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Author Topic: It ain't half hot mum....  (Read 7884 times)

Offline Vieux con

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It ain't half hot mum....
« on: August 10, 2008, 02:26:28 PM »
Hi all,
Live and direct from Cinar''s cafe.... anyone jealous?

Halfway through a wonderful holiday, high spots so far horseriding in the evening on Patara beach, and the most incredible meal last night at Adam''s Place - welcome, service, food, setting all fantastic.

Will do a full write up when we get back. If we come back....

Bob

Linkback: https://www.enjoykalkan.com/forum/index.php?topic=2180.0

Offline Chucky

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2008, 03:02:38 PM »
Glad to see the Continental Brigade are enjoying themselves.
No problems with Euros or your electrical appliances, I hope?
Will look forward to reading your reports.
And, yes I am jealous.
Joan 

Offline Vieux con

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Re: It weren't half hot mum....
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2008, 07:12:14 PM »
No problems with Euros or electricity, thanks.

For Euros, just go see the nice man in the PTT.

`Can I change some Euros to Lira please?`
`Why not?` He looks in the cash drawer, mutters something and heads off to the back office, comes back with a stack of notes at least 20cm thick. `Will this be enough to start?` Lovely.

Electricity – a French plug on a Swiss multi-socket adaptor kept all phones, ipods, cameras and the odd laptop happy.

Also pleased to report that Belgian and Swiss Maestro cards worked fine in ATMs.

A bit of blatant advertising – for airport transfers, car hire etc, there can only be one choice, and that is EnjoyKalkan and their business partner, Adda. We had split airport transfers, needed a nonstandard vehicle, Jon arranged all this extremely quickly and at an amazing price. And the Adda people were great – more on that later.

I now have a choice as to categorise stuff into a `proper` report or just ramble; it`s my last day of freedom before the dreaded mill pulls me back in, plus I`m outside, it`s 25c and I have a cold Leffe to hand, so I`m going for ramble.

I envy you people who get direct flights into Dalaman. We couldn`t, and so we had to transit through Istanbul with Turkish Airlines. Two hours stopover is enough, surely? Not really. We were 30 minutes late getting in, by the time we had done the visa and passport thing, another hour had passed. And the kids had disappeared. OH tries to round them up by  phone, and I set off for the domestic terminal. After another two security checks, I got to the gate 10 minutes before the Dalaman flight was due to depart – and it was awfully quiet. I managed to explain the situation to a member of TAL ground staff (bizarrely the spitting image of Robert Carlisle) who leaped into action, running around everywhere, shouting into his walkie-talkie with me in tow. After another five minutes, he`s just explaining how it really is too late, the plane MUST leave now, when the rest of the gang shows up. Then follows another round of frantic W-T chatter, just the one more security check, and we`re finally on the plane, which pushes back immediately. Cutting it a bit fine, to say the least.

20:50 we arrive in Dalaman, as does most of our luggage. Just the one bag missing. So, off to the TAL office to join the queue. Tension is running a bit high but people are mostly well behaved, apart from a gaggle of sixty-something Italian women who have lost a bag of… shoes. The ground staff are a tad overstretched, they remain helpful and courteous, but they obviously have not understood just how important shoes are to some people. By now, the rest of our lot are outside, looking for the Adda driver. My eldest stepdaughter somehow manages to shuttle back and forth bringing me drinks and snacks. Lost luggage paperwork finally completed, we`re about to leave when the TAL people say that the last Istanbul flight of the day has just landed, please hang on ten minutes, and… lo and behold, the missing bag is given priority disembarkation and we`re on our way at 22:45.

We got to the villa about half midnight – the Belgian wing had been there for a day already, so we set to the task of emptying the fridge until about 4am. Got woken at 9am, and was told there is someone at the door looking for me. Adda have delivered the hire car, I was expecting to have to go and pick it up. Good grief, it`s hot at 9am. I know you people said it would be hot in August, and I know I said `we can do hot`, but I thought there might be some wind. Or even a breeze. Dream on.

The villa is situated just below the new school. It has five bedrooms, but is not really geared up for ten people.  The pool however was fantastic, and big enough for ten, so that is where we spent the bulk of the next 13 days. We did get out and about a bit, but nowhere near as much as we were expecting to, partly due to the heat, partly due to the fact that OH broke her foot about six weeks before the Kalkan trip, and was still suffering with it, at least for the first week of our stay.

We first went to Kas, basically to check out Migros – it had the best selection of meat & poultry of all the supermarkets we visited in Kas and Kalkan, but apart from that we found that there was little to choose between them. So, as it was closest to the villa, we settled mostly for Yali General Store - and regularly obtained our free-drink vouchers for exceeding YTL150 expenditure.

