Minor Turkey Trip

Turkey's been in my top five to-visits for years. I was booking extremely last minute, but was still adamant I didn't want to be in a tourist trap, so I avoided places like Marmaris. Our hotel was described as being in smaller resort, outside Marmaris. I looked on the map and it seemed suitably far away from the tourist centre, at the other end of the bay.

But Marmaris is a hideous sprawl that has enveloped the whole area. This wasn't Turkey, it was Blackpool in the sun.

Our hotel was really nice and super-clean. The rooms are formulaic but well-equipped and the views are stunning. It's right on the (crappy) beach. But the food was really bad, with lots of cheap, processed stuff, including loads of (turkey?) fat pretending to be pork with the use of bright pink colouring and frankfurter flavouring. We don't require pork, you know! Especially fake pork. Instead of pretend bacon, we'd love to try traditional Turkish preserved meats and local cheeses, please.

Desperate to find some real Turkey, we went to the old town harbour area. The beautiful old buildings along the port have all been turned into bars and restaurants and are ALL adorned with flashing neon lights, and have annoying waiters standing outside, hassling you to eat at their restaurant. There were literally no local-type restaurants in the whole place, which I found so depressing that I actually cried.

So we kind of gave up on the food/culture front, and frequently ate at the same tourist restaurant - Three Brothers - that sold decent food (some authentically Turkish) and fabulous rum-soaked fruit slushies. They also had a beach with loungers, on which to enjoy the boozy slushies.

Mango, strawberry & rum slushy at Three Brothers

We did go on a nice tourist boat trip to bays with crystal clear water. We also hired a speed boat, which was a laugh. We tried the Fly Fish (I think they mean Flying Fish) watersport, which was a brilliant fun and left my forearm muscles in pain for days afterwards, due to having to hang on for dear life. You get propelled METRES into the air on the inflatable raft thing, pulled by a speed boat (Pic to follow shortly).

Wood-barbecued chicken & trimmings

The best bit of the holiday was when we took a taxi up into the hills and saw some real countryside and villages, and the beautiful Turunc woodland waterfall that was deserted until just as we left and dozens of 4x4s packed with a tourists rocked up. Glad we didn't go on that organised 'safari'! The waterfall cascades over several small cliffs and feeds lots of little irresistibly clear pools - we had a few refreshing dips.

Waterfall photo courtesy of myturunc.com

Traditional charcoal-fired kettle and teapot
setup at the waterfall café (where they sell
beer BTW, but you have to ask for it).

Wild fish that seemed to be trapped and grown-on
in the crystal clear pools at the waterfall

We stopped at the roadside on the way back for whole chicken cooked over a wood barbecue. The taxi driver nipped down the road to buy us beers as the restaurant didn't sell alcohol. The fire was stoked, and the chicken was cooked inside a big can. It was skewered onto a dish where potatoes, peppers and tomatoes cooked in the chicken juices.

We sat at plastic tables and chairs - always a good sign - while the woman who seemingly does everything brought bread, thick yogurt, raw green chillies and delicious chunky tomato and cucumber salad. Her family chilled out at the next table. We enjoyed the beer while we waited for the chicken, amazing smells of woodsmoke and roasted chook making us madly ravenous.

Jeeeez it was good! We managed to eat almost the whole chicken between the two of us! We could hardly walk afterwards but we couldn't leave any of that meat could we? The food was relatively expensive, as it's charged per chicken not per person, and I guess one chicken would normally serve at least four. It was about £20. The best money we spent that trip.

During the meal the man of the house brought us some ancient photo albums to peruse. These mainly-'80s photos seemed to be largely of him in his chef's gear (various styles of mullets and huge taches) and family gatherings. We dutifully looked through and commented. Quite an amusing thing to happen! Not sure whether every customer is treated to this or if we were 'specially selected, but we loved it anyway.

Another funny thing was how we came to eat at the restaurant in the first place: We said we wanted to eat so the taxi driver immediately pulled over to a crappy place at the side of the road. Now I love roadside eateries, like those I wrote about in Tunisia and Croatia, or 'frites' stands in France. But we'd just seen some pretty villages with tiny part-time restaurants that I was dying to try, and this place was basically a kiosk. I said, "No - village?". The taxi route we were on was called the 'village tour', so I thought he'd understand 'village'. He said, "Ah yes, yes!", did a speedy u-turn and pulled up at a café 200m back the way we'd come. I said "No - village?" a few times and he said "yes" a few times, until I noticed the wood-fired barbecue and pretty much leapt out of the car. It seems 'village' in English sounds a lot like 'piliç' - chicken in Turkish.

