TURKEY  15-22/7 1999   INFO and DIARY  

We travel by bus for an hour and a half. It goes through sun-swept fields, and pine forests with uplifting cliffs. We see some storks in fields and roofs, otherwise there are not the great nature experiences.
The hotel we arrive at, is a month and a half old, and really lovely. Our 2 bedroom apartment has everything from sunken bath over air-conditioning to a reasonably well-equipped kitchen.

We take a quick shower, and head down town. It is the most intense tourist country, I have ever experienced. Here, 22,700 natives live and around 1-200,000 tourists. There are restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, clothing stores and other tourist-oriented shops everywhere. We walk around for a while, get something to eat and then take a taxi home to the hotel: lira 1.300 = 25 kr. Relax, shower and change of clothes, then drive down to the city to attend the information meeting. Taxes 2,500,000 lire.

Two totally amateur clowns try to give us information. They stutter, mess around everything, say more uh ... than anything else. There should be food afterwards, but we flee. It's a good thing we got the whole hotel trip for less than the flight cost. In any case, we are not going on some excursions with those fools.

We find a very delicious (and expensive) restaurant and afterwards Bar Street. Here we meet Maria and Karina - the world is too small! We get a little too much PowerBull and Red Bull, so we get tired at five and take a taxi for 3,300,000 lira home. We both fall asleep, drinking energy sodas.

16. Up at 12 o'clock, down to the pool. Janus looks like something that shouldn't be alive; he is totally understated by the hangover, despite the fact that we were not very serious last night. He crawls back to bed, I'll stay by the pool for a couple of hours - in the shadows.

Wakes up Janus and lures him down to the city. We get a little McDonald to repair Janus with, and immediately he looks better - like he actually might survive. In the bazaar, we find clothing and a backgammon game. There is an incredible amount of hustlers: Hello my friend, where are you from? I get Janus to says "Russia" to avoid their Danish replies. Wrong guy he do it to: He's starting to babble loose in Russian. I say: "Niet, ne interasnie"! and then we head on giggling.

We get some sodas in the bars we pass, play backgammon by the water, shop for dinner and breakfast and drive home.
Plays a few games of backgammon before we have to cook. Suddenly a power failure exposes the food, but then we just get an hour shut eye. Chicken thighs with mushroom sauce are consumed at half eleven.

Despite Janus' recent antipathy to alcoholic drinks, we take a dolmus to Bar Street. Dolmusser is a minibus that costs only 150,000 lire and runs almost constantly.
We walk around the bars, meet Maria and Karina, and only slightly affected, we take a taxi home at four o'clock. Janus insists on renting air-conditioning.

17. Get up to a healthy and varied breakfast with corn flakes, freshly cooked eggs (cooked in the coffee pot), jam on toast and juice.
We float a bit by in the pool, play backgammon and then head down to town. Almost by accident, we find the "back side" of the city. Small narrow alleys line up between boulders and idyllic dilapidated boulders. We find a small coffee shop, overlooking the entire harbour area.

Somewhat worn, we take a dolmus home at dusk. We find a cosy restaurant where they serve spaghetti, a big air-filled bread and garlic-cucumber-curdled soup. With beverages, we manage to consume around 70 kroner combined.
After a refreshment at the hotel, we head to Bar Street. While sitting on sidewalk bars, we see many beautiful girls walking into Back-Street. Of course we do too, and then we have found the PLACE! A very large patio with massages of plants, streams and decorative decor - and a lot of beautiful girls. We quickly find out that there are only two flaws in the place: The prices at the bar, and hardly anyone will believe the following: 3-400 people 75-80% very pretty women between 18 and 25, and then they play reasonably good music! We only make each other aware of girls who are over 17 on the 10th scale. Not surprisingly, it will be late until we are home.

18. I wake up fresh at one o'clock. Janus again looks like something that is a lie. I pour some water and food into him, leaving him to Morpheus while surrendering my selves to Ra.
Janus shows up to the surface at six, now he looks almost like a human. We go down to town, chug around, eat and head home at half past one. Not surprisingly, Janus is not intoxicated. Sitting by the pool and playing for an hour before we crawl to bed.

19. We spend the morning at the pool. At 4:30 pm we are picked up by a bus, which takes us to Haman; Turkish bath. Janus had said he would try, and Julle have said I would!
When the bar girl offered me it yesterday, I said: Yes, thank you. We drive outside the city and are sent into a large building. Get rid of the clothes in the changing room, put on the slippers and look into a giant stone sauna. We are there alone, and I cannot help but use the amazing acoustics (to Janus great annoyance). It's hot - melting hot. Sweat drives of us in thigh-fat rays.

Other people come in, and then one of the employees. Janus gets laid on a hot stone bench and scrubbed over with a very scratchy sponge. Then it's my turn. Ouch, where it scratches!
Then it is out in the cold, where we get soap massage. Then follows a shower and well wrapped in towels, we get a cold soda. The next item is oil massage. Everything from toes to fingertips gets massaged and cracked. That is it, so you can easily scrub off, when you have just paid a larger fortune each.

We lure our bus driver to drive us to Hotel Romance down by the water. Here we found a tattoo artist who had some nice drawings. I get a henna "tattoo" on the right shoulder for 60 kroner.
Janus can't find one that suits him, so we head off. Finally, there is one that suits the gentleman, and then we are otherwise busy. Taxi home, fast bath and change of clothes, taxi back to the Assatyrk statue. We have to meet with a bunch of Danes for a bar crawl.

First there is dinner at an excellent restaurant. We sit down with a couple of healthy girls and tell false stories.
We are divided into two teams; the sheep and the cows. Finds battle cry, holds contests and not to forget; drink. Mexican Wave: Once the sideman gets up and empties his glass, so do you. Janus sees his cut to suck me down. The others sit with beer-chats, I always with a new 2-3 double vodka or Bailys / whiskey. People clap in beat, when I gurgle a new drink down.

Janus looks a bit pale as he pays my bare bill of 12,500,000 lira. The worst is probably that I don't seem particularly drunk.
Singing, we dance to the first bar. Suddenly, the whistle sounds and everyone throws down.
New drinks, new competitions: Clothes chains, whipped cream and what can I remember? When it's done after five bars we drive home, mostly because Janus is still embarrassingly sober. I can feel that not only have I been drinking all Janus drinks, but he (and I) have bought many more.

20. We get up at twelve, Janus almost as fresh as me. Down by the pool, then down to town to shop for some clothes. Well heated, we return to the refreshing pool. Down to the local restaurant, home to the pool to play backgammon. Have written some on the phone to Julle, Lennart and Lisa, so I'll take it to the pool. The bartender sees it and immediately falls in love. Eventually he offers 500,000,000 lira (9,000 kroner), but does not receive it.

21. After our homemade breakfast, we head down to town to shop for booze, smokes, clothes, PC games and whatever else suits our tastes. Plenty of eating and drinking breaks. We are well laden at home at sunset. In the evening we spend at the pool with backgammon.

22. We are up early, we have to drive to the airport at 9am. There have been power failures a few times, but this is the first water failure. Janus is finally so desperate, so he washes himself in a sip of drinking water from the fridge. It helps, and I get a nice hot bath. The trip home goes according to plan and we arrive in Roskilde just in time to go in the bar.

Price: 6,500 kr.