Bodrum. Part 3.

Bodrum. Part 3.

"Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na - Baby Give It Up, Give It Up, Baby Give It Up!"

So our first full day had been a good introduction to Bodrum. We’d learned roughly where things were and such, and had our first meal and look around etc. On our next day, we had the boat trip to look forward to – something we had booked the day beforehand. One of the stand-out points to make about this trip was that it only cost 10Lira. That’s approximately £4.. sterling. Just typing that now doesn’t sound right, perhaps it was 20lira. But still, it was dead cheap, and I therefore felt there was some hidden catch about the trip.

One great thing about the trip was that all 12 of us went along. Woop. We had to meet at the tourist shop/area where we had booked it, and it was quite an early meet-up (well for me, and probably Sean, Chris, Steve, Paul, Ian etc). If I remember correctly, myself and some of the other guys were late leaving and were the last ones to reach the meeting point. Close shave! From here, a guy told us to follow him to the boat. We went down many side streets and alleyways and I wondered whether this was actually the trip, or that he’d just take us down a dead-end then mug us all. It was absolutely swelteringly hot – a few of us stopped off on the walking-bus to get water, but I didn’t (mistakably). We eventually made it to the dock, and were instructed to go on one boat, but then another, and then finally told which one we had to go on. As we walked on, there was a man holding a bin-liner and everyone ahead of us had taken off their flip-flops and put them inside it. We all did the same, even though I made the point that he hadn’t actually asked for them. For all we knew, he could’ve been taking the trash off the boat, and we’d all given him a nice array of footwear. Either that or this was the hidden catch behind the 10/20lira cost!

We sat there waiting to set off from the dock and we were all reluctant to talk or move too much because doing so would use up any energy left that the sun had already drained. I remember Sean repeatedly saying how much he was sweating. I think we all were! In the end, the boat got going and for a while most of us stayed on the bottom part with the roof over our heads, mainly because it was ridiculously hot. After a while, we all found our way to the top and it was awesome – they had quite a few cushion-type-long-pillow-things which we all lay on and took in our surroundings. I’m not sure at what point it came on, but there was also mega music speakers at the back of the boat (where we had positioned ourselves) which pumped out some tunes that we’d never heard and were clearly national favourites – but it was ridiculously loud and every so often it would POP and go off and then come back on making everyone jump. Especially whoever was closest to it at the time – many a time this would’ve been Paul reading his book. He was not happy!

Our first stop-off on the trip was.. well I can’t remember, but it had a hot-springs part to it you had to pay for. We were also allowed off to go for a quick swim in the sea which was cool, although there’s not much more to say for it. Steve brought the ball along and we bashed that around for a bit before everyone got back on the boat. The next stop was fantastic... because it was in the middle of nowhere. The boat stopped and I think someone told us we’d be here for a little while. It was in the middle of the sea, and after a little while we noticed people on other boats jumping off into the sea. I can’t remember who was first to take the plunge, but it started off the trend. I imagine it was Steve, or maybe Rob. The boat was, guess-timately, 15 feet high? But at the time, and being as I’m afraid of heights, it seemed bloody high. After a lot of peer pressure, I decided to go for it. It felt like I was falling for about 5 minutes, then after hitting the water it felt like I was under for another 5. But it was an incredible rush and I did it a couple more times before the boat moved on. All of us bar Chris (girl!) Saz (girl) and Tellie (girl) did it. Saz and Paul got some brilliant pictures of us leaping off, including this beauty from Paul, of Rob flying off the boat and into the water.

We went along to a few other nice spots on the boat trip, including one area where the sea was so clear you could basically see to the bottom. At this point, we were all fed as well, and the food was tip-top for the admission price. After eating we headed back to the top of the boat and by now the banging tunes had been pumping out for a while. I’m pretty sure ‘We Speak No Americano’, ‘Stereo Love’ and ‘Alors on Danse’ were all played. Everytime I hear ‘Stereo Love’ now it reminds me of the boat.

