First impressions of Turkey

As I write this, we have been in Turkey (country #39 for us!) for a total of about 7 hours.

And our first impressions are that we are really going to like Turkey!

Let's back up a little bit to our overnight stay at London's Gatwick airport. We had booked a cheaper and better than expected room at the Premier Inn Hotel located right across the street from the airport terminal.

The room itself cost us a total of £35 ($60 CAD, $45 USD) for what turned out to be a very worthwhile expenditure.

Not that we watched it much, but the TV was a bit small for the room.

Certainly suitable enough facilities for the money.

The view from the top (10th) floor.

Can you see that it's raining? Yes, welcome to London!

When we checked in, we were told that because we had just arrived from Canada that we would have to quarantine in our room until we departed in the morning. We knew this in advance, but it made no sense that we were allowed to sit in their coffee shop for lunch without any quarantine necessary until we actually checked in. There is no logic to some of this stuff. Also, it doesn't seem to make sense to us that Canada is still on the quarantine list for arrivals in the UK when Canada's numbers are less than the UK numbers. 

But whatever... those are the rules so we follow them to the best of our ability.

Because of our short term quarantine, we had to order room service for our dinner. We each ordered exactly the same thing... chicken curry, a shrimp (prawn) cocktail salad, and a glass of red wine. The total bill for the food cost almost the same as the room.

But, the curry really was delicious... we thoroughly enjoyed the meal, even if we had to eat it out of a cardboard box!

Dinner is served.

After dinner, we had a really nice phone call with Ruth's cousin Helen and her husband Tony. They live only a couple of hundred kms (125 miles?) from Gatwick and we were really hoping to see them again on this trip, but Covid meant it was not going to happen. Still, we look forward to the next time we see them!

We actually had a pretty good sleep. Considering the time change and the fact that we had to get up at 4:30am, we slept not bad.

We got up on time and made our way to the terminal and though security. There were 10 different easyJet flights all leaving between 7am and 8am, and we were on one of them. So the bag dropoff area was pretty busy, but the terminal itself was not bad.

Canadians require a visa to enter Turkey. It costs $60 USD ($79 CAD) and the fee is billed and charged in U.S. dollars. 

I had read on the Turkish government website that Canadians could purchase it on the Turkish Government eVisa website, or you could purchase it upon arrival in Turkey. I had also read that some people had been charged a cheaper price upon arrival, so that was our plan. easyJet disagreed with me on that, and forced us to buy it online just as the plane was boarding. I didn't argue with them, but it did cut things a little close. Fortunately the internet was quick and the website was working properly... or so we thought.

The flight was uneventful, and perhaps 70% full. Other than some entertainment watching some of the people deal with the mask issue. Whether you agree with the rules or not, it's such a simple thing to just follow them. Or don't fly. That's your choice right now. Some people want to fly and not follow the rules. We felt sorry for the flight crew. You could tell they were getting frustrated with some people.

Our flight route.

You can see that our route took us right over Switzerland. And as we passed that area, we had clear skies and a beautiful view of the Swiss alps.

Our view of Switzerland.

One of the Greek islands.

Turkey!

We arrived at 1:40pm, with another two hour time change compared to London. We are now 7 hours ahead of eastern time in North America.

We made our way through border and customs into Turkey, and Ruth's eVisa went through fine. But mine was a problem. Despite the PDF file that I showed the guard with the proper authorization number, it would not come up in his system. 

It took us a half an hour to get it sorted out, to which the guard replied "system problem" in his broken English which is many words better than our pretty much non existent Turkish! 

We found a row of ATMs and took out some Turkish lira cash.

Then we found the bus to town and paid the 23 liras ($3.81 CAD, $2.90 USD) each fare for the 45 minute bus ride to the Fethiye bus terminal.

The bus was less than half full.

Scenery along the way.

As we were getting close to the terminal, we saw a TurkCell customer service center and once we got off the bus we walked back there to get a Turkish SIM card for the phone. The place was pretty busy, but we were fortunate to get a friendly guy who answered "yes" when I asked if he spoke any English!

We bought a one month prepaid SIM card package with a minutes, texts, and a 20GB internet package for 120 lira ($19.90 CAD, $15.5 USD). Cheaper than Mexico!

Then we walked the 3 kms (1.8 miles) mostly uphill to our Airbnb apartment rental. The temperature was a beautiful 27C (81F) so we were dripping with sweat by the time we made it up there... but we needed some exercise!

The master bathroom.

The master bedroom.

The 2nd bathroom.

The living room.

The living room.

Ruth, checking out the kitchen.

It even has a dish washer!

Looking down on our shared swimming pool from the apartment.

Our balcony.

Washing machine.

All of this, for only 170 lira ($28 CAD, $21 USD, £16.50, €18) per night. That's probably fairly high by Turkish standards, but we were in a rush and this looked good to us. 

We are QUITE happy and may extend our stay at this location to two weeks instead of one!

We relaxed for an hour and then set out to put some stuff in the fridge. I found a grocery store 700 meters (almost half a mile) away and we walked down to get enough supplies for a night, including a bottle of wine and a couple of beers. We needed them! 

The view from our balcony at dusk.

We have more to tell you, but it will have to wait until tomorrow! But based on first impressions, we are really going to like Turkey!

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