Marmaris October 2024

 

Wednesday 2/10/24 

We'd booked 10 days at the Sun Bay Park Hotel , Marmaris, flying from Luton to Dalaman. We boarded the plane Ok and were all set to depart on time at 16.10, but we were held up on the runway for 50 minutes. We still landed on time though, 22:20. (Turkey were 2 hours ahead).  Apparently, flying a bit higher can pick up a jet steam which increases the speed of the plane.. There was a massive queue at the airport going through passport control. By the time we got through our bags were waiting for us.We had been instructed to find a desk where we would be directed to our transit bus. Unusually, the desks were actually outside the airport, on the  forecourt outside the arrivals entrance.. We found our one and were taken to our little mini-bus straight away.. There was supposed to be at least one other tourist on it, but we left after about 5 minutes, with just us and another local guy on board. Our driver didn't hang about, and he didn't seem to bother about traffic lights. It is 55 miles from the airport, and although most of it is motorway it goes over some rather steep hills. Marmaris is an old port town that has been badly affected by numerous earthquakes down the ages. The most recent was 1999. It isn't very big but there are a load of hotels lining the 3 mile beach. Our one was about half way along, set back a bit. We didn't get there until after midnight, booked in and went straight to bed.

Our room was basic, but Ok. It was on the 5th floor, with a balcony and a sea view. It was just about big enough for a double and a single bed. The bathroom had a bath with a shower over it. There were no plugs. I heard one lady at reception asking for a plug so she could have a bath.

"Sorry we don't do plugs." 

There was a small fridge and a TV with only 2 English speaking channels. EuroNews and TRT News (Turkey Radio & TV which was very pro Palestine with lots of coverage of bombings in Israel, Gaza and Lebanon.) We, Britain and USA, have bombed the capital of Yemen and one of it's ports in reprisal for the Houthi rebels attacking and setting fire to one of our oil tankers. There was very little coverage of this on the BBC.

Most of the beaches here are private, with signs up saying only guests of the hotels adjacent to them could use them. There is a public beach close to the town, but it's a bit dirty. A bit too close to all the boats for my liking. We got lost on our way back from it. There are numerous alleys that lead up to the main road to Icmeler, but they do tend to look the same. We should have recognized ours by a statue of a dolphin at the end of it.

After going round in a circle, we eventually got back to the hotel in time for lunch. It's a well organised restaurant, not very big, but expandable with tables laid out on an open air terrace outside, as well as inside.. Nice selection of meals too. We walked along the beach afterwards, in the opposite direction, towards Icmeler. There were are few places in between the sectioned off private areas where you could plonk your towel down and have a swim. We selected one by Prime Beach. It became our beach for the rest of our stay.

Nice selection at dinner, as well as chicken, pork and fish, they had a B-B-Q outside. In fact it was there most evenings with a varied menu. One bone of contention though - there was no brandy. In fact the only spirits available were vodka and "gin". It was called gin, but it tasted more like raki. For the uninitiated, raki is a clear spirit distilled from fermented grape juice and aniseed. It is fiery and rough, and it tastes horrible with tonic. Rather surprisingly it was dispensed in miniature bottles, maybe to reduce the consumption. The vodka was in the usual litre bottles. There was red and white wine, Efes beer on tap, and coffee was available all the time.

We needed to change some money. I'd bought some Euros, but, unlike 2 years ago when we were here, nobody wanted them. Everything was priced in Turkish lira, Tl,  and  £s. We only found one place on the beach offering to change ( 44 Tl for £1 ). There is still massive inflation here - 60% and the rate varies weekly. 2 years ago it was only 20 Tl for £1. We wanted to watch some live football and there were numerous bars along the beach advertising English games. We picked the Blackpool bar to watch Chelsea v Notts forest, which ended 1-1 ( Forest had a man sent off ). Bottled Efes was 160 Tl. It was 5% , noticeably stronger than the stuff they were serving up in the hotel.

