with the parachute and next thing you know you were in the air after taking only a few steps.  i was hoping there would be more running off a cliff action involved, but there wasn't!  we took off smoothly and then were up in the air!  the turkish had been really laid back about this whole thing, as in, by the time we took off, we hadn't paid, or sign any type of liability waiver, so i decided i'd bring my point and shoot along for the ride.  no one said anything!

 near the take off point!

 jerome is not a fan of heights, yet he has been skydiving...

 the view of the coastline from mt. babadag

 the take off point! nice and steep :)

 cradle pack on!

 jerome getting ready

jerome taking off!

while in the air, i got a few good pics while they attempted to take pics of us with go pros attached to long sticks.  it got kind of annoying quite frankly.  i was trying to enjoy the amazing view of oludeniz and the lagoon below while they kept telling us to look into the go pro at every angle possible.  at one point during the 'flight,' i began feeling a bit nauseous but dennis said he wasn't surprised because there was some turbulence in the air.  apparently he's taken his wife out 5 times and 3 times she's puked!  i hope they carry plastic bags just in case!  when dennis asked if i wanted to try any 'acrobatics' i politely declined!  after being up in the air for about 20-30 minutes, we had a very smooth landing by the beach!

 take that, typical feet at the beach pic!

 the view while gliding

 selfie! 

 selfie with the lagoon below

 we ran into jerome! not literally...

 jerome's landing

after that, we finally found the lagoon and hung out there the rest of the afternoon.  since the water is still, it was jam packed with families.  i can imagine it would be nice having some peace of mind for parents with kiddos.  we were by the edge of a hill, so we rented some snorkel gear for a whopping $2.50/day but sadly didn't really see too many fish. other than that, it was the same routine that we had practiced, and would continue practicing through the end of our trip.  sunbathe, swim, repeat.

that night we headed back to the promenade again and found where the locals partied!  at one end of the strip, we came across a tented restaurant that had live turkish music playing in an area decorated with turkish rugs, tables and pillows for people to relax.  jerome and i found ourselves a table and had a great time hanging out with the locals.  no brits to be found!  it was mostly turkish mamas dancing a combination of belly/shoulder dancing and then a lot of men just hanging chilling at the tables by the side.  i guess men not being into dancing as much is a universal thing!!

finally the last day, we hung out at the calis beach which was very nice.  for once it didn't feel like i was being baked in an oven because the sea had a nice breeze to it, but it also resulted in some slight burning action.  the beach was much more relaxed the ones we'd been to in oludeniz so it was a great way to spend our last day.  i alternated reading the fault in our stars (great book) with a dip in the ocean.

 the big market near our flat on sunday

 gozleme, aka turkish pancakes.  amazing!!

 calis beach

 

this trip was definitely the most relaxing one i've ever had where the agenda rarely strayed from 'beach'.  i was really looking forward to getting away from london for a bit, but as i mentioned above, this place was overrun with british tourists. you really couldn't go anywhere without hearing the accent, or finding a place that served a full english breakfast!  no thank you--didn't come to turkey for a jacket potato.  despite that, i had an amazing time and was really grateful for all of the extremely friendly and helpful turks that helped us along our trip!  i will be back.

it's bath time!

 the crew for the weekend (pete, lisa, jerome and myself)

the bath abbey

bath is a beautiful town almost directly west of london and accessible by train in 1.5 hours.  it is a town that has natural hot springs where the ancient romans settled and built many bath houses which is how it got its name.  since 1987 it's been a unesco world heritage site so that's how you know it's definitely worth seeing :)

the flatmates (pete & lisa), jerome and i headed there this two weekends ago because it was about time that we ventured outside of london to see what else the uk had to offer.  we ventured to the paddington train station very early in an attempt to catch our 7am train out minus some minor eff ups that happened along the way.