Before the end of the trip was upon us, we managed to get a go on a banana boat. Paul, Sean, Tellie and Ian missed out.. but at least they missed out on almost becoming blind, which I think it’s fair to say happened to a few of us. It was great fun, it’s just that the water sprayed into your face so fast that you didn’t have a chance to close your eyes at some points – it meant that a lot of the time I couldn’t see where we were going. We fell off a few times which was actually quite funny. One of these falls ended up in me falling on top of Saz. Another one ended up in Chris floating away into the distance like a puppy. Paul got some wicked snaps of us all on the boat.

It had been a lovely boat trip that had lasted the whole day basically (what a bargain!) and we ended it by posing for many photographs like typical Brits on tour. OI OI.

As part of the boat trip deal, we could also go for Turkish baths, but myself and others decided against it, as we just wanted to have a shower and chill out for a bit. It sounded good, and there was a particularly funny story Steve told, about Ryan wondering whether he should go naked or not? I probably remember it wrong. The rest of us had showers and such, then decided to go for a drink somewhere along the front. On our travels we walked past ‘Kule Rock City’ – a rock bar! It was at this point that I put forward the idea of going there later.

Once everyone got back, we went for a meal at Curly’s bar – a bar we had walked past many times already, but apparently he said that if we all went we’d get some free drinks (in the end it was wine for the girls). One of the bar staff, Ahmet, came over to us when we were eating and chatted away for ages, and as the topic got onto football, he challenged us to a game. He said there was a pitch not far away from the bar, and that they usually play at midnight, so he and his mates would give us a game in two nights time (he suggested the following night, but we were planning to go to Halikarnas). It sounded awesome, and would give us a chance to put away some of the demons that were still following us after England’s awful performance in the World Cup just a week or so before. After the meal we went back to the hotel for people to get ready/drink some more. This is where myself and Chris were lucky enough to witness Sean’s dance routine to the camp classic ‘Baby Give It Up’. It was immense.






Once lots of drinks had been sank and dances been performed, we went onto the Rock Bar where much fun was had – it was incredibly expensive but the music was spot on. From as soon as we heard ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC, we knew we’d found the right place. We took up our own little corner and rocked about for ages, jumping on tables and such, before deciding to go on to somewhere else.

Many of us were drunk by this point, most notably Sean who had gone around and given everyone a lick on the cheek, and a select few a ‘groin-grab’, including Jake and myself (at least). We drunkenly walked on for a while before finding a place where we had some sheesha. HOWEVER, before we sat down for it, a few of us needed the toilet, and this is where a moment of hilarity occurred.

I can’t really remember who else was there (sorry, bit of a hazy memory) other than Sean, Chris and myself (maybe Ian?) but we were allowed into a hotel for a wizz. After I had finished, I came out of the cubicle to wash my hands and Sean (very drunk) walked past me into the cubicle. As I was washing my hands, I heard him shouting something from the toilet and turned round, and he had a massive painting dangling over the side of the door. We all burst out with laughter, and he was saying, in a high-pitched voice “take it! take it!” so I tried to, then he screamed “Nooooooo!” and grabbed it back. We all started chanting and as me and Chris left, a guy from the hotel came towards us and told us to be quiet. It was so funny.

Not much else happened, other than an incident with the sheesha (apparently I almost started a fire which is a load of rubbish) where I knocked it and a tiny few bits flew out, one hitting my leg and it burnt a little, and another bit falling on the chairs but it didn’t do much damage. We all decided to rush off at this point though because “it was on fire!”. Bullshit.

