A new twist in our eye surgery story!

If you haven't read yesterday's post, you really need to do that before reading this one.

And so, given the events of Thursday, we had pretty much given up on getting the corrective eye surgery done while here in Turkey. But you never know when fate is going to change your direction in life. And so it was yesterday. What a strange story!

We had made a plan to go down to the Antalya waterfront. We had read there is a pretty waterfall and a nice waterfront park to go for a stroll. A great way to take advantage of yet another beautiful day. Temperature was 19C (66F) with clear blue sky and sunshine and no wind.

On the main highway that cuts through the city.

We easily found a parking spot and walked the short distance to the waterfall.

This water has no idea what it's in for!

What a beautiful waterfront park.

This was at about 11:15am. Not many people around, but there were a few joggers, walkers, and cyclists. But we have learned that Turkish people tend to come out after lunch. It was much busier after 1:00pm with many people out enjoying the park.

Duden Waterfall.

This is Lower Duden Waterfall. There is also an Upper Duden Waterfall, about 10 kms (6 miles) upriver. We will have to go check that one out as well!

We can definitely understand the attraction to the city of Antalya. It's a clean, modern city with a population of around a million people. It's scenic, with both a rocky coastline that you see in these photos, and a beautiful beach area to the west of the city. And a view of the snow covered mountains in the distance. 

The Saklikent ski area is only 50 kms (30 miles) away. Antalya is one of those cities where you can go skiing in the morning, and swimming in the afternoon!

Antalya coastline.

We strolled for about an hour. Ruth had brought a couple of snacks, but we had finished them she was starting to get hungry. Restaurants that choose to open are doing takeout only. I was doing okay, and would have been quite happy to go home and get something to eat there.

Ruth spotted a place across the road, so we went over to check it out.

A woman came out to help us, and she was really friendly. She spoke a little English, and asked where we were from, and we had a short conversation. She brought us some menus, and we placed the order. We almost didn't stay because it was quite a bit more expensive than what we normally have paid for this type of meal in Turkey. But we were there, and the place wasn't busy. In fact, we were the only ones there.

The woman, Yasemin, came back and sat down opposite us while the meal was being prepared. We were just talking about the other tourists who come to visit Antalya. She mentioned that a lot of people come for plastic surgery and dental work, and Ruth mentioned that we had just been to have our eyes looked at.

Yasemin says "I just had cataract surgery last week".

So of course, we started questioning her. She is younger than us, and only needed to have one eye done due to a problem with only that eye. We got to talking about money, and she had paid 7,000 lira ($1,175 CAD, $$920 USD) to have it done. This is less than half of what we had been quoted at the eye hospital we had been at the day before!

Now, maybe she needed a different type of surgery, who knows... of course you want to be comparing apples with apples.

So I asked her for the information of the doctor who she was dealing with. She went and got his card from her purse, and then she says "do you want me to call him?".

And so she did. The next thing you know, I'm talking on her phone to the doctor, and he speaks perfect English.

I explained what we wanted done, and what the price was at the last place. We joked a little bit about "tourist prices", but he said the place we went is well known in the industry to be expensive for both tourists and locals alike.

He said "I will give you the Turkish price, not the tourist price, and it is 18,000 lira ($3,000 CAD, $2,350 USD) total for both eyes per person."

The other place had wanted 30,000 lira. A huge difference in cost.

We have appointments with him at 3:00pm Monday afternoon!

When we got home, I did some research on the doctor. Suffice to say, he knows what he's doing and has completed over 12,000 eye surgeries. He studied in both California and Europe, and worked at quite a few clinics and hospitals before taking the big step to open his own clinic here in Antalya in July of this year!

The whole way home, all I could think of was how odd it is that these little interactions you have with people along the way can change your life. I mean, what if I had insisted we go home for something to eat? What if we had decided the restaurant was too expensive? What if this really nice lady Yasemin had not brought up the dental and plastic surgery comment? What are the odds that we randomly met someone who just had lens surgery done last week??

I guess it was meant to be.

The main street by the waterfront park has a walking path, and a cycling path.

Why are people walking on the cycling path? We have no idea.

Fishing!

He better hope he doesn't hook a big one!

And here we are into another weekend already. Five days of freedom, and two days of lockdown. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Record low deal on this Kodak Film and Slide Scanner to digitize all of your old slides.

And in Canada...

Take-apart Dinosaur Toys