Friday 9th April
My dear watch stopped in its hour of greatest need – it was to tell us when to get up in time to catch the bus to Antalya so J went barging into the room next door, where a Turk was putting on his trousers! However, we found out the time and caught the bus easily. I was in disgrace as I had agreed to go on the first one that was offered us – STL more expensive than the others, but it was exactly then that we wanted to go. The trip to Eskişehir was uneventful – pretty scenes – flowering fruit trees, ploughing peasants and a few sheep. We had a good lunch at Eskişehir before resuming our journey. While waiting for the bus we spoke to a Turk who lived in Paris but had had a bad accident in Istanbul and was still looking pretty rough.
They all ask who I am – answer usually ‘wife’ (to keep up appearances I presume). Seven and a half hours on the bus to Antalya via Afyon, Burdur, the latter where a whole load of schoolgirls got on to go back to Antalya for the weekend, and soon we were surrounded by sea of faces and besieged by questions in poor English. But they were friendly and livened up the journey. We saw lots of snow-covered mountains and passed through rugged terrain – masses of sheep and goats even saw a real Anatolian shepherd in one of those sheepskin cloaks. In Antalya we had a disagreement over the direction in which to search for a hotel and J won and we found ourselves in a shabby hotel, but it did have a private marble wash-basin and shower, though no hot water. For supper we had delicious fresh fish.
Saturday, 10th of April
I think perhaps the watch will be more of disadvantage than useful – stopped yet again this morning. I thought it was terribly late because the sun was very high but it turned out to be only 9.30. We found that J had in fact been cleverer than I had credited, for we are very near the old harbour and old town: we had coffee overlooking the harbour and afterwards walked down to it and sat on the rocks – I even cine-d a scene.
Back at the hotel I washed shirts etc – we have a washing line with a vine over it just outside, on a large balcony. Then we half-heartedly set off for a look at the town and I had the idea of going on a picnic, so we bought bread beyaz peynir [white sheep’s cheese] olives, apricots, wine and oranges and set off for Lara Beach – which we discovered to be a good deal further than anticipated – so we flagged down a taxi in desperation.
The beach was disappointing: rough pebble sands and very windy despite the sunshine. Anyway, we had our lunch and looked at a pinstriped man fishing. We walked up to the main road where we found a lokanta and also a dolmus [shared taxi], which brought us back here. The cheese had made me very thirsty and I spent most of the afternoon drinking! We decided not to go to Konya, but to try to get to Nevşehir in one day via Mersin, so we enquired at the bus station. We had a big fish for supper in a restaurant by the harbour – really delicious but a little expensive so we will be frugal tomorrow.
Sunday 11th April
When we woke it was pouring with rain, so we took a taxi to the bus station. Only to find the bus didn’t leave till 10 having been told eight. So instead we caught a bus to Alanya, where we were looked after by very trendy Turk, who worked at the Side bus office. He bought us coffee, teas and tried to persuade us to stay with him in Alanya, which we had no desire to do. Eventually the Adana bus arrived and we got the very back-row seats, which don’t recline, and as I was already feeling ill, an hour like this didn’t add to my state of health.
Eventually, someone got off and, as J was snoring soundly, I slipped away to a more comfortable seat. We zigzagged up and down coastal cliffs (steep) at a terrifying rate and saw two very serious recent accidents, which added to our anxiety. We eventually arrived in Mersin, where it was pouring, and decided we better check on the connection that had been faithfully promised us before finding a hotel. This we did, to find that no buses via Mersin went to Nevşehir and our only hope was to go to Adana and get one from there (the Side bus had gone onto Adana – really infuriating).
Views of St Paul’s Church in Tarsus, where he was born. Naturally we didn’t see any of this!
Anyhow, a bus appeared to be going so on we got. All went well until Tarsus, where the driver took half an hour off. By this time I felt really ill and very cross, but at last we arrived in Adana (still raining), found a ghastly dump of a hotel (J got five bedbug bites the next day!), and the ownerrushed us off to a ghastly filthy lokanta run by three greasy little boys, where J had the most revolting-looking kebabs ever. Seedy characters kept on appearing and it struck me how defenceless we were in there, so was rather nervous and very glad when we could leave at last.
There were the most marvellous wildflowers by the roadside – wild Cosmos (purple yellow) dog roses (?) and lovely red poppies, cowslips and little purple flowers. Even daisies and buttercups.
Vicky's Big Adventure 