A time to slap

Here comes Christmas, sneaking up on us again.  I thought I was so well-prepared this year.  I bought some new Christmas decorations last January when we went to Budapest – the capital of Christmas decorations.  I bought the main presents for the boys in Canada, as well as lots of little stocking fillers, and advent calendars in London on the way back.  I even had crackers and things left from last year.  But suddenly there are only 2 days left and I have to do wrapping, marzipan and ice two cakes, make stock for gravy (Jamie Oliver has a lot to answer for)…..and I just had a message from Kaan’s school to say they have picked tomorrow for a parents meeting.  They always do this – tell you the day before, as though none of the mothers have jobs or anything else to do – and then they really shame you if you don’t go to them.

I do notice that most of this running round, stressing and icing cakes at 3am is done by mums.  Most of the men I know look very smug and say they are nearly ready – when all they’ve actually done is buy three presents, helped fix the Christmas tree lights and got through the firm’s Christmas drinks!

baubles from Budapest - the one on the left is a blown egg-shell

The other evening, for the first time EVER, I watched ‘It’s a wonderful life’.  It is always listed as the best Christmas film ever – and though it’s pretty corny I did like the discussion going on in heaven and Clarence the (rather bumbling) angel, and I love those wobbly old movie sets!  The boys just couldn’t believe I wanted to watch a film that was SO old.

Here is another story that amused me when I read it this week.  It is quite seasonal as it concerns St Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, who was born at Patara and became Bishop of Myra, not very far from here.  By the way, Cem once rued the fact that while Finland makes a lot of money from the Santa business, his real home was virtually unknown.  Since then, Myra has become a popular place for ‘pilgrimages’, mainly with Russians (St Nicholas is apparently ‘big’ in the Orthodox church); last summer when I drove through Demre (the modern town on the site) I hardly recognized it.

Holly getting ready for Christmas

Anyway, this story concerns Nicholas’ supposed attendance at the First Nicean Ecumenical Council in 325AD.  This was a sort of conference, organized by the Emperor Constantine in Iznik near Constantinople.  Over 300 bishops attended from all over the Christian world to discuss some of the finer points of Christian belief, particularly whether Jesus was equal in status to God.  Nicholas, who believed he was, got so angry with Arius, who believed he wasn’t, that he is said to have slapped him!

For this very unbishoply behaviour, Nicholas had his bishop’s clothes taken from him and was put in jail pending a decision as to his fate.  However, in the night Jesus and Mary came and gave him a copy of the Gospel and a stole so that in the morning he was found to be dressed once more as a bishop.  When Constantine heard, he was so impressed by the miracle that Nicholas was released.

By the way, though his bones were taken from the church in Myra to Italy, his FIRST tomb is thought to have been on Gemiler Island – the small island between Fethiye and Oludeniz.  There was a monastery on this island so maybe he died while visiting there?  Not sure of the details (Japanese archaeologists were excavating there for a few years but I haven’t seen much sign recently) but that is why it is often called St Nicholas Island.

Hope he brings you what you want – and not a slap – this Christmas!

Two very cute Santas - who will kill me for putting this on!

Changes to Calis

As there is a ban on most building work here in the summer, as soon as the season ends work starts everywhere.  Some of it is small-scale – people having their rooves fixed, hotels doing repairs and renovations – but there is also new building going on.  I have noticed several plots where new villa or apartment complexes have been started.

Barut Sensatori 'swim-up'

But there is a bigger change going on in Calis.  This summer saw the opening of our first five-star hotel, Barut Sensatori.  I stayed at a Barut Hotel in Antalya a couple of years ago and it was beautiful and stylish and though not as large, I’m sure the Barut in Calis is equally impressive. However, as it is situated in ‘Koca Calis’ (way along the beach), it isn’t visible from the main beach and its guests do not really visit the centre of the resort.  The hotel provides a boat service so they can go to Fethiye to shop or have lunch (though as they all stay ‘all-inclusive’ many won’t even do this) but they are unlikely to walk 3km or so along the dusty track back to Calis centre.