After a couple of days I managed to persuade a subset of the group to go to Patara beach. We went at about 5pm (late enough not to have to pay parking). It was still hot, lovely beach, we stayed for a couple of hours, but on the way back most people expressed a preference for pool over beach, so that was it for beach visits.

Oh yes, one of the original reasons for choosing Kalkan as our destination – so that the `yoof` could go out of an evening without the need for me to drive them. How many times did they avail themselves of this? Once in thirteen days… 

We ate in mostly, BBQs etc. as we found the majority of restaurants pricier that we had anticipated. Have to mention Omar`s Kitchen as providing good value, no-nonsense food at a reasonable price. Just loved that humous, the girls said a bit heavy on the tahini, but I thought it was the best I tasted all holiday. And we used Omar`s home delivery pizza service on two occasions – maybe not gourmet stuff, but what the heck when no-one fancies cooking?

Wine: Angora was ok, but even more to our taste we found Moneta very agreeable. Shame that we drank Yali out of the white within 5 days. The red was definitely quaffable, and supplies stayed plentiful. For rose, it has to be LAL.

Beer: Efes is ok, but I have to agree with some others on this forum that it lacks a certain something after a few days. Tried Efes Dark, good as well, then stumbled upon Efes Dark Brown. The difference? Coffee! Sounds odd, but it really works, it`s very refreshing late in the afternoon – but wouldn`t want to go bingeing on it. Otherwise Miller, Becks, Fosters, Corona and even Guinness were generally available in supermarkets. No Gales HSB, but then it was probably a bit too hot for that.

All that talk about beer has made me thirsty, and my glass is empty, so I’m taking a break now. Guess I`ll end up doing this in several instalments.

< to be continued >

Offline itstime

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2008, 07:32:32 PM »
looking forward to next installment  ;)

Offline Enjoy Kalkan

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2008, 07:58:48 PM »
Thanks for the great holiday report, so pleased you were impressed with the EK / Adda experience

Offline Blue Lizard

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2008, 08:16:33 PM »
yes that was a good read...i''m a bit concerned that Bob has found my stash of Corona!! ;)
People Of Britain.. When your missus asks "Does my bum look big in this? Never say "Dunno your blocking the light."... just sayin ????

 ta ta for now
Lizard

Offline Vieux con

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Re: It weren't half hot mum....
« Reply #6 on: August 21, 2008, 06:42:23 PM »
Previously on It weren`t half hot mum: Airports, wine and beer…  :)

Towards the back end of the first week we had an evening trip to Xanthos. Well worth it, one should allow at least two hours, and if possible get a guide – we chanced upon Omar who definitely added value to our visit.  OH is really into old stones, she was feeling a bit frustrated because of her busted foot, but we also managed to slot in a trip to Tlos later in the second week. Personally I found Tlos even more interesting than Xanthos, but maybe that`s just down to the setting. And the sun setting, that was spectacular. 

Before Tlos, we visited Saklikent gorge. Loads – and I do mean loads - of people, the initial river crossing was quite amusing (even more so as a spectator) and an hour or so of not so stifling heat in the gorge. OH didn`t do the walk, she installed herself in one of the restaurants by the bridge and got stuck into her book. When everyone was done gorging we retreated to the first restaurant (on the left approaching from Kalkan) and snacked on kebabs, fresh trout and stuff for an hour or so.  The guy who ran the place wouldn`t have been out of place on the Shopping Channel:  ` By the bridge, one beer, six Lira, here three Lira. By the bridge, trout twelve Lira, here seven Lira…` He wasn`t kidding either. Perhaps his place was slightly less chic than the one by the bridge, but it was quieter and much less pressured.

There was one annoying thing with the hire car – the remote lock/unlock activated the hazard lights, and it was impossible to turn them off once the car was unlocked. After a couple of days the man from Adda turns up at the villa door out of the blue asking if we have any problems with the car. How so? I had not reported a problem. Maybe someone (Jandarma?) had noticed the `mobile Xmas tree` driving around and reported it to Adda? We gave up on the remote.

