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I’m sitting in a downtown Bodrum (Turkey) hotel room that Katherine and I picked up for about YTL60/night (AUD60/night) which I thought was a pretty good deal. The past few weeks have gone by so quickly visiting family and friends in Katherine’s fathers native Cyprus (the northern unrecognised state) mainly around Lefkosia.

Just an amazing place. We spent 3 days on the northern coast of Cyprus in Kyrenia in an all-inclusive resort (all you can eat and drink – yes that includes alcohol too). Due to the local mates rates it worked out to be an absolute steal at YTL100/night. After that Katherine’s relatives housed us and fed us – and fed us – and fed us. I haven’t eaten so much in my life – and for those of you who know my eating habits that is quite a lot of food.

From Cyprus we flew to Antalya for a couple of nights. Very nice coastal city – bizzare hearing the street hawkers speaking German to get our attention. As you may have guessed Germans love holidaying here along with the Russians.

Caught a 3 and 1/2 hour bus ride to Fethiye from Antalya. Katherine and I hadn’t done much research/reading on Fethiye so when we took the advice of an Antalyan travel agent that his mate had a very nice hotel in Fethiye we thought we would be staying in Fethiye. To our horror the equivalent “You are now leaving Fethiye” sign appeared on our way to the hotel made possible by a free hotel transfer from the Otogar (Bus Station) in dodgy, beat up 1980’s Fiat station wagon. At this point Katherine and I looked at each other and just smiled – Katherine’s uncle (ex Cypriot tourism minister) had warned us “…you may be cheated etc. etc. – you don’t want that”. So for the first 15 minutes in our (what looked like) 2-star hotel in some place called Hisaronu I started stressing that we’d pre-paid for 2 nights.

Only once I had spoken to the manager and found out that Hisaronu was where all the action is did my stress levels start to lower. So we decided to walk down the road as per to the manager’s advice. Only then did I realise that we had not arrived in Turkey but a little place I would like to call ‘Little Britain’.

Unbeliveable is a word I would use to describe the sight I saw (which I promise will be in photos on the site soon). Prices were not quoted in Turkish Lira (YTL) but Pound Sterling, restaurants were not serving Turkish food or any other nations food but English, and most of all there were no locals on the streets (apart from those trying to flog you stuff). It’s as if the Brits wanted to import their homeland but with much better weather! I must give it to the British though they’ve picked a lovely spot – beautiful sun-drenched bays and beaches – we ended up having a fantastic time.

From Fethiye a 5 hour bus ride brought us to Bodrum – again we trusted a local Fethiyean travel agent who had a mate who had a lovely hotel. This time though the accommodation itself would have to be described as basic, but comfortable. Good amenities including free Wi-Fi which is an absolute bonus – hence the reason I’m typing such a long post!

We went out last night in a place around 5 kilometres from the Bodrum city centre called Gumbet Bay. Some nice pubs and clubs that would be absolutely pumping in the height of summer. They weren’t bad last night, but we finished up about 3am and walked back to the hotel in about 15 minutes – not bad really. Lucky there were no Doner Kebap (yes no typo) on the trip home or I would of had an even worse stomach ache this morning. A word of warning in a foreign (developing) country don’t use the tap water when even rinising your mouth of toothpaste – my mistake that I’ve learnt from.

Today we’ve spent a lovely day walking around Bodrum – thankfully some exercise to lose all that food in Cyprus. I’m convinced my DSLR has got some dirt on the filter in front of the sensor hence the delay in posting photos as I will have to go through and edit within iPhoto to get rid of the ‘dust bunnies’ on the shots. Once I get back to the UK I’ll go and speak to someone who really knows what they are doing.

Anyway we are off to Istanbul tomorrow and Katherine has just woken up from her afternoon nanna nap!