Michael Tyler

On landing in Bodrum, I quite fancied a trip to Kos which is a short hop on the ferry. 40 mins. Not worth not spending one night there, so that’s what I did.

Bod-dumb

Or idiotville as I would refer to it.

Prices are for idiots, the people in the shops and restaurants treat you like an idiot. They try to trick you and rip you off. Like you were an idiot….

The exception being the accommodation. They were pretty nice.

Don’t think I’d go there again.

I was happy to be on the way to Greece on the ferry.

Been a while

Since I’ve been to Greece.

The ferry over was around €35. At the time, I bought a return which was about €12 more. When I arrived and settled in, started planning my next moves, it became obvious that I wasn’t going to be cycling eastward from Bodrum.

If you look at the terrain on a map it’s just hills. And these hills have no roads running through them. I would have to go significantly North, toward Pumukkale, before I could start turning east towards the direction I wanted to go.

When I did a bit more research, maybe take a bus over these hills, it turned out there were no buses. You had to take 3 separate buses. Obviously with the bike along for the ride, you’re adding an additional unpredictable variable.

Buses are not obliged to take your bike. It’s conditional on them having enough space in the luggage hold. Obviously, you’re multiplying this chance by 3, then adding the fact that I’ve no idea how big the buses are.

When I put it into Google, it told me to go to Kos and Rhodes! So that’s what I did!

Continue reading “Island hopping”

Is a heavy one. The sun was blazing. The hills were winding and continuous. The scenery was amazing, in places.

100KM from Didim to Bodrum. I requested that I could have breakfast at 8am rather than their starting time of 8.30am. Any contribution to an expided departure when you’ve got a long and hard journey is appreciated.

Breakfast

I’ve had this discussion on previous blogs. In the morning, you are what you put in your body. Let me suggest this… never put cheese in there.

Bad and heavy breakfast makes you want to stop all the time, wonder what you’re doing here. Avoid it.

Just had some honey, jam and Nutella with bread. A hard boiled egg and a very small sausage, (not by choice, that’s all there was). Plus some chips, almost forgot about them. Cup of coffee. No juice. I prefer juice, it’s full of sugar. Had water instead. That was it.

Off I went. 8.30am.

Continue reading “The road to Bodrum”

Due to inclement weather and the long distances involved, I was going to take the bus to Kusadasi and had bought a ticket.

What the agent had omitted to tell me was that the time stated on my ticket was not the time of departure from Pumukkale, but the time of departure from Dinizli, the nearest big town!

Obviously, I missed the bus. As I was sitting drinking my Turkish tea outside the hotel, I could see the clouds forming big and dark and asked my host, “is it going to rain?”. “Yes” he said.

I took this as my cue to fire the bike up and get going.

I was going to have to cycle to Denizli and buy a ticket for the later bus. So that’s what I did.

It’s not so far away. Only around 20km. Downhill. Mostly.

Denizli

Was an interesting city, after I got my ticket, I dropped my panniers in storage and had a very short look around.

One of the place I found was this Hamam.

This was the real deal. Proper baths with plunge pool. Main treatment area, also with a steam room and sauna. The cost: One treatment, (scrub and rub), plus unlimited time in the baths 320tl. That’s about £8¿?!

Not. €55. The facilities were better. More for £40 less.

Gave my Hamam in Istanbul a 1 star review.

Continue reading “Day of the Dolmus”

The last couple of days, one to get here, one to look around the ruins.

Hotel La’bella

Didn’t think much to the hotel I stayed in on Wednesday. The place was advertised as having WiFi throughout. Turns out there was none, anywhere. This obviously causes problems. After a period of trying to sort it out in my room, then trying the public areas, I returned to reception and asked to speak to the manager.

Suddenly, and mysteriously the WiFi suddenly came on. I did the more serious stuff and went out for dinner. When I came back, it had gone off again and it stayed off until I left in the morning.

3 Mobile phone masts

When I was testing the public area’s WiFi, I went up to the rooftop terrace. There I discovered that the hotel had 3 mobile phone reception masts on the roof!

Maybe you’re aware, churches in the UK use these to make money. Operators pay a lease. If you own a tall building in somewhere they want to be, they will pay you a sum to have their service operating there. Sometimes it can be a lot.

This woman had 3!

That made me think that the place made plenty of money, without any guests. They were just creaming it off basically.

Reception weren’t at all interested in the internet not working when I left. Nothing you can do apart from leave a good honest review, so that’s what I did.

To be fair, I left a really good review for the previous hotel, so they kind of balance each other out.

Getting to Pumukkale

Travel conditions: Ideal for cycling. Overcast, cold (for Turkey), no wind, not too much sun.

Whilst cycling down there, on this side of the Pumukkale hills, I saw some of this.

There was like a local farmer parked close to the front of this one. I was going to ask him what it was all about, but after some consideration, I thought better of it and cycled on… past a number of these devices.

Continue reading “To Pumukkale”

Pergamon was supposedly where the Greeks discovered medicine.

Legend has it that a friendly snake learned the Greek wise man, Archias some techniques and taught him how to make cleansing anointment for his patients.

Archias got fairly good at this, and was looking at resurrecting the dead, the technique of this was also whispered by a snake. This annoyed Zeus, (the god), and he struck him with a lightning bolt. That was the end of a very promising career. Still, his legend continues here at Pergamon ruins.

It is a world heritage site

The Asclepion at Pergamon was one of the most important sites of medicine in the ancient Western world, it’s where the stave and snake motif derives from.

The healing rooms are quite impressive, obviously not what they used to be. There were no patients hanging around now, but you can see the revenants of grandeur in the scale of their construction.

I guess this place was like an early hospital.

It has other cool things also. It takes something over an hour to wonder around in total.

Continue reading “Pergamon and Menisa”