Marmaris

There are two schools of thought about Marmaris:
1. It has a cool yacht harbor;
OR
2. It's a completely soul-less place that attracts Euro-trash like a Josh Groban concert draws very nice middle-aged ladies.

Let's back up a bit. I woke up that morning and it was raining very hard. There was no poınt going to the beach, because it doesn't work so good when there' no sun. This is what it looks like:

Yeah, not welcoming. I decided to go to Marmaris instead. It's about two hours away by bus. When I got to Ortaca, the local bus hub, it was raining so hard that I couldn't see more than 15 feet in any direction. Once out of Ortaca, the weather moderated. By the time I arrived in Marmaris, it was downright pleasant. Honestly, there's nothing to see but the harbor and all the ships (believe me - I walked from one end of the town to the other), so here they are:




So there's the yacht harbor. And if you're not mega-rich disco-hopping Euro-trash, you'll probably need something to do at night. You can go see this movie:

It's Dear John. You might like it more if you're a teenage girl. Anyhow, there were gangs of British tourists who had been paroled from this ship that was cruising the Greek isles, so this was their first (and probably last) brush with Turkish hospitality. It was particularly hard-sell. For some reason, they totally left me alone. Maybe I looked too poor or I wasn't pale or fat (Did I mention that the British are quite fat these days? That's right, I dıd. Well it bears repeating.) enough to look British, so I was invisible to them. Most of the hard-selling going on was for harborside restaurants. Turkish guys would just be out front trying to generate business. And then there was the yacht harbor, but in general the place was quite uninspiring. After two hours, I was ready to go.

Coming back, Ortaca was again in the midst of a downpour, but Dalyan was non-torrential. Funny thing, this is the first substantial rain I've seen in Turkey in five visits. The locals say that it won't be the last.