I thought that that was it for this night, but after just looking at Emma’s pictures on Facebook, I see there was one more ‘incident’ left in the night. And a very controversial one it became. It involved Ryan sleeping, and people pulling ‘pranks’ on him whilst he was doing so, because he is a such a deep sleeper. Now, SOMEONE shaved his leg, I’m pretty sure it was Jake because there’s a picture of the shaver in his hand. But yours truly was blamed for it, even though there is no proof. Quite a telling picture of this moment (and the whole holiday) is one of Emma’s face near Ryan’s bare-naked bum. For those of you who want to see it, I’m not putting it on here. But, if you’re desperate for it, it’s here.

Next – Halikarna’s and the match!

Bodrum. Part 2.

"Is that cheese? It smells like cheese? Is it cheese?" - Me, during our first proper meal.

So, although my previous post was ‘Bodrum Part 1’, we hadn’t even arrived by its conclusion. Alas, here we are at Part 2 and I’ll go straight from when we touched down. Or at least I would if I could remember anything noteworthy from landing in Bodrum to walking to the coach that took us to our hotel. We arrived very late in the night/early morning. I think it was 1am or so?

One thing to note was that our bus driver had a massive nose.

The coach trip was interesting – we had some Thomas Cook lady harping on about bug spray, temperatures, and the fact we weren’t allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet (I anticipated problems for Jake and Ryan’s room). I wasn’t listening that intently really, I was more just chuckling at the driver, whose seat was bouncing up and down in a very comic fashion.

There were a few other people on the coach but only couples – we were the only big group there. The bus driver stopped off at another hotel before they took us to ours. The hotel we had to stop at prior to ours looked incredible – it had a tennis court, a gym, a couple of swimming pools if I’m not mistaken, and it looked generally expensive and new. The ‘Red Lion Hotel’ would be different to say the least...

After we left the modern, lovely hotel, we reached our home for the week. The bus driver stopped abruptly, and I think we all thought the same thing. “This is us?!”. He had stopped in a pretty narrow sidestreet, and looking around, we saw a neon sign, that read ‘Red Lion’. It looked pretty crap, but to be fair we couldn’t actually see the hotel from the road. As we walked off the bus I’m pretty sure we all avoided the ‘voluntary tip’ in the pot the driver had left. It didn’t matter though as he was outside lugging our suitcases onto the pavement. So we had made it. Now, onto the hotel!

We dragged our suitcases along a little bit until we saw a man in a shed-like outside building, watching some TV. His English wasn’t great which caused a few problems – though we were in Turkey and we hadn’t bothered to learn any Turkish properly! We hadn’t even got into our rooms and somehow we had all paid up loads – the majority of us being about 50lire lighter after providing room deposit and air conditioning. Already, I wasn’t sure about this place. We walked through the pool-area after receiving our keys, and to be fair, it looked awesome – the pool maybe being a bit smaller than the one in Fuengirola, but a better shape for our ‘Ball Game’.

Me and Sean were sharing a room, Steve and Chris opposite, Saz and Emma along a bit with Paul and Ian just across from them, then with Rob, Tellie, Ryan and Jake all downstairs. Me and Sean got in our room and eventually figured out how to use the lights. The room was quite small (smaller than Fuengirola, so that’s Fuen 2, Bodrum 0) but looked alright. Sean then noticed that, behind our curtains, there was a bloody walkway where other people could just look into our room – if we opened the window we’d be on other residents doorsteps! Then, being typical blokes, we looked in all the drawers to see what was on offer. There was literally nothing, bar about three glasses and a rusty little knife that looked more like a murder weapon than a piece of cutlery.

I wasn’t greatly impressed with the hotel – in my opinion it made the Veramar Apartments look like the Ritz (original simile there..). I was pretty tired and going to bed felt like a good idea, especially as it was about 2 or something, although when others suggested that we go for a wander around the area I thought “hey, it’s probably nicer than here”. As we made our way out for a nose-about, we bumped into ‘Kermit’ – a fat Turkish fella. He was very friendly and forward and made good friends with a few of us, and suggested specific places to go and whatever. He also said he’d give us free entrance to the ‘Red Lion’ club. OOOOOOOO, exclusivity!

