Despite the Covid-19 pandemic making it look like an impossibility back in March, I managed to successfully survive my second holiday abroad of 2020. I went to Turkey with my best friend and it was absolutely brilliant.
The airport and airline staff are very strict about everyone wearing masks at all times, but as soon as you leave the airport, masks become somewhat part of an act to uphold whenever police pass. To be honest, I expected nothing less. The taxi driver from the airport had his mask round his neck, and we soon discovered from his attempt at explaining in Turkish, that the procedure there was to basically just pop them on should we encounter any police. Most other people had them tied round their arm, just in case.
When we got to our hotel, it seemed pretty basic and the hotel room safe was located downstairs in the reception area, so we were reluctant to use it. When we were shown to our room, we soon realised that we definitely would have to use the safe, because the doors were paper thin and if someone so pleased, they could probably just walk straight through it, even at an average pace.
We arrived quite late so we just put our bags down and went straight out. We headed towards Marmaris beach, which is where all of the bars are. I am really trying to narrate this for you as best I can, but to be honest we went into a bar called Batman and I can’t remember a great deal after that.
The next day however, we woke up surprisingly early and went down to the beach for breakfast at about 9am. We went back to the hotel pool after getting a few pictures on a swing in the sea. One of the bar staff came over to us and showed us some pretty interesting pictures of us in the pool from the previous night and it started to make sense why I had woke up soaking wet.
We got chatting to a really nice woman who was staying at our hotel with her young daughter. She invited us to go to a bar called Tigers with her at 3pm, so we went and met her there. When we arrived there was quite a bit of laughter followed by some more interesting footage of us dancing like actual lunatics on the stage which we also couldn’t recollect. I honestly would have put money on that I’d never been in that bar in my life. Then just to top it off another barman came over with a bar bill of 98 lira which we apparently ran off without paying the night before. So far so good.
When we were in bars there was absolutely no music allowed to be played after 12am and no one seemed to break this particular rule. The police were always patrolling near the beach so whenever the bar staff got the signal, the entertainment on the stage and people standing up dancing would be asked over the microphone to kindly sit down and act natural. All of the staff would then position their masks over their face until the police had cleared the vicinity.
Anyway, aside from that wild first night and my kidneys nearly packing in by the third day, I had a cracking time. Turkey is a really beautiful place which when I sobered up for five minutes, I noticed. We went on a boat trip where I jumped off the side and I really enjoyed swimming in the sea. Prior to this holiday, I’d avoided swimming in the sea as I didn’t realise I could swim as well as I can. I saw a lovely sunset on that boat which I enjoyed with my sixth bottle of corona.
There are some really nice restaurants in Marmaris too. We kept revisiting this one called Pukka because the food was just delightful. The people are really friendly in Marmaris and I don’t just mean the Turks. We met some really nice Brits too, everyone we spoke to was lovely. I was ready to come home by the end of the week because of all of the drinking and late nights, but I would love to revisit. I can’t wait ’til there are more destinations I can travel to without restrictions, hopefully before the end of the year!
Life Of Hols 