The hotel that is being built this winter will have a much greater effect on the resort.  A rapidly-expanding, local company called Liberty Hotels bought the old Seketur Hotel and the empty plot behind it.  These are situated mid-way along the sea-front and now that they have demolished the hotel and cleared most of the plot it is obvious what an enormous project it is.

part of the plot of the new Liberty Hotel

Thanks to new building restrictions the hotel can be only two stories high (so I am told).  But they will still have by far the biggest property in the resort, with several hundred beds.  Their guests will use the main beach and will be able to visit the shops and restaurants right outside the gate.  Liberty Hotels has also bought Letoon Hotel (at the end of the beach, close to the minibus stop) and have a third project planned for Koca Calis.  That is a lot of new five-star, all-inclusive beds! 

I know we can’t stop change and I always assure people that most of the changes I have seen here in 23 years have been positive.  I know too that there are benefits to this development:  I am sure the Liberty Group will keep the beach clean - at least the part of the beach immediately in front of the hotel; their guests are bound to spend some money in local businesses – we might even get more stylish souvenir and clothes shops like those in Paspatur (the Old Town in Fethiye).

However I hope that the character of Calis is not affected.  It has always been a laid-back place, where most of the hotels are small, family-run affairs and to which people return year-after-year for the warm welcome and relaxed atmosphere.  It is not a party resort (like Marmaris and Hisaronu), it is not a showy resort (like Bodrum and Oludeniz).  There is nothing wrong with these, if that is what you aim to be, but it has never been what Calis is about.  As a large proportion of our guests are Calis regulars who like it as it is, I hope that these developments do not destroy what people have always appreciated about it.

Here are some definitely positive developments…..

1.       The sea front between Fethiye and Calis, the last part of which should be completed this winter;  coming home one last afternoon I was amazed at the number of people out walking, running, fishing, taking selfies and generally enjoying the promenade (and the lovely weather)

2.      (for those of us who live here) the Christmas Fair – last Sunday – was as good as ever with over 100 stalls selling crafts, food and everything Christmas….

I finally bought a new angel – hand-made felt – though I still cannot bear to retire my 50+ year old angel so they are doing a joint job; you can never have too many angels!

Agencies - again!!

Here is an example of the way the travel companies treat small hotels.  We made a contract for next summer with AGENCY no. 1 (let’s not mention names) in the middle of October.  For the past few years they have ‘summoned’ us to their office to do the deed; this year they asked us to e-mail prices for next summer.  I sent through the prices we had already signed with another company, higher in every month than last year’s prices but with a peak rate (for just 6 weeks from mid-July through to the end of August) of only £30 for an apartment.  Probably because for the last few years we have agreed to very small increases in mid-summer and kept rates the same for low season, he was surprised and rang Cem to ask if we were making improvements to the hotel. Cem pointed out that we have already done quite a lot over the last two years WITHOUT noticeably increasing prices and eventually he sent the contract through for us to sign.

So imagine my surprise when I went to check their site the other day and read “We are no longer selling under this name” – or words to that effect.  Nobody had told us and when we called the agency who represent them here, they acted as though nobody had told them either.  They promised they would look into it and call back.  As they didn’t, I e-mailed asking whether we are still working together or not and have been sent a mail saying they will be in touch ‘shortly’ – which in Turkey could mean anything really.  So, after 6 years of working together, that’s how much they value our association.

very unusual - fog in Fethiye!