As we were getting ready to go for a stroll, one room was trying to overcome a problem. Chris and Steve hadn’t got the knack of the, inconsistent, key-room-card-thing. Steve ended up locking Chris and himself out of their room. He told the guy what had happened and the guy grabbed a ladder. We stood and watched the man tentatively look up at the room with the ladder propped up for about 5 minutes before Steve told us to go ahead and he’d catch up. Whilst all this was going on, a girl (she was British) was bent double over a wall, being sick over the other side. Lush.

We then left the hotel and walked down the sidestreet, which we were told went towards the sea. It was a pretty rough looking street, although by the end of the holiday we’d feel at home walking up and down it. Although at first, I think we thought we’d get attacked or knocked over by a bike. A few things happened on the walk down this street. 1) More or less every shop/restaurant/person we went past, they shouted stuff out to us, trying to get us to come and buy or eat something. We turned them all down, or just ignored them (coz we’re British innit). 2) There was suddenly a screech and a wail which made me jump out of my skin – turned round and I saw two cats having a scrap. 3) You could tell we were tourists because everytime a bike came past us we were like “woah! He almost hit me, he shouldn’t be driving in the street” (we were actually walking in the road).

We finally made it to the ‘seafront’ and all the bars, restaurants and some clubs opened up onto a view of the sea. Nightlife seemed to be one thing that they weren’t letting down on – it was bustling. And in the distance.. was the place we’d researched and knew we’d end up going to.. Halikarnas. Even though it was hundreds of yards away, it looked amazing, and it sounded immense too – we could hear the music even from that far away! We strolled along the front and (as we’d grow into) approached by sales people and restaurant owners with every step we made. Eventually Steve and Sean caught up, and we all made our way up to Halikarnas, not planning to go in, but just to see what it was like. We were joined by a stray dog that probably had multiple diseases yet most of us encouraged its company. We lived up to typical stupid British tourists though – we went the wrong way and found ourselves right by Halikarnas but seemingly at the wrong end, as there was no entrance. However, just walking past and listening to the music pumping out from the venue just made you want to move your feet to the awesome beat... or just me? We’d find ourselves there soon, and mental-ness would ensue in such a way that it deserves a whole post in dedication.

Before we made our way back to the hotel, we decided it’d be a good idea to get some water. The result of this was that we all emerged from a tiny corner shop with massive bottles of water – this being in the middle of a Friday night out for the locals, most of them in a party mood, having lots of alcohol etc. Imagine what they thought when they saw our pale crew walking down the street with bottles of water. Clearly, it wasn’t a “back to our hotel for the after party!” situation!
This pretty much summed up our arrival in Bodrum, and at this point I was thinking “It better get better”. Don’t worry, it did. It was pretty late but I’m sure Sean entertained me with some funny stories/character voices/quotes/anecdotes before we finally fell asleep. Breakfast was meant to be from 8.30 to 10.30 every morning – Sean and I agreed we’d just see what time we woke up the first morning, as we were pretty tired. Little did we know (although I kind of expected it) that we’d never have the breakfast.

The next day, as predicted above, Sean and I had a right-good lie in. I can’t remember when we actually got up, but it was well after the end of breakfast. I can’t really remember what we did during the day, but through my intuition (otherwise known as looking at pictures on Facebook) I know that Ian, Saz, Emma, Sean and I went on a walk around – this time going a different way from the previous night! On our trip we found a restaurant for that evening (quite a fancy looking one and the prices weren’t too extortionate), as well as booking ourselves a boat trip for the next day which sounded incredible (this will follow in the next post).