the ticket machine outside the station decided not to print off the tickets, so with about 10 minutes left, we thought we'd be fine printing at another machine.  wrong.  we were rejected again at another machine with now about 6 minutes before the train departs.  we were at the complete opposite end of the platform so the guy working gives us the route we needed to run, so we took off for the ticket office.  inside the ticket office, i got some flack from the ticket man because i'm trying to tell him politely that we need these tickets now since the train is leaving but he doesn't get a damn.  he wrote out our 4 tickets and now we had about 2 minutes to sprint onto the train.  did i mention at this point it's only lisa, pete and i?  where was jerome?

jerome was so kind as to text us when we were training there to ask if we wanted any coffee because he was already at the station and that he was at the mcdonalds.

so after getting the piece of paper that was our 'ticket' the last piece of the puzzle was finding jerome. that is precisely when i received call from him saying 'i've made a really big mistake...i'm at the victoria station.'  we were waiting for him at the paddington one...hahahaha.  luckily trains depart every 30 mins to bath so we waited for jerome to get to the station then off we went!

we started our morning off with a walking tour led by these honorary guides.  i learned that nicolas cage at one point owned a house there.  many of the buildings also had soot on them because they primarily used coal for a long time to heat.  what else...oh, not all of the houses had bathrooms in them, so sometimes they would build a bathroom shed type thing and attach it to the side of a house. that would literally be my worse nightmare to be going #2 then falling through the floor of this little bathroom shack. the guide said it has yet to happen, but still!

 the metal square in the ground is actually a hole where they used to store coal

 the use of coal has left the buildings quite dirty though nothing that running some water down can't take care of!

 

 the royal crescent

 can you spot the bathroom??? (hint: It is gray and shingle-y looking)

we also visited the star pub in bath that has been unchanged for the last 100 years!  i loved it.  dark and dingy with a few small rooms that were connected with seating.  there were lots of old english men there just chilling which is a sign of a good pub.  we had a quick drink there then headed to the roman bath house.

the bath house was a tourist zoo but i'm glad i saw it.  it's been there for so long!  we're talking like 60AD or something crazy. the romans also took their baths very seriously.  they had a series of rooms with pools at different temperatures that you would move through.  everything was just so grand and built with such beautiful detail i was in awe walking around.

 there were so many asian tourists.  i had to.

the coolest thing that jerome and i saw were these 'curses' carved in tablet that people had written to the goddess minerva because someone wronged them at some point.  most of the curses were inscribed in latin but they had this one which was they think was british celtic, which would be the only example ever of it, so it couldn't be translated!

after that we met up with we met up with pete and lisa at a bath!  we couldn't leave without experiencing one.  we went here.  it was pricey but worth it.  they had pool on the roof where you got views of the abbey which was just unreal!  we had 2 hours so moved around from pool to pool and from steam room to steam room.  sadly the mint and eucalyptus one was out of order that day but the others were nice.

refreshed and ready for dinner!

the next day we went to bristol since it was nearby.  bristol is one of the larger cities in the uk so it had a much different vibe than bath.  it was raining that day so that also made sightseeing a little less fun.  bristol is a port town and home of the ss. great britain now!  that ship's use changed throughout time from bringing immigrants to australia to carrying coal and eventually was just a storage warehouse when it ended up in the falkland islands.  you could actually walk around the ship and see the different decks which was cool.  the cabins and size of the beds were tiny!  you were basically in a coffin with no lid.

 the underbelly of the ship!  we were below the water level.  this is the best solution they've come up with to preserve the ship and prevent rust from developping.

after that we hiked up a hill (with out luggage) to the clifton suspension bridge which sits above the avon river.  i don't think there's really anything significant to learn about the bridge but it was nice to look at.  we walked across it and back since it's only 400m long.  on the wikipedia page it said that in 1885, there was a girl who tried to commit suicide by jumping but since she had a skirt on, it acted as a parachute and she survived! 

soon it was time to head to the train station to make our way back to london and come to terms that the weekend would be over soon.