Meanwhile the Agency no. 2 – a new one for us – are not exactly excelling themselves.  The sales manager said he was choosing a small group of hotels from Calis and we would be the only apartment in our category.  However, when I went on to check their site, I found more than 30 hotels listed for Calis, some of which I know they can’t possibly be working with because they have been closed for more than a year (one was even knocked down last month; it has – after I pointed this out – been taken off the site!)  Amongst those 30 hotels was Poppy featured?..No!  I e-mailed to ask what was going on and was told that they had only got our contract late in October – despite the fact that we signed it in the middle of September.  Then someone e-mailed me to say we were now on the system.  I went on to see and found that you could indeed find Poppy apartments – if you did a search for Poppy apartments.  We still do not appear on the list of hotels for Calis, meaning basically that people who already know about us can find us on the site – but nobody else!

another amazing Calis sunset

Finally, we Agency no. 3 are once again behind with payments.  They have so far only paid for  May and June’s guests.  When I e-mailed last week asking for a date for the next payment I got the standard response saying they are checking my invoice – presumable July’s invoice which they have now had for 4 months.  I am actually beginning to worry that we might not get this money.  We took two hits a few years ago when first Vision Holidays and then Goldtrail went bankrupt and we really struggled for a bit.

At the end of the season I was feeling hopeful for next year, with the new contract and the number of happy guests we had this summer who said they will be back.  Now with these problems, combined with the political situation all over Europe and the Middle East, I could get quite depressed.  However I am trying to stay positive!  In that spirit, please check out our new web site at www.poppyapartments.com and here is a gorgeous video promoting Turkey.  It starts and finishes at the top of Babadag Mountain.  It would have been nice to have a few shots of Fethiye – maybe Paspator (the Old Town) or the harbour front – but you will see Oludeniz, Saklikent, Patara beach and Kas, as well as some beautiful bays that could be anywhere along the coast…

STOP PRESS:  OMG!  The Thomas Cook site has ‘morphed’ into Booking.com.  I have no idea what is going on and can’t decide if it is a good thing or not.  We are on there as we were already working with Booking.com  Watch this space….!

Back to reality

So - had a great time in Canada (even though Fran did make me go to the gym nearly every day!)  While there, we did a lot of searching to try to find a moose for a friend who loves them.  Now, you would think that finding a moose in Canada was easy – not a real one, I don’t know how easy that is, but a soft toy or an ornament or something - but amazingly we spent a week looking every time we went anywhere and couldn’t find a moose; you could say we went on a wild moose chase!  Beavers there were plenty of (joking aside – it’s their national animal) and bears and deer but NO MOOSE – or rather the few that we saw were the size of a small child and would never have fitted in the case.  Finally, a friend of Fran’s kindly joined in the search and came up with this hockey-playing moose. 

After that, of course, there were moose everywhere.  But the cutest thing – a real animal this time – were the chipmunks which raced around everywhere so fast that I couldn’t get a picture of them...so here’s one I downloaded!

(By the way, Wikipedia lists the UK's national animals as: British bulldogs, Barbary lions, Mute swans, Red kites, Unicorns and Dragons - so 2 birds, 2 mythical animals and one that doesn't live in the country?!)

I arrived back from Canada last Tuesday after a journey of almost 24 hours door-to-door (not counting the 7 hours’ time difference).  I was prepared for stricter security after the awful events in Paris but there wasn’t an obvious increase. 

My biggest difficulty was packing my case.  Usually it is me laughing at guests who have bought too many things and are trying to squeeze them into a bulging case – and worrying about the excess baggage duties; this time it was me!  I borrowed a larger suitcase from Fran – but then I went shopping again and had more to squeeze in.  Having just about managed to close it by a joint effort, I then managed to drop it on my foot which is only just recovering – not surprising as when I weighed it at the airport I found it was 30kg!  We did a quick rearranging and put a few bits into my cabin bag but the heaviest items were several bottles of maple syrup which I couldn’t move as it would have been confiscated.  In the end, I just sucked it up and paid the excess baggage, telling myself I have still saved money on some of the things AND I have done most of my Christmas shopping!

Since I got back, the weather has been amazing.  You could have got a suntan – you could have got sunBURNT – the last few days.  Friends in the UK have not appreciated me sharing this news with them (Grant especially) as I gather it has been pretty miserable over there.  Don’t worry - it is due to change here this week but you can’t blame us for making the most of it!