We had a nice ice-cream at one place we went but there wasn’t much more craziness going down. We went back to the hotel and finally got some pool time in – and started our epic ‘ball-game’. Not before having our first shots of the holiday though, as weird as it felt being the middle of the day and all. This could’ve been an excuse for our performance in the pool with the ball - You could tell we hadn’t played it properly for about a year as we were nowhere near our old form. The record still stands at 97 from Fuengirola, and I think the furthest we got this time round was in the 50s. Appalling, although I think it could be unanimously agreed that it was due to certain people acting like they were swatting a massive bee rather than hitting a ball. To add to this, Kermit was bombing into the pool every five minutes or so and lifting people up on his shoulders – it was like the football equivalent of a streaker, only with bigger boobs (don’t worry, even if he could get on this from my Facebook beforehand, I’ve deleted him anyway).

After knocking about in the pool for a while, we got out, played a bit of pool and then went off down the much-used street, searching for somewhere to watch the Germany V Argentina game. We found a place called ‘Bobbys’ and ended up making good friends with the guys working there – especially a young fella who talked about football to us for a while. Germany ended up winning convincingly, luckily for me (I wanted them to win for betting purposes). After the game we went back to the hotel for a bit before going out for our meal. The food was good, although this was my first ENCOUNTER WITH CHEESE.

ENCOUNTER WITH CHEESE NUMBER 1: I ordered chicken, it didn’t say anything about cheese, but I’m pretty sure that the yellow dollop of the side was cheese. To be safe, I let others try it, though they seemed undecided on whether it was cheese or not.

After our meal we went back to the hotel and began the drinking. We played ring of fire, and many “God Save the Queen”’s were sung! After a significant amount of alcohol was drunk, we left our, now more homely, hotel, following Kermit’s steps towards the ‘Red Lion’ club, situated back on the seafront. As we approached the club it was absolutely empty, though pretty busy outside. Not a great sign of a ‘thriving’ club. We went in and Kermit got us all some free shots (free entry seemed to be for everyone anyway).

After the shots were drunk, the boogying began, and in some style! Kermit made us all ‘strut our stuff’ one-by-one in the middle of the circle – it was pretty funny, and we were clearly pulling some wicked shapes because the dance floor suddenly became busy. This is where my recalling becomes a bit hazy, as it will in a few instances during my Bodrum posts, as drinking continued even at the club. The only two other things I really remember of note were: A) A man asked Emma if she wanted a drink, and when she said yes, he came back with one and demanded 10lire off her; B) I told Ryan to get us a shot of something, and he said “Baileys?” and I said “OK” but ended up getting glasses of Baileys – I think it set me back about 25lire!!!! And it was disgusting.


We decided enough was enough after a while and slumbered home.

When we got back Steve and myself were hungry, so went to the poolside bar and the guy was kind enough to make us a sandwich. I don’t remember why or how this happened, but Ryan was just in his parachute pants out by the pool and I took a photo. I’m pretty sure it was at this point that I decided to call it a night and head back to the room for some sleep. It was a good first night out, but it would certainly get better...

Bodrum. Part 1.

I've decided that, for my posts on Bodrum, it's probably best to split them up a bit as I have quite a bit to say. This first one covers our time before we even got there...

“I Love Bodrum, Let’s Live Here” – Emma Millard

I think she had it spot on when she said this on only the first full day in Turkey. It was a brilliant holiday, with lots of unforgettable moments and once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and it shall never be forgotten.. and it won’t be because I’m going to recall it all as best as I can in this post right now.
So, starting from the beginning...

Well, I guess it’s best to start from the very beginning. Organisation, to be fair, isn’t our strongest quality. Yes, I can take a lot of credit for setting up the holiday, but when it came to the actual travelling to the airport, we were already in uncomfortable territory. For some reason, although all twelve of us were getting the same flight from the same airport, we ended up all getting to Gatwick in different ways/times. Rob, Steve and Tellie managed to get a lift (fair enough on them) to the airport, whilst the rest of us went for a train from Chippenham, changing at Reading to a line that went straight into Gatwick airport. However, even the nine of us managed to split up. Sarah-Jane, Emma, Jake and Ian took a train an hour earlier than us. At the time, Paul, Sean and myself (at this point Ryan and Chris were getting a lift to the airport) thought this was unnecessary as we had ages to get to the station. Ryan and Chris eventually decided to get a train and chose for the same one as us. Ahh I remember the time now as well, 12.20 to Reading. When we got to the station excitement was rushing through us. We walked through the automatic doors, looked up at the train times and... SHIT!!! There was a terrifying, highlighted blue bar through ‘our’ train, noting that it was “cancelled”.

