Day 67-68 - Touring Turkey

Day 7: Köycegiz Boat Trip
Board a boat and cruise around lake Köycegiz. Pass the Kings' Tombs, swim at Turtle Beach or cover yourself in mud and take a dip in the thermal springs.

Day 8: Köycegiz to Fethiye
Leaving Köycegiz, we drive to the ghost town of Kayaköyü, a Greek village that was given up at the beginning of the 20th Century in accordance with the treaty of Lausanne, which saw an exchange of people between Turkey and Greece.

I bid a farewell to the rest of the tour, and then got ready for my boat trip (Sahin Daily Tour) around Lake Köycegiz. A great 9 hours (with included lunch!) checking out fabulous lake-mountain scenery, a wonderful white, sandy Mediterranean beach with straw hut restaurants and a long line of large old people lying on recliners. The other people - especially a Dutch guy called Gijs (try pronouncing that!), a British couple and the young staff onboard the boat (one of whom should be in dance music videos) - made the journey exciting and fun. The Lycian mud baths were fun to watch, but I wasn't game to go in (I think the sulfur smell made my mind up) - instead enjoying a fabulous Turkish apple tea for a ridiculously low price. Overall, the Sahin boat trip was fantastic and I'd happily recommend it. Even the water bottles were cheap.

On return to Köycegiz I accepted an earlier invitation from several 20-something Canadians I had met earlier who seemed to appreciate my Canada-liking, English-speaking ways. This was an interesting experience in getting to see the real Turkey. While the tourists all crowd into bars and nightclubs playing bad 80s music and techno in the Mediterranean and Aegean resort towns, the locals in the smaller towns sit around in dimly-lit stone buildings dating back to the 18th century and drink raki, the local drink, and talk over the day's events. I wouldn't call them bars because I didn't get the impression that selling alcohol was their main objective. Although we couldn't speak much Turkish, the locals seemed to accept us quite happily, although we ended up mostly talking to each other. We were given small gifts by an elderly man before our departure. After good wishes all around and staggering back to my hotel at 12:30am, both the hotel management and tour guide seemed surprised I was out so late, although I noted plenty of establishments (including at least one playing bad 80s music) were still open.

Today, our one-person tour came to Fethiye, the coastal resort closest to the well-known beach of Ölüdeniz. Karaköy was a really harrowing experience - just think of thousands of houses all clearly visible on a hillside that you can walk through and around, slowly passing into ruin through abandonment. At least the Turkish tourism authorities have seen to it that this process will not continue and the area is undergoing preservation and restoration. I think in general, actually, that the Turkish tourism and antiquities authorities actually do an amazing job looking after the wealth of past treasures they have been bequeathed.