I have started giving Turkish lessons again.  It’s been a longer break than usual this summer – almost 6 months – which makes it hard not just for the students to get back into it but for the teacher too!  Still once I do, I enjoy it.  I have several new groups starting and I am also hoping to set up some conversation classes as the hardest thing is often getting people to actually use what they learn outside of lessons.  While this will still be a lesson situation it will give people a chance to practice and hopefully give them more confidence to do the same outside.

Sunset yesterday

from Canada

So, here I am in Canada!

The journey over last Friday was not nearly as grim as I had expected – I was pretty good on all the flights and the time actually went quite quickly.  The worst part was in Heathrow where I would actually have missed the connection if they hadn't sent a girl to ‘fast track’ me from one gate to the other.  The connection time was 1 hour 20 mins but with congestion causing delays to both take-off from Istanbul and landing in Heathrow, we eventually landed about 40 mins late.  Then it took another 10 mins or so for them to open the doors and for everybody in front of me to finish getting their bags and doddering about – leaving me about 30 mins until take-off and it clearly said that the gate would be closed 15 mins before take-off time.  

Anyway, with my fast-track guide I galloped through the airport – through another passport check, more security scanners, onto a little train and got there with about a minute and a half to spare.  The worst thing?...they hadn’t sealed the bag of duty free that I had bought in Istanbul so it was taken off me in Heathrow.  I wasn’t happy.

my first ever selfie!

I haven’t seen Fran, the friend I have come here to visit, for 9 years and obviously we have both changed a lot because we managed to walk past each other!  But we did finally meet up and it is so good to see her and her family.  We have been calling other rogues we used to work with in London too.

She lives in a small town near Toronto.  We have been out and about a bit, though it is not a particularly touristy place.  The weather has been quite mixed – glorious autumn days and gray and rainy, getting quite cold yesterday.

wolf statue at Crawford Lake

On Monday, one of the lovely days, we went to a woodland area with a lake, saw some Iroquois long houses and hiked through the wood – see pictures.

Crawford Lake

On Wednesday we went to a gallery that has a lot of Canadian art.  There were some great pictures and I learned about some of their most famous artists.  There was also an art ‘installation’ in the garden which was very modern and possibly very meaningful but went quite over my head (as Fran said, very ‘Tate Modern’)

Tom Thompson painting

Yesterday we went into Toronto to the Royal Ontario Museum.  We saw an exhibition about Pompeii  and then the Canadian and First Nation (Indian) rooms.  It was a lovely day, though not without its challenges.  First, we couldn’t find the metro station and drove around for a while (Fran has – by her own admission – the worst sense of direction in the world and it’s quite amazing that she ever gets anywhere!), then we couldn’t get in to the car park because both the machines at the entrance were out of order ; after driving round for a bit and failing to find anywhere else to park we returned and found they were now working, paid our 5 dollars to get in and then couldn’t find a space.  Eventually we gave up and parked in a corner of the car park, praying all day that the car wouldn’t be towed  and got back to find it was still there – but had a flat battery!  Luckily Fran has jump leads and found a very nice young lady who brought her car over so we could jump start Fran’s.  After she’d gone, we collapsed in howls of laughter until we were crying:  could anything else really have happened.  Later, when I learned that yesterday was Friday 13^th, it made more sense!

Election week and I'm off!

There was a general election in Turkey yesterday.  It was the second one this year, the first being in June and leaving the winning party – the one that has been in power since 2002 - without enough of a majority to form a government.  As none of the other parties would enter a coalition, they had no choice but to call a second election.

The result?  They took more votes – up from 41% to only just under 50% - and enough seats to form a government.  Not in the Mugla region though (the area that includes Fethiye, Marmaris and Bodrum) where the CHP (Republican People’s Party) increased their vote to 48% which I think is the highest of any region.

