Dalyan 1

I left the relatives and headed to Odessa for my flight.  This meant taking the overnight train.  I've had some really bad experiences in that department in the past.  This time, however, things were pleasant enough even though one guy in my compartment had some kind of sinus condition that made his nose whistle.  I slept quite poorly and that's really nobody's fault.  The train arrived and luckily I spent almost no time in Odessa.  Longtime readers know of my dislike for that city, so we won't get into it.  The airport was chaos and they made me give up the cognac that Couin Lyuba gave me.  It was a nice gift, but I gotta tell ya, I'm not a cognac drinker.  But the two gals at the Turkish Airlines desk were, so they got a bottle apiece.  The flights (Odessa-Istanbul, Istanbul- Dalaman) were slightly bumpier than I would have liked, but I got there.  If you'll recall, I had this serious falling out with the cab drivers at Dalaman Airport the last time I was there and ended up marching 6km to the Dalaman bus station with all my gear.  This time I thought that I would be able to get at least one of my former fellow passengers to split a cab ride with me.  But the sad fact is that almost everyone was arriving on some sort of packaged deal and was thus not amenable to my offer.  I was then at the mercy of the cab drivers.  I approached their leader.  He was a tall, thin, quick chain-smoker who had a prominently brown front tooth, but the rest of his teeth were a dazzling yellow.  We argued - or rather I did.  He dismissed my attempts to bargain without pissing me off.  In the end, I settled for the exorbitant $42 ride to Dalyan.  In no time, I arrived at my favorite hotel and was given my favorite room.  It was dark, so this was my view the next day:

Yeah, rock tombs, baby!  Absolutely lovely! 

I crossed the river and followed the road for a ways.  It ended at this little harbor.  There was nobody around. 

But hey, more rock tombs!  These aren't as elaborte as the ones closer to town, but they're still super-old - probably around 2,400 years or so. 

On the way back, I took this very long shot ofthe ruins at Kaunos.  Yeah, not much happening here.  Last time I visited, I saw a kangaroo rat!  It was the highlight of my whole trip. 

The next day, I went to the local thermal baths.  First, you coat yourself in mud, let it dry, rinse it off and take a dip in the hot springs.  They smell like rotten eggs!  All kinds of groups stop in.  I believe this one was French.  Overall, they didn't look all that bad.  Once again, the worst-looking foreigners are still the British.  Fortunately, they're not pictured.  Let's put it like this: if you don't exercise, eat nothing but potato chips, get no sunlight, commission a few awful and blurry tattoos, you would look like your average British tourist.  I actually met a British couple who were travelling independently and they were quite the exception-that-proves-the-rule.    

And on the way back, there were goats. 

After a day of tanning/burning at the beach, I went on the "two waterfalls" tour.  This is the first one.  It's real and it was reasonably warm, yet refeshingly cool.   

This is the second one.  It is fake and it was mega-cold.  I was the only one of the group that swam in it.  Everybody else was drinking beer like smart people.  Once I started to get hypothermia, I got out.  I spent the rest of the day thawing.