Hello Everyone,

I thought id share my first october holiday in turkey with you seeing as im having trouble sleeping and im bored :p

This was the third time we had been to marmaris this year and we were expecting the weather to be a little better than it was, to be honest apart from one really nice day we had rain, clounds and that fantastic storm (which was totally amazing to watch).

We booked with Goldtrail because of cost only, I had already read up all the bad reviews about Club Happy Days where we stopped but decided to press ahead anyway simply because the price was unbelievably cheap just £100 per person with everything included SC, and 2 appartments.

We arrived in Marmaris at 5am on 6th October which, tried to get some sleep but as with many people the excitement of being on holiday and the flight transfers and becomming accustomed to your home for the next two weeks became to much so we went for a wonder around.

We had visited in May and found the nights to be quiet cold but it wasnt at all cold when we arrived in october, id guess it was around 18oC at 5am. Walking around we could see that alot of buildings were now empty, hotel pools emptied and units for rent/sale as it is the end of the season, we expected this.

In our last trip in August we ventured out having arrived on the same flight and got to our hotel at 5am to see all the turkish people hosing down paths and preparing for the days business, but this time there was a noticable lack of people around.

One thing that we did notice is that there was alot of drunken yobs about, something which I had not seen before, perhaps it was because we were futher back in Armutalan than we had previously been but it became quiet disturbing hearing bottles being smashed and seeing violence on an hourly basis on an evening, my conclusion is that Goldtrail probably attracted these types because our hotel (prison) was full of the inconsiderate dole scrounging scurge.

As the day started, businesses started to run, the Dolmus started we took a trip down the the centre, which was busy with Turkish workers and family doing there shops at Tansas but very few tourists. A walk to the Netsel marina we noticed the parade of Cafes that front the Castle were all empty appart from the occasional couples, watching people sitting on the sea front fishing.

Unfortunatly the weather was not as predictable as it had been previously, it was much like england and remained mostly overcast throught the two weeks, even when we had our blue sky we could see and hear thunder and lighting in the distance teasing us all the time.

As I said before we were present during the large storm in which Greece bore the brunt, and it was worth going just to see that because the chances of me ever seeing something as beautiful again is remote.

We were eating our evening meal (i forget the time) at our friends Restrant which lies just next to Green Park Appartments (Sidewalk Bar and Restraunt) when the rain started. We did have alot of rain through our holiday so it wasnt unexpected or unusual, about 30mins after the rain we got some rather violent blasts of winds, these were causing damage to everything not tied down, sun-umbrellas from Green Park became airborne, sun blinds began swinging violently and genuine fakes started flapping around, it was then that the workers in the shops and restraunts rushed to batten down the hatches, we were ushered upstairs indoors out of harms way while workers struggled to secure everything for the impending storm.

As darkness fell the lightning began, both sheet and forlk lighting occuring at least every minute, thunder far behind as the storm seems to concentrate on the mountains around us (luckily). An hour after that and the lighting became constant, the sky flashing for hours upon hours every second like strobe lights in a nightclub, with it came rain, rain that I have never seen before, the canals were overflowing, roads became rivers, think mud and sludge replaced the tiled and marble floors of nearly all ground floor buildings.

We were taken home by a friends friend who luckily had a diesel car which was able to drive down the rivers of roads to find the hotel swimming pool had increased in size, it now encompased the entrance to the lobby, they also had a lovley feature which was a 5story waterfall which were previously the staircase, water gussing like some big screen movie flood scene, maids with thousands of towels rushing to dry it up as guests congregated in the bar downstairs for a drink and shelter.

We decided to take the elevator to our 4th floor apparments (foolishly) when the power went, this had been happening all night and it was our own stupidity not to realise that when we entered the elevator, however the outage was only around 5 minutes before we resumed our trip upwards.

We entered our apparment to find it too had become a water feature, water gushing in from the balcony, our electric had also tripped.

Enough of the storm, to the hotel and goldtrail......

Ill cut a long story short here, the hotel was utter rubbish, it was more like a prison, riddled with problems some of the deadly serious.

The bed was damaged in our apparment, it was infact broken in two, it was scrap and could not be used. I approched the hotel manager and the Goldtrail rep was present and told him very politley of the problem. His response was to "F Off" (work cut out for obvious reasons). The rep was not bothered or suprised or willing to do anything about his responce, and the upshot of it is that my partner and I spent two weeks sleeping on a single bed which as you can imagine was not pleasant.

Problems aside we did have a great holiday thanks to our friends at the Sidewalk Restraunt. My partners 21st birthday was celebrated with style, My partner proposed to me, we had many good nights out and I increased my knowledge of Turkey, its Language and its weather.

We are considering going over for New Years but if not we are going to take an extended holiday of at least a month next season.

Thankyou for reading

Phil and Marcus
iyi aksamlar