Fethiye- June 28-30 2010

The Bus journey from Pamakulle was smooth enough apart from the annoying Aussie woman winging about the heat behind me…queue ipod and a bit of Black Sabbath’s Vol 4 to drown out the pain…
Saw some amazing scenery along the way to the coast flat plains with multicoloured fields surrounded by large mountains.

When I arrived in Fethiye was again expecting touts to be waiting to offer me accommodation but there were none . Ended up lugging all my stuff for 30 mins until I found the coastline and stumbled across a restaurant on the shore offering a set 3 course meal with a pint of beer for 30 Turkish lira ( about 8 quid) . Jumped at the opportunity for a good feed and after tomato soup with garlic bread, fish and chips with salad , mixed melon desert and a pint of the local brew was feeling like a new man. I walked another 20 mins down the shore to the city centre and was surprised to see a McDonalds and Domino’s in front of some ancient hill side ruins. I was getting the impression “off the beaten trail” would have to wait until Bulgaria. Turkey so far has been the most westernised and developed country since France. ( although I haven’t been off the holiday coast yet )

After some time my shoulder was numb as Evans’ heat the morning after a night in Clwb. As I was stopping for a rest my saviour “John” the tourist tout suddenly appeared out of nowhere ( much like Gandalf appearing at bagend at the start of the hobbit ) and offered to show me a cheap room . Got a double ensuite room for about a tenner a night and then marked the halfway point of my trip by shaving my beard ( and ten years ) off my face. No mosquitoes here either so slept soundly again…seem to be enjoying sleeping more than anything else at the moment.

The next couple of days involved very little apart from eating very good cheap food , drinking the odd pint of beer and watching world cup games with the locals. It was refreshing to spend a couple of days without meeting other travellers but still being able to have a conversation. The locals are super nice and many speak good English.

After umming and ahhing for a day or two decided to splash out a little and book a 3 day boat tour down the Mediterranean coast to a hippy hang out called Olympos where I would turn inland and head to central Turkey on route to Istanbul. Having just missed the Wednesday tour booked a place on the Thursday one after arranging to stay on the boat free of charge on Wednesday night before we sailed. I headed down about 6 with my stuff and got the impression the crew weren’t to happy about be landed with a client on their night off. The cabins was supper small and stuffy and it seemed I would be sharing it with 2 other people. Dumped my bags and headed out to watch an amazing sunset on the harbour in front of layered blue mountains…

I got the impression from the booking agents that the boats passengers would be largely female hope they are up for having a laugh and wont be too put off by my 6 week pack smell.