Where's Basil?

What a week!  It started very well with a party last Saturday for Jan’s birthday.  The funny thing was that there were TWO other guests in the hotel with birthdays the same day so lots of celebrating and lots of birthday cake.  Here is Jan cutting hers. 

The fireworks were Cem’s idea.  I am a bit paranoid about fireworks and was worried we would set fire to the bar roof.  They were fine though and looked very nice.  We also sent up a Chinese lantern which took a while to get going but then floated off well.  Last year, Cem got obsessed with making Chinese Lanterns from bin bags, straws and birthday cake candles.  Some of them flew very well, some of them not so well – at which point Emre would be sent off on his bike to follow it and make sure it didn’t set fire to anything.

Jan, Graham and ‘the gang’ left last night.  Sorry to see them go but I know they’ll be back – this year if Jan has her way!

School finished here last week so Turkish families have started arriving on holiday.  We have had a couple of rooms in this week, though we have also had to turn some away as we had no availability for last night.

And when I say no availability – even the new roof suite was booked, which meant we spent a lot of this week trying to get it finished!  It looks great now, a few finishing touches still to be made but with the bed arriving at about 2pm yesterday and the carpenter still fitting the door at 6pm we were lucky the guests didn’t get here until 2am.

I had actually been dreading yesterday all week.  I knew it would be a frantic day as we had four rooms of British guests arriving and a group of 28 students from İstanbul.  But I could never have imagined quite how crazy it would be.

First, three of the four agency rooms arrived a night early – having made their booking from the 24^th, not thinking that 2am on 24^th counts as the night of the 23^rd!  With a bit of switching of rooms, we were able to take them early.  Wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint them as they are here for just three days on a hen weekend!  Here they are ready to go out last night; needless-to-say they caused quite a stir round Çalış.

So, that was the start of the day.  Mid-morning Kaan called me in one of his little panics, to say there was water pouring out of a pipe in the boiler room. It took a while to locate the pipe and close the valve.  Then we had to wait for the plumber.  In the afternoon, one of the main fuses blew so there was no electricity to SOME parts of the hotel and we were waiting for the electrician.  And finally the carpenter’s circular saw broke down.

It all got fixed, and the guests all arrived (some earlier than planned, and some much later!)  But felt a little like Fawlty Towers round here for a while!

Fleeing voters and flying Turks

We had elections here on Sunday but not the result we would have liked. Note I don’t say ‘the result we hoped for’ because there wasn’t much chance of it happening, but still…The party that has been in power since 2002 won again with close to 50% of the vote. Muğla (our region) is one of only seven in the country where the opposition CHP (Republican People’s Party) won.


The winning party, called the ‘Justice and Development Party’, are politically centre-right and have, admittedly, had a positive effect on the economy. However, though they claim not to be a religious party, many of their members were previously members of an Islamist party and a lot of people are afraid they will undermine the secular nature of Turkish society.

This is why issues such as the wearing of headscarves by students and government workers, to many foreigners a seemingly harmless topic, become the subject of such passion here. One of the latest topics to cause uproar is the plan for censorship of the internet. I am obviously concerned about this too though I don’t know how extensive it will be; what I do know is that it will cause a lot of discussion, protests and demonstrations.

Election day itself is quite a social event here. It is always on a Sunday as schools (and teachers) are used for the elections. I sat outside in the car while Cem’s cousin and a couple of others went in to vote (I was voting at a different place) and watched the people arrive in cars, on scooters, bicycles and on foot, hanging around to chat to friends. There was also some drama as the police had decided it would be a good time to ‘catch up with’ people on their wanted list (we’re not talking bank robbers and murderers, more people with unpaid debts or bounced cheques). We saw one man beat a hasty retreat when he found his name was on the list and one of Cem’s friends was not so lucky and spent the night in the cells.

The good news this week is that we got paid the early booking money. Don’t know whether our threats to head office had any effect but at least it came through.

Better than that, all the guests seem delighted with the newly-decorated apartments. We had a lovely couple staying last week who were booked in for last year – until Goldtrail went bust. They made it to Poppy this year and enjoyed their stay. At the moment we have two ladies, one of whom teaches swimming and says she has seen many, many pools but never one as clean as ours!

We have also had a family from South Africa staying – possibly our furthest-travelled guests. They came partly for the Enduro World Championship leg which was held here last Friday and Saturday. Emre was on duty as a marshal, entrusted with retying the plastic tape when they broke it (often) and waving a flag to attract someone when there was an accident (thankfully not so often). The winners came from Spain, Italy and Finland, with France also doing well but our South African guests, one of whom is a competitor himself, said the overall standard was very high.

There was also a performance by the ‘flying Turk’ (not Cem after a night on the vodka!) The ramps were set up in the marketplace for him to do his acrobatics. See the video below – but don’t try this at home!

Sun sun sun

The rain has gone and it’s sun sun sun from now on – over 30°C degrees (86°F  ) today.  It makes doing the laundry much easier as things dry in just a couple of hours.  Unfortunately it also makes doing the ironing harder as our press iron is in the room next to the boiler and it feels like taking a sauna.  We had a mountain of laundry today as five rooms went home, so I have been doing a bit at a time and coming out for air!

boys and Grant couldn't wait for their dinner

As we move into the busy season, we are having struggles on all sides with agencies.  Still no money from the early bookings (due on 15 May).  I have sent a mail to their central office saying that we won’t accept the discounted rate as they have broken the contract by not paying on time.  No answer yet, but I am not expecting it to be an easy battle.

Another local agency who we have a contract with but who sent exactly NO rooms all last summer, suddenly sent a booking through for two rooms for a time when I cannot accommodate them.  This is officially our mistake for not informing them to stop selling for this period, but working with several agencies who are all taking internet bookings (and sometimes cancellations)  it is hard to keep them informed of the room availability day by day.  I feel under attack as if I don’t want to stop selling early and be left with empty rooms, but if they suddenly take a booking for three rooms that we can’t squeeze in, their answer is always ‘it’s your mistake so you find alternative accommodation and pay the difference’.

We have also experienced a problem we have never had before – again I think resulting from web site sales by small and possibly not very Professional sites.  The guests we were expecting on Saturday (booked in with us from 4 June) arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning (the night of 3 June).  They had booked from 3 June – written on their booking slip – but the reservation we received was for 4 June.  We actually didn’t have a room available and had to put them into the apartments opposite for one night – not a good start to their holiday, though they are settled in here now.

On top of this, we have been having a problem with water pressure which we had never experienced before.  Various plumbers and central heating experts were called, all of whom tried something which seemed to fix the problem – until a day or two later when the pressure would drop again.  Finally, the maddest repairman in town – who we have to keep fuelled with Efes – came and found the problem…a 2m piece of metal piping linking the boiler to the hot water system was so full of limescale that only a trickle was getting through.

Hooray – heaps of hot water again.  Thankyou to our lovely guests who have been so understanding through this small drama.  Hello to Richard and Jenny who went home on Sunday (back again in the summer) and Travis who had his 12th birthday here.

Kaan and friends playing together!