One can – almost – have too much of pool and beer (and I`m not talking about Cinar`s café here) so next up on the schedule was horseriding. Five of us set out for Patara early one morning, spent an hour or so being misdirected, chasing our own wild geese until we ended back in Patara centre and opted for a pitstop in the Lazy Frog. Got chatting with  Byram (I think that`s his name) who made one phone call and arranged the trip. We were to come back to the Lazy Frog at 4:30pm, someone would pick us up from there. We pitched up at the designated hour, George turned up promptly and we followed him out to the stables, about 2km back inland from Patara City. Everyone choose a hat, meet your mount and we`re off. A few hundred yards through fields, then into the woods and start to climb up through the trees. There are five of us plus a German woman on horseback, George and friend on foot. Wow, those guys are fit. The German didn`t use the reins or her heels – when she wanted her horse to change direction she tapped him on the head and pointed with her finger… After 30 minutes of climbing twisty little paths through the woods,  with the incredible aroma of the pine trees, we break cover to see sand. Hang on a bit, we`ve not come down we`ve only been going up - that`ll be a rather large sand dune then. Upwards, ever upwards until… everyone just gasped at the view; Patara beach to the left, Patara beach to the right, stretching ahead and below, the most amazing sight in the late afternoon sun.  We crossed the dunes towards the sea, the horses got a 20 minute break in the shade, then we remounted and went paddling. I can close my eyes and still see it so clearly, and now I’m having trouble finding words to describe it... A gentle meander back over the dunes, then through the woods and back to base. Those guys really do love their horses – and I think it`s reciprocal. We were on horseback for just over 2 hours, YTL70 each. Went back to the Lazy Frog for a beer and to thank Byram for setting it up, George swung by 10 minutes later saying `that round is on me`…

With OH not driving due to the busted foot, it meant that I had to do all the heavy shopping. It took the others a couple of days to figure out just why it took me about two hours to get a day`s worth of groceries from Yali. Cinar`s bar became the carrot after the stick of having to do the shopping. Tekin was the perfect host, remembering almost immediately who was English, Belgian, Swiss and greeting them in the appropriate language.  As of the third day there was no shortage of volunteers when it came to grocery shopping. I suspect that that`s also where the `yoof` ended up on their one and only night out. The `inter-meal` snacks at Cinar`s were great as well.

The weekly market was an absolute hoot. `Buy now, pay next year`. `Buy now, pay never`. Due to a monumental cockup on the communication front, the `yoof` were somewhat financially constrained, and so they took to the idea of haggling like proverbial ducks to water. Plus OH tends to do the Christmas shopping when we`re away anywhere interesting, so just as well we had packed a spare holdall – we definitely needed it.

<Duty calls, still a bit more to go, hopefully I`ll wrap this on the third post.>

Offline itstime

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #7 on: August 21, 2008, 07:47:23 PM »
come on come on   :D

Offline Chucky

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #8 on: August 21, 2008, 08:19:23 PM »
Loving it so far Bob, the horse riding at Patara sounds great. I was not sure whether the stables were affected by the Patara fire.
Looking forward to part three.
I hope this will inspire some others to post their holiday reports, pretty please!!
Joan

Offline Vieux con

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Re: It weren't half hot mum....
« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2008, 01:09:38 PM »
Thankfully the Patara fire was well to the east of the stables. But pretty awful, all the same.

BL, don`t worry, your Corona stash is safe.

Daphne`s is a great place to grab a swift and do some people-watching.

Fact: there are more insects in my back garden than in the whole of Kalkan. Apart from those mega-wasps that look like they have just swallowed a radioactive polo mint. That pool-spraying certainly works.

Adda dug me out of the mire again at some point over the middle weekend. Had parked the car illegally by the Taksi rank whilst shopping for fruit and veg and meat, and it wouldn`t start when we came back. One of the volunteers set off back to the villa on foot with the perishables, and the other two of us set off to the Adda office – stupidly I had left my phone back at the villa.  When we regrouped at the car some 15 minutes later, it started first time. I wasn`t aware of old-style diesel mechanisms needing a few seconds of ignition before firing the engine. Duh! Incident closed, root cause – user error.

Two of us then went down to the harbour to check out the boats. We wanted to do the Kekova trip, and were hesitating as to whether to take a boat from Kalkan, or to drive closer to Kekova. After chatting with Ali Oz, we agreed to charter the Kalkan Prince for a day. We left at 8am – not only was it not searingly hot yet, but we got breeze! The whole day was great, amazing scenery, plenty of swim stops,  and the lunch was scrumptious. Stopping to refuel just up from Kekova, they managed to stick the bowsprit through the window of the tanker cabin which caused a bit of a row, but things calmed down fairly quickly. Then the wind picked up, and we were headlong into quite a heavy swell. Everyone got thoroughly soaked as we ploughed through the waves, and a couple of our lot were beginning to turn green. Ali said he had only had this boat for about three weeks, and that this was the heaviest swell he had yet encountered. He started to get a bit worried, and even discussed the possibility of putting in at Kas and getting us taxied back to Kalkan, but we convinced him that we  were having such a great time he continued. Difficult to make much headway in that wind, so by the time we got back it was about 7:30 – a long day out, but well worth it. The boat cost us YTL800 for the day – lunch included – and we notched up another YTL110 in drinks, but split 10 ways I think it was great value.

