Two weeks in Turkey

Saturday 29th

It was a bad start, a very bad start. Debrah, who had been forced out of bed and onto the sofa because of my snoring, burst into the room.
“The cab’s here, we’ve overslept, why didn’t you set the alarm?”
I did set the alarm but I didn’t turn it on – so, it didn’t go off. What an idiot.
There followed twenty minutes of rushed dressing and partial washing and hurried final packing. Thankfully we had most things sorted the previous evening but still, no time for a shower and that nagging doubt that in the panic something was overlooked.

And so at 6.15am (not 5.45am as planned) we set off on a dark and very wet end of September morning on the miserable journey to Gatwick Airport. I say miserable because of all the London terminals it is the one that is hardest for us to get to from North London and because of the interminably depressing suburbs of South London that seem to go on forever and because the weather was filthy and because we sat in almost near silence the whole journey because Debrah was in such a foul mood with me for firstly snoring and forcing her out of bed and secondly, cocking up the alarm setting so comprehensively. It couldn’t have been a worse start to the trip.

We were still in time for the flight but probably only just. We found the XL Airways desk and joined the queue where we were spotted by the Exclusive Escapes rep – you know the type – seen better days, pursed lips, high heels, too much make-up, world weary expression. She once probably had the energy and youth to be a rep abroad but too much living and age has forced her back to the UK shepherding passengers around an airport terminal with her mocking fixed welcome smile. Well today the smile couldn’t disguise anything and we were already fearing the worst before she confirmed it.

There was a three hour delay due to ‘operational problems’, which loosely translated means the plane has a problem and we don’t have another so we are desperately phoning around the airlines of Europe begging to borrow anything they might have that’s going spare – and seeing as they are probably using their best planes (you just would wouldn’t you) I started to wonder what sort of plane might turn up – would it even be a jet? I decided not to mention this to Debrah who isn’t the best of flyers – and anyway, her anger and frustration had just reached new levels and, I think, it was all my fault. Still, it wasn’t all bad. We were generously given a £4 food voucher, each, with which to sate our needs for half a day in the most expensive tied-in food and drink area in the world.

The terminal was packed, absolutely rammed. There were queues everywhere, for the shops, for the toilets and for the restaurants and fast-food outlets. After much indecision and even more cursing about common people (let’s face it, wherever we actually sit in the social strata of life, there are always people and groups of people whom we believe are less worthy than ourselves) we finally settled at a table in Est and passed a couple of hours away with the paper, some coffee and a full English breakfast that wasn’t too bad – and it only cost three times the value of our vouchers.

By now the rush of early morning flights had departed and the terminal had calmed down a bit. It was time for a bit of essential shopping at Boots (sun cream, bite cream, headache tabs etc) followed by a packaging audit of the drinks and perfume sections of the duty free shop – I didn’t say this wasn’t a working holiday. Debrah did think about buying some new perfume but ended up with so many different scents on her that we couldn’t remember which was which and they were all merging together – so she didn’t.


Eventually the indicator boards changed from ‘Delayed until 11.45’ to ‘Go to Gate 24’. As this change only happened at 11.40 it was clear that we were going to be further delayed. Out at Gate 24, being fuelled and catered for our journey was a 25 year old Boeing 757 in the proud national colours of Slovakia, a country that came into existence after the plane did. Wonderful, all the frantic telephoning had unearthed was a second-hand old crate belonging to Air Slovakia.

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I am making out. Sure, the plane had seen better days and was a bit tatty round the edges and it sounded like there were two midgets underneath winding the wheels up and down by hand, but it was a smooth flight and the cabin crew were very good and very charming (and dressed in proper old fashioned stewardess uniforms complete with pale blue silk scarves – a style in keeping with the age of the plane I felt) and they were very proud to be looking after us. I know that because they told us before take-off and after take-off and again on landing. Good for them.

If only our fellow passengers had been as charming and considerate. The arse in front of me continually rammed his seat back into my knees despite me asking him to please not do so. The guy in front of the lady next to me jumped up and down on his seat like an over-excited schoolboy on his first flight and all along the aircraft were selfish people fast asleep at window seats missing out on the geography lesson of flying across Europe with clear skies when I was stuck in an aisle seat. We were both in aisle seats but seven rows apart because of our late-ish check-in – so another four hours of our travelling day was spent not talking to each other. In fact there were two empty aisle seats opposite each other in the row behind. I mentioned this to Debrah half way through the flight when she came down to see me and one of the couples behind, who had spread themselves out across three seats by now, overheard us. He said something to her, which I couldn’t hear and she replied “Well it’s not our problem”. Well thank you very much. When she gets to the pearly gates compassion and generosity won’t be on her attribute list – and she was a chinless ugly ginge. Ha.

Long after we should have been sipping our first drink at the hotel bar and contemplating dinner, we started our final approach to Dalaman airport. The sun was setting and the airport is right on the coast giving the impression that touchdown would be either in the water or directly into the mountains that were looming up on all sides. Of course, neither happened. The last of the sun disappeared as we made our way into the terminal. I had to, firstly, queue for a visa which cost me £10 – Debrah still had a valid visa from her recent work trip to Ankara – then we joined the passport control queue which took an absolute age. By the time we had cleared that, picked up our, by now, already waiting bags and negotiated our way via 4 different Exclusive Escapes reps to our minibus it had gone 8.00 pm local time and we still had a two hour journey to go! Somehow, we managed to be sat apart again – our third journey of the day with little or no communication.

It was such a shame that it was already dark. My first impression of Turkey was a preference for neon and strings of lights – every roadside bar, shop and restaurant had them strung up outside. After an hour we reached Marmaris, a gaudy seaside resort full of tourist shops and English pubs, from where the mainly straight road turned into a series of vertiginous mountain hairpin bends as we climbed over and down each promontory. The town of Turunç came into view far below us with a magnificent backdrop of a three quarter moon over the moonlit bay. We descended into and through and out again up the next hill and over into Kumlumbuk, our resort town – but then confusingly we started climbing again up the mountain overlooking the bay. I had not realised quite how far up above the bay our hotel was located.

We were welcomed by Annabelle, one of the local reps, and the hotel owner, who offered us a free drink whilst our bags and rooms were sorted. The restaurant at the beach club – back down the hill, obviously, - had been kept open to provide an evening meal after our long day but, after some indecision, we plumped for getting to our room asap. This turned out to be more of an ordeal than we had bargained for because it was someway back up the mountain via a series of steps. “You have got a great view though” said Annabelle rather too smugly for my liking. We stopped en-route at the honesty mini-market but didn’t fancy anything – knowing full well we had Debrah’s emergency plane sandwich and a bag of crisps, still unconsumed in her bag.

So it was that we arrived, finally and breathlessly, at our hotel room high above the Mediterranean, with a dazzling moon lighting up a starry sky and a sparkly sea. We ate crisps and nuts and the sandwich and drank the complimentary bottle of Turkish red wine and listened to the silence.

There was, however, one last hiccup. To round off an absolutely memorable day for me, ten minutes after arriving I managed to lock us out of our room, which meant going back down to the bar. Apparently, I am by no means the first to do that which made me feel a bit better and, fortunately, they took pity on me and drove me back up to the room.

Not long after that we crashed into bed. What a day.