Thursday, October 16, 2014

Bus Tour of Turkey


So my Turkish friend convinced me to go on a bus tour of southeast Turkey with him and his wife. They had done a similar tour around four years ago and had enjoyed it. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, especially since the tour was for Turks thus everything would be in Turkish, but I took his advice and went along. The price was good as well (I'm going to guess that foreign tourists get charged more for similar tours).

Well the trip was a blast and I'm really glad that my friend convinced me to go. We met all sorts of great people on the tour and had a lot of fun. As expected I was the only person in the group who did not speak Turkish but some of the travelers could speak a little bit of English and I had brought a Turkish-English dictionary for the occasional translation. In addition, some were Iraqi Kurds who could speak both Turkish and Arabic so I got to practice my Arabic a bit. Iraqi Kurds . . . man, if I lived in the Kurdish area of Iraq right now I’d try to go on as long a vacation as possible. They didn’t say anything about the war with ISIS and I didn’t ask – I’m sure they wanted to get away from thinking about that.

Anyway, here’s a brief picture summary of what we did on the 8-day tour:


Duden waterfalls near Antalya, also did some whitewater rafting nearby.


The amphitheater at Aspendos


Boat cruise near Demre


Another boat cruise the next day near Gocek, visiting some islands.


A morning at the Blue Lagoon in Oludeniz


Visiting the ghost town of Kayakoy (a Greek town until the residents had to move due to the Turkey-Greece split in the 1920s)


And only a trendsetter like me can pull off wearing a swimsuit with a long-sleeve shirt and non-matching cap. ;)



A cruise and beach visit in the Dalyan delta.


Visit to the famous beach of Cleopatra Island, as well as visiting the Greek and Roman ruins nearby.



Some time relaxing in Bodrum



And of course occasional bursts of game playing . . .



and dancing to Turkish music



I guess it’s true what they say about travel and getting out of your comfort zone, it can be really rewarding.

2 comments:

Faikka Aikka said...

Now, I just came back to the bus tours to alexandria with my friends I had a great experience through the bus tour. Bus is the best mode of transportation. I enjoyed the turkey Sedir Island spot with the help of this. Duden water fall is a group of fall attraction situated in Antalya, Turkey. It is an ideal picnic spot that offers to amuse with Green Park with the botanic garden, tuff stone and the picturesque of the falling view

Anonymous said...

what bus tour company did you use?