One of the amazing things is the turnout.  In both elections, this has been over 85% - compared to 66% at the 2015 UK elections.  The last time there was a turnout of over 80% in the UK was the 1950s!  But people here are interested and passionate and even when they know the result won’t be the one they want, they still see voting as a right and a duty.  At the school where we voted, this was obvious: families came carrying children and cars pulled up at the door bringing the sick and elderly to vote.

Halloween cupakes

Halloween (see pictures) means the summer season has finished.  The last guests left yesterday which meant for the first time in six months my alarm didn’t go off at 6 this morning.  Needless-to-say I am back in the hotel now, sorting things out and putting things away.

It has been a good season for us – thankyou to all who visited Poppy!  The only difference I noticed was that there weren’t so many families in peak season – presumably because of fears over security.  The guests who come early and late in the summer are mostly regulars who know the situation and are less influenced by media scare-mongering.

Halloween a few years ago (the boys will hate me for this!)

I am hopeful too for next season, barring any further international crises.  We have already signed contracts with Hotels4u and Alpharooms.  The other agency that we have been working with, who shall remain nameless, have so far only paid for May and June’s guests and as we have had this problem with them for the last two years I am not very keen to re-sign. We are also on Booking.com site which has the benefit that control of price, availability and booking terms are all in our hands and can be changed instantly.  Sometimes it is a juggling act trying to fill the hotel but not be overbooked, especially when reservations are coming in from several sources and the agencies require a couple of days’ notice to stop selling.

Anyway I don’t have to worry about this for a few months.  Now that the season has finished, we have started to take in monthly renters, mostly Turkish people who are working in Fethiye.  One group are running an illegal ‘gambling den’ where they play – wait for it – bingo!!  Unlike the Mecca Bingo Hall, it is drawing mostly male clientele and opens from about 10 at night until 3 in the morning.  The way they talk, you would think they had invented the game, but as a novelty here (previously, as I have mentioned before, bingo was something that children played on New Year’s Eve) it is apparently very popular.  Who would have guessed!

view of Fethiye from the rock tomb

And finally - I am leaving the country (but not because of the election results!)  I am going to Canada to visit a friend and I am so excited about it.  We used to work together in London but since she moved back to her native Toronto with her husband and son I haven’t seen her.  We are not even very good at keeping in touch with mails and skype –life just seems too busy sometimes.  So, wish me luck for the ridiculously long flight – actually 3 flights each way (and some of you know how much I hate flying!) and if I don’t manage to post while I’m out there, I will be back…..

Some local wildlife

Those of you who have visited Poppy certainly know about our tortoises and many of you have also seen one or more baby tortoise – not to mention the baby-making that goes on constantly (much worse than the rabbits) and involves much bumping of shells and some ridiculous face-pulling and squeaking on the part of the male (I know there is a joke here…)

But during the heat of summer the babies – and even the larger tortoises – are often hard to find.  At this time, when they need to soak up all the sun they can get, you can hardly walk in the garden without treading on one.  The other day, I found these FOUR gathered together– for a baby tortoise play-date?....

Baby tortoise gathering

And today I found the smallest one I think I have EVER seen…..

People sometimes ask me questions about the tortoises and I can't always answer them so I have now done my homework and here is what I have learned….

They are spur-thighed or ‘Greek tortoises’.  They lay up to about 6 eggs at time in a nest dug by the female, after which she has nothing more to do with the nest or the young, which take about 10 weeks to hatch out.

Even these little tortoises can apparently live well over a hundred years.  So can you tell their age by counting rings?  Sometimes, but some rings rub off while if the tortoise has plenty to eat all year round its shell may not develop distinct rings as it grows.