I had read recommendations about Adam`s Place on this forum, so we thought we had better give it a try. Unbelievable! We had tried a couple of other restaurants in town as well – Ottoman house was generally well liked – but a meal at Adam`s  is just such a different experience.  The location, especially around sunset was wonderful, and the views with the moon rising over the islands created a very special atmosphere. The food was honestly far and away the best we had tasted in the whole two weeks. It even surpassed my legendary chicken curry! We just had to go back for the `last supper` at the end of the second week. Other people have mentioned the warmth of welcome one receives from Adam and his family, and it is truly genuine. The second time we went, he had a photographer there who was taking some pictures for the new flyers. This guy takes one look at OH`s camera and suggests maybe we can help out. There followed a hilarious session of `gourmet diners in natural pose` photos involving all of us and a few other people as well. Very, very funny. An aperitif on the Ottoman, then `your table is now ready on the upper terrace`, and finishing with a nightcap back on the Ottoman under the stars… really superb.

I think that`s about enough for now. There may be some other things that come to mind as we sift through the photos and start to edit down the five hours of video footage – if so, I`ll mention them.

That was our first visit to Kalkan – and Turkey – and most of us will definitely be back at some point. Just not in August! The Belgians thought that the whole place was `a bit too English`, but I reckon they were jealous. And anyway, Tekin speaks Dutch, so where is the problem?

The trip went smoothly on the whole, and I felt well prepared having assimilated so much information up front, courtesy of this forum. So a huge thankyou to Jon and  everyone for their posts and PM`s, you are too numerous to name – and anyway I`m bound to forget someone, I always do.

Cheers,
Bob

Offline Pete

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2008, 02:39:25 PM »
Totally agree with you about Adam''s Place.

The West Indians have a saying that describes it best ''Soul Food, Man''

If you have''nt been GO.

Offline Chucky

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2008, 04:50:25 PM »
Thanks for that Bob, sounds like you had a great holiday and glad that EnjoyKalkan was able to help you to get the most out of your stay.
Joan

Offline Hilary

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2008, 09:16:35 PM »
Do you mean people who are African Caribbean? In our family we don''t like the term you used.

Offline Em1

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2008, 10:10:43 PM »
Hi

As English is the language used for communication purposes (on this forum), with most English speaking people having more than a modicum of intelligence, surely most can understand the terms ''West Indians'' and ''African Caribbean''? One term may be more acceptable than another to some people,  although not all.
 
It seems that whatever terms are used to describe an ethnic group, they will not be liked by everybody? Language that somebody would find acceptable and reasonable, others would find unacceptable?

I am sure no one has meant any offence on here, so with a little flexibility with the actual words used, everyone will fell free to post their opinions in a honest and non-derogatory manner?

These are my views only, and not meant to cause any offence.

Em
Em

Offline Enjoy Kalkan

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2008, 11:30:30 PM »
Please can we stay on topic and not convert this thread into one on the correct use of the language. Feel free to start a new thread if necessary

Thanks  :)

Offline coppers1

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2008, 02:10:02 AM »
Bob,

Absolutely fascinating threads - you really bring the various places alive!
About to arrive for my first Kalkan/Turkey visit and you have definitely whetted my appetite!!

PS      Let''s not allow a slightly precious, unwarranted and irrelevant comment by one person to interfere with this perfectly innocent topic and related, light-hearted replies!

Cheers

Dave


 

Offline Pete

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #16 on: August 30, 2008, 03:23:16 PM »
Just seen Hilary''s reply.

Wow!!

No, I meant exactly what I said WEST INDIANS.

To the best of my knowledge, WEST INDIANS comprise of people from Africa, Asia and Europe and possibly a few other areas. They are not all of African decent.

And, I do not know a single ''African Caribbean'' who has a problem being refered to as WEST INDIAN. In fact the three WEST INDIANS I have spoken to, actually found your statement pretentious and condecending.

Sorry for going off topic again.

Offline Lorretta

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #17 on: August 30, 2008, 04:10:30 PM »
Bob,
thank you for taking the time to write such an interesting and detailed holiday report. I am so glad you had such a great holiday.

Offline Hilary

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Re: It ain't half hot mum....
« Reply #18 on: August 30, 2008, 05:17:26 PM »
sorry if you feel my comment has caused offence, not intended. just letting you know how we feel. sorry if your friends also felt this. We are a mixed race family and my husband describes himself as African Carribean not West indian. I am sorry your friends felt the way they do. My husband and i have been together for 25 years. He has experienced racism in the past as has my daughter. i feel protective of them both. I have to say we met some fantastic people in turkey. i am also sure that if we had met in person rather than just inferring things from comments on a forum we would have had a rich discussion. I feel quite upset to be desribed as patronising and condescending as i am neither. i welcome diversity and feel passionaletly about equality.


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