We saw some boars roaming around loose on the way back.  Having a grand time they were rutting around. I suppose that they must have escaped from somewhere. Maybe they were  destined for someones dinner plate. I've had wild boar before, it's a very rich meat. Talking of food, there were a lot of overweight ladies staying at our hotel. To be fair, there were a few large blokes as well. All Inclusive does attract them. But it is a bit bad when you get trapped in your seat in the restaurant because the person behind you takes up so much space that you can't move.

"Excuse me while I just climb over the table!"

I wonder how some of them manage on the plane !

Not only has the tonic run out, but they've changed the white wine. Now it tastes watered down ! I'll just have to drink the red !

Monday - Boat trip

Earlier in the week we booked a boat trip from a character called Happy Ali. He had a little stall on the beach quite close to our hotel. His boat - the Barbarosa, was moored up on a little jetty next to it. The trip was all day 9:30 - 16:30, going round the bay, including Paradise Island and stopping at Turunc for the much publicized market, (not that we were particularly interested in markets). The forecast for Monday had been poor, which may have been the reason why Happy Ali was struggling for punters, but as luck would have it Monday dawned bright with just a bit of fair weather cloud. Perfect sailing weather. 1st stop was Paradise Island, where I had a swim. Then on to the phosphorous caves. To be honest, they just looked like caves to me. Maybe they glowed in the dark.

Then Kumlubok beach for another swim and lunch - chicken , spaghetti and salad. We stopped at Turunc for an hour. As I expected, the market wasn't anything special, but it's a picturesque little village, with a beach and some rather up-market restaurants. Then on to Green Sea for another dip. It really is green, as you can see.

We cruised back along the bay passing Mares Hotel, where we stayed 2 years ago. We returned at 4:30 on the dot. It had been a great day out.

I had seen the tops of two minarets of a mosque from the boat. It was quite close to our hotel, but you couldn't see it from there or from the beach. I managed to find it on one of my daily walks before dinner. It was up on a hill just passed a big McDonald's (prices start from 200 Tl ) It was worth a look. There is another one in the main town.

Thursday - England were playing Greece in a Nations Cup group game, so after dinner we wandered into town again. We tried a different bar , the Manchester City. It was just round the corner, set back a bit from the beach, near the Blue Bay. It had a massive screen and was packed, maybe because Efes was only 140 Tl, or £3. We lost 2- 1 and were poor. It was a lively evening though. We only had beer, but I noticed that the "gin" was being served up in the same miniature bottles we had at the hotel. Maybe that's all they can get here.

Friday - last day. I've mentioned TRT News already. It had been reporting comments made by Erdogan, the Turkish president, denouncing Israel's actions as genocide and advocating force to stop them being repeated. Now death threats against him have resulted in heightened security, and we've been warned to expect delays at the airport. We went to the the beach in the morning for a last swim. Mist was forecast for today, but I didn't see any. It has been hot (28 - 32 ) and sunny every day, and I've had a swim in the sea every day too. Our pick up was at 17:20, which I thought was a bit early for our 23:00 flight, but maybe that was to do with the increased security. Anyway, we were ready and waiting for it at 17:00 and it duly arrived on time. There was no-one else in the mini-bus, and although it stopped at 3 other hotels in Marmaris, only one other couple joined us. The journey took over 2 hours, including a 15 minute break at a roadside cafe. Even so, we were too early and we had to wait nearly an hour before we could check our bags in.

Dalaman airport, air side, has completely changed since the last time that we were here, Now there are various food outlets, where there was nothing previously. You had a choice of McDonald's, KFC, Subway, to name a few. They aren't cheap, burgers start at E20, ( Strange that prices were in Euros). Security was tight, with 3 separate checks. So we were late boarding, we missed our take-off time and had to sit on the tarmac again - not quite as long as at Luton. It meant that we were 30 minutes late landing though. 

So ends another sojourn in Turkey. Overall I'd enjoyed it, there were pros and cons about the hotel. Pros - the food was good, it was clean and efficiently run and not too busy. Also the location was good. Cons - there wasn't much in the way of evening entertainment, and there wasn't any brandy, and they never did get any more tonic !  

Entrance of Sun Bay

Map of our day trip .