Star Agama

Here is another little guy I saw while I was in the garden – again most of you have seen these popping in and out of holes in the stone walls round the hotel.  He is – apparently – a Star Agama and is capable of changing colour – mainly lighter or darker.  He is territorial – and sometimes one male may have a ‘harem’.  The head-bobbing which I have noticed they often do when sitting on top of the wall, is apparently a sign of aggression.  Unfortunately it isn’t enough to stop Poppy the lizard-eater.  We rescue them whenever possible but she sometimes gets herself a tasty snack.  Luckily, the article I have just read says they are not considered endangered at all!

Poppy looking innocent - don't believe it!

In contrast, the loggerhead turtles which nest on the beach at Calis as well as at Iztuzu beach in Dalyan, are officially listed as endangered.  There seem to have been more sightings of them this year.  I have had several guests saying they virtually swam into one while swimming in the lagoon at Oludeniz and others who saw them swimming just off the beach at Calis.  Early this summer, we saw several swimming close to the beach late in the afternoon when there were lots of swimmers around.  I was surprised that they would come that close to people.

I have just been looking for any information about how many nests there have been this year but couldn’t find any figures yet.  What I did find was a research paper that suggested that even with all the efforts at conservation, the attempts to protect them (for example making the boats add protective guards to their propellers) and the hospital and rehabilitation centre at Iztuzu, the numbers are still thought to have declined to around 25% of the level of 1995.

And don't forget, turtles and tortoises as a group have been around for more than 100 million years and shared the earth for some 40 million with the dinosaurs!

The lazy blogger returns!

I have decided to stop being lazy and start blogging again!  With two more weeks to go before the season finishes it is generally quiet round here and I have time to write.  Then, after we close the hotel and I start giving Turkish lessons I will just have to organize my time a bit better.

Yesterday, I left Kaan in charge of the hotel and had a lovely day off with a friend.  We went to Patara and walked round a small part of the ruins.  Patara was the main naval and trading port of Lycia, as well as the birth-place of St Nicholas.  During Roman times, it became the home to the Government of the Lycian League and the Assembly building has been excavated and repaired in recent years.  Although towns in the League acted autonomously on smaller issues, they came together by sending representatives to this Assembly to decide issues that affected the whole region, such as trading terms and security.  The city of Telmessos, situated where Fethiye is today, was a medium-sized town with  two representatives on the council; Patara, as one of the largest towns, had three. 

Close to the National Assembly building is the theatre and the main street but the ruins cover a huge area and include many temples and baths, and a granary built in 131AD during the visit of Emperor Hadrian – he of wall-building fame.  Excavation of Patara is an ongoing process, but when you look around at the visible remains and imagine what else is hidden beneath the ground you understand that it won’t finish any time soon – and this is just one of hundreds of such sites in Turkey!

Patara

Our niece, Yagmur, is studying archaeology at Konya University and has spent the last two summers with a group of her peers and their professor, working at Knidos, near Datca.  Knidos was a Greek city located on a promontory where the Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean and was well-known as a centre of wine production.  I used to think I should have studied archaeology, but I’m not sure I have the patience for it!  Nor do I fancy working as she did moving barrows full of earth in temperatures of 40°C.

Anyway, after our bit of history yesterday we went down to have a drink on the beautiful sandy beach of Patara, then went on to Kalkan which is one of my favourite places for a day out.  We had some lunch, then browsed the shops.  Kalkan residents are very good at taking care of stray animals and my favourite shop is always host to a variety of cats and dogs who take advantage of the warm welcome.

Kalkan has stunning views and some great cafes and restaurants; I always used to think it had much nicer shops than Fethiye – boutiques selling lovely clothes, art galleries and shops selling tasteful souvenirs (rather than stuffed turtles and fez!).  These days, however, I must say that Paspatur – the Old Town in Fethiye – is just as nice.  The buildings have been done up, there are some fantastic shops and even the streets have been improved with attractive overhead lighting.

Paspatur (Fethiye Old Town)

Did you know?  They say that if you drink water from the spring in Paspatur you will return to Fethiye.  Well, there are many people who return year after year, but I think there is a little more drawing them back than the water!