View from the hotel

Beach Boys & Biscuit; Lobster Heaven - 24th August 2007

Beach Boys & Biscuit

Hung around in Lumley, where the hotel was, and walked on the beach, while my dad went to work. I got approached quite a lot by young men, who were mainly friendly and wanted to offer their services as ‘THE main beach boy’, who could help with arranging… well, anything touristy, really; trips, barbecues, drumming shows. I also got some minor hassle from guys who wanted to chat. Individually they were no problem, leaving me alone as soon as I said I wanted to walk on my own. But it was a little tiresome just because of the numbers of people I had to tell to go away, which I don’t like doing, and I did have to be firm with a couple of them, who argued the point of wanting to be my friend – “You no want to be my friend? Why you no like me?”

The hugely long beach takes quite a while to walk along and back again, so I was pleased to snack on boiled peanuts (slightly sweet and juicy) and a sweet deep-fried pastry for my lunch. They were sold to me from plastic tubs, which two small children, of about four and seven, carried on their heads.

Lobster Heaven

The evening was the moment I had been waiting for, for months; lobster at Paul’s…



Before the war, the beach resort at Lakka, down the coast from Freetown, was a tropical paradise. It still is, except that the restaurants, bars and places to stay are falling to pieces. Since the war, tourists have stayed away, and the failure of the government to maintain the road to Lakka has compounded the problem, because locals are not willing to spend hours navigating the ‘road’, whilst ruining their cars. The road is so appalling it has become a national joke, and it is exhausting just to sit as a passenger and be continually jolted for the hours it takes to drive a few kilometres.

Anyway, after being thrown around on this stretch of mud, ponds and rocks, we finally got to Lakka, where I was going to stay in a beach shack for the weekend. ‘Pierre’s Resort’ used to be the classy, French-frequented Cotton Club, but its collapsed clubhouse and collection of wooden cabins are now slowly mouldering into the beach. It is still charming, though, and the scruffy paintwork in amongst palm trees and overgrown paths, has an appeal that would be wiped out by maintenance, a refit, redecoration and – in the case of fallen-in roofs – a rebuild. My shack was full of colonial styling, which had clearly once been gorgeous and quite luxurious. Salty sea air, torrential rainy seasons and neglect have eaten away at the fixtures and fittings, the paint and the furnishings. But there’s the possibility of outside investors taking over the management and revitalization of the old Cotton Club, so if you want to experience this magical place as it is, you’ll have to visit soon.





There was no time to hang out in my home for the weekend; we had a reservation at Paul’s place, a couple of hundred metres’ walk down the beach. A call that morning had assured that a large lobster was caught and kept alive in the sea, ready for our evening meal. Paul doesn’t have customers very often (rainy season, effects of war, lack of road), and we were the only ones eating that night, so I was able to watch the meal’s preparation.





It went like this: massive lobster killed and cut in half lengthways, it’s glistening flesh and shell smothered in secret recipe garlicky seasoning. Fire lit, chips cut, oil heated and chips cooked over fire, lobster grilled over fire, helper sent to Pierre’s Resort for Star beer. What could be better? as Rick would say.





I felt amazingly lucky, gorging on the best lobster possible (for about €10 each), perfectly cooked, with salty chips, lime on the side and cold beer to drink, whilst sitting at a makeshift, tie-dye tableclothed table, in candlelight, on a beach, in a warm breeze, with palm trees swaying and friendly locals chilling out nearby! Absolutely nothing could be better! The lobster was slightly charred on the outside, cooked right through, and had moist, tender flesh.







Pillows and covers that smelled powerfully of damp somehow didn’t seem a problem, as I fell straight to sleep, with the sound of waves crashing just metres away, and warm rain thrumming on the roof.

Leaving Lakka - 26th August 2007

I slept deeply again - that sea air? Pure food? Exhaustion from bumpy roads? After a breakfast of toasted baguette and Nescafé with powdered milk, I sat on an old wooden beach lounger and talked to some local boys, while I waited for my lift. They took me on a tour of lovely Lakka village. It is nestled in the forest, where mudbrick and corrugated iron-roofed houses and huts are scattered in glades between palm tress and the sweet-smelling flowers of creepers. It wasn’t the best time to visit, apparently, because most of the villagers were at one or other of the various churches – it was Sunday. My guides weren’t at church, because they were Muslim, apart from Augustine, who had decided to take the day off because it was his birthday.





My dad arrived and took me away from Lakka, which had begun to feel like home, even though I had only seen it for the first time two days earlier. I felt sad to leave.

Nevermind, we were back off to Sussex for lunch. I still didn’t see the beach, but the groupa carpaccio was fantastic, and I had a glass of chilled Chardonnay – the first wine I’d had in soooo long. I felt the nectar trickle down my throat and got that warm feeling as it spread out in my stomach. Wine is of course especially wonderful when you’ve been deprived for a while. The main course was barbequed angelfish with chips and salad.





After the tiring journey back to Freetown, we decided to eat our evening meal at the hotel. Their rooftop restaurant has good views over the sea and nearby buildings, and the wall is made of windows, which we opened up to hear the sea and feel the breeze. After being such greedy pigs all weekend, we both ordered a small mixed salad, which was nothing special, but nice all the same. Also, to settle our full stomachs, we enjoyed G&Ts.