Ahh... marmalade. A fine fixture for your toast but not so super for the backpacker. It's not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the place (Well, aside from the horrific sweep of vulgar tourist hotels just waiting for the summer hordes.) In fact, it's actually quite charming in and around the cobbled backstreets that surround the castle but everything is geared for the quick in and out. Nothing is particularly engaging or especially Turkish. It's really just a place to drop in and drop money. Out of season, like now, it's really quite deserted and so the waiters are torn between being engaging and plain bored. The costs don't seem to fall for those who arrive after the party is over. That doesn't strike me as very fair.
We stopped at a... how shall I say, economical hostel. Not that it was notably cheap... at least not on the cost front. Only on the service side. They had no hot water, pulled out the mail fuse at night so there was no electricity (I did lie awake on the first night wondering what would happen in the case of an inferno as we knew no way out, the windows were bared and the front door bolted.) But worse, much worse, was the 10pm curfew. Being told you have got to be home by this early hour at the tender age of 31 is so tragic, it is almost funny. But it isn't. I half expected there to be a big Mamma figure waiting at the staircase to grill me over how many beers I'd drunk and if I'd been a good boy. Needless to say, having to be back by 10 (On fear of a complete lockout ... as no one else was dim enough to stay there and the bloke at the hostel assured me he'd be long gone by 10:01) there wasn't that many ales supped and obviously, as always, I was a good boy.
We decided that rather than staying on in town and being scalped by the remaining tourist tat peddlers, we'd willingly succumb to a tourist tat peddler of our choice. So we took a day cruise around and about the waters of Marmaris. We boarded at 10:20 for a prompt 10:30 departure. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. 10:30 meant turn up if you fancy but don't worry we'll go when we bloody well want to. At about 11:30 the family from Hades arrived. Just my luck really. There main form of entertainment for the day was to see how many times they could bump me (and Heide) while moving loungers around the deck before I made one of them walk the plank. Oh how the hours, quite literally, sailed by.
After a couple of hours we pulled into a small cove and it was time for the skipper to call all the willing fools to jump into the delightful shimmering azure that is the Aegean sea. Oh Lordy, can looks be deceptive. I plunged from the second deck, not exactly with the grace of Greg Luganis more like a sack of spuds being hurled at the quayside into the crystal clear waters only to find it was absolutely bloody freezing. Ok, so it wasn't quite North Sea cold but it took your breath away to say the least. On the plus side, it was at least particularly salty... so it tasted good. This I learned as I squealed with the effects of the frigid waters as they enveloped me. I was delighted to look up to see Heide howling with laughter at my misfortune. Anyway, after oh.. three... maybe four seconds a full skin paralysis set in and I was numb to the cold. Strangely enough, I started to feel good. Should I worry about the pleasures I am deriving from unpleasurable occurrences? I paddled around vainly searching for fish in this supposedly fish rich water. How come every time Johnny Weismuller hits the water he gets a crocodile for company and I can't even get a toe nibbling tiddler? It's not fair, I tell you.
After getting out and glibly lying "Yeah, yeah... it was great!" whilst my bluey white Celtic skin betrayed my words, I slugged down a spirit warming beer. Efes. Turkish beer. Not bad. But then, in reality, who ever had a beer so bad that they wouldn't have a second? (My college days home brew brown ale not withstanding.)
Shortly afterwards we tucked into lunch sharing our table with a rather charming Turkish family who were enjoying their Byrum or Ede holiday. For some strange reason they wanted to include me and Heide in their family photos. Could it be because I claimed to be David Beckham's big brother or was it because the young lass wanted to practice her rather impressive English skills with Heide?
When we made landfall, aye Popeye here had put to sea for a full six hours. We headed out to indulge in our Thanksgiving dinner. We may have been in Turkey, but we certainly wouldn't be eating one. (Though I swear I saw a few bullying geese in Efes.) We settled instead for that old traditional dish of Fish and Chips. I think some historians may well back me when I claim that this is what the early settlers actually chowed down on that first Thanksgiving day way back when. After all, there were Brits in that party so Fish and Chips is called for and besides they settled around Cape Cod, not Cape Gobble Gobble. So what does that tell you?
Of course there wasn't time at dinner for such thoughts. After all we had to be back at the halfway house for 10. Otherwise, we'd be well and truly stuck because everything we owned, including passports, was in there and this was our last day in Asia Minor. Before the hostel opened the next day we'd be on the high seas heading for the Greek island of Rhodes. Oh no more bills that run into the scores of millions and no more cheery calls of "Haaalooooow... wanna buy some crap!?" Actually, though I'd enjoyed Turkey a good deal, I did feel ready to move on even if I didn't get to Istanbul which was my primary goal in Turkey.
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