Paul, being the sensible one, didn’t seem moved at all, but I was already panicking. I went across to the train dude and told him the situation, but he said we could use our tickets on the next one. I calmed down. We still had about 5 hours left. We would be fine. Although I knew Sarah-Jane would have something to say!

See, we hadn’t even left Chippenham and there was already drama. And that’s not it! As we waited (about an hour!) for our train to finally take us away from Chippenham, we sat inside the ‘greenhouse’ waiting room. We were being quite yobbo-y and messing around and such, when Paul started talking to me. I can’t remember what the subject was, but I was getting into it quite seriously when Sean, Ryan and Chris started going “Alex!” and shouting at me. I thought they were just being mental, like “waaaaaay Alex!” so I was like “hang on..” but then they pointed behind me... and oops! I had, somehow, knocked over a whole cup of coffee or tea and it was pouring out all over the floor. Yobs on tour... and we hadn’t even left Chippenham!

There would still be more drama before we even reached the airport. Once we got to Reading, we had a little wait for the Gatwick transfer, but we still wanted to rush to the platform to check what time it was coming in (obviously, because we had taken a later train, we wanted to make sure there weren’t going to be any difficulties). As we started walking along the platform in a bit of a rush, there was a loud ‘clanging’ and we all turned round to see Ryan holding a piece of metal, and his suitcase slumped on the floor. It may not sound funny, but it was hilarious, and I needed to capture the moment.

The rest of the train journey went by without much to mention, I got a texts and a phone call from the other groups who had all already got there and told me to “hurry up!”. There was no rush so I don’t know what her problem was. She (Saz) then rang me a bit later on saying they had gone through check-in and they had left the rest of the tickets (our tickets) behind one of the counters. This seemed a bit weird.

When we got to the airport we were sent to a different number counter than the one Saz had said to go to, and I explained what she had told me. The woman at the counter stated that “They don’t usually hold back tickets”. Great, I thought. We weren’t even going to get on the plane thanks to people wanting to rush through to the shops. She seemed quite persistent but eventually went across and got our tickets off an old man. We went through and saw the other guys, and after a minute of explaining why we were late, we were all sorted! I remember me and Ryan playing on guitar hero for about a minute in the little arcade area, and that Sean, Chris and Steve were watching a bit of the Netherlands V Brazil game in one of the pubs, but it wasn’t long before we had to board our flight.

Once we finally got through the last stage of waiting, we were in the big waiting room (I can’t remember the official name) and something wasn’t right. We were supposed to have been called up to board but no-one had said anything. Then, a voice spoke out on the speakers, explaining that a “part” of the plane was faulty, and that they had to send off for a new one. About twenty minutes later the same woman said that the “part” was on its way, but the driver was stuck in traffic. A few of us immediately thought of a typical builder, probably named Dave, driving down in his van with a rusty “part” for the plane. It helped time move along to be honest. After about an hour of delay, we finally boarded the plane, happily saying goodbye to cold England.

Seating wise, it went like this:

Rob Tellie Jake....
Emma Saz Me .... RyanChrisSteve

I hope you understand this as it’s VITALLY IMPORTANT. Not really, it’s not important at all. The only things to really mention about the flight were that:

A) I found it terrifying taking off.
B) I watched the whole one-and-a-half-hour last episode of ‘LOST’ on my iPod.
C) I didn’t realise at the time, but during the flight, Emma and Saz were actually getting sloshed.

My next post will focus on our arrival in Bodrum, our first venture around the area, and our first night out! Stay tuned.