Exploring Antalya

After suffering from the usual end of semester burnout, it was time for the best remedy, travel.

Having visited my high-school friends in Kayseri in the winters, we had to head somewhere else for this summer trip. Evaluating the travel costs and scrolling through the list of worth visiting cities, Antalya stood out and I decided to go for it with my friend Zunnur. The biggest factor in the decision were the flight tickets which we were able to get at a reasonably cheap price of 130 Turkish Liras (TL) per person for a return ticket on Pegasus Airlines. Usually the bus tickets to Antalya are more expensive and trains from Ankara don’t go there yet. On the night of 26^th of may we were ready to go although the flight was on the morning of 27^th. No its not that we are super early everywhere but rather we were bound by economy. Considering the last bus from our dorms left for the city 5 hours before our flight of 6:00 am and the first bus the next morning would leave 2 hours after our flight, we were practically out of ‘economical’ options so we took the last bus at 1:00 am. Wait, we could have taken the taxi right… yeah right…that’s funny. Anyways the journey started pretty smooth and it didn’t take us long to get to the Airport via the Bilkent and Belko Air Bus services.

A shot from the Belko Air Bus

 Ankara Airport was Busy as always (that was Sarcasm) and the good thing was that the people who did exist there were not giving a hoot about anything and were at peace in their sleeps, so we decided to join them.

The Benches were cozy

 After a good night sleep (atleast I think it was), we boarded the plane on time. 

We flew in this

They freaking don’t allow you to take water onboard- that’s crazy- I had to throw away my water bottle, and then its Pegasus so you have to pay to eat, and ofcourse that wasn’t an option.

 The flight to Antalya takes just over an hour from Ankara and the view from air is pretty cool- I illegally changed my seat just to see that, and its more illegal in Pegasus because the price for those seats is higher. We had no idea about where were we gonna go from the airport and how but that’s the fun of it. My friend, the sometimes social guy that he is, started talking in his primary school Turkish with the guy sitting next to him and, as it sometimes does, being foreigner worked. He offered us a ride with him to a famous beach, “Lara Beach” to be exact, near his home. And just like that we were officially touring Antalya.

A good start of the tour

 It was still just past 7:00 in the morning and the beach was majestic at that time, the rumors about Antalya had started to come out true. 

A morning at Lara Beach

That was probably my first day having my morning shower at the sea, its worth trying guys. After a good swim and a good walk it was almost 10:00 and the Sun had started to remind us that we were not in Ankara anymore. We left the beach at the time when the Antalyans were headed for it. 

Not having eaten anything for more than twelve hours, we had to walk a good deal with our heavy backpacks on to get to the nearest cheap food place. Yeah just don’t go to any restaurant there, you may come out with your pockets empty. We realized further in the trip that there are cheap restaurants everywhere but you just have to look for them a little, and Google maps is not a very good help for that. Try out the Bufe shops for a good short meal-I have no idea why they are called bufes while being tuck shops or khokhas also they don’t have any bufe there. 

Small snacks at Bufes are awesome sources of energy.

After breakfast we were off to see the offerings of Antalya. The good thing about the historical places in Antalya is that many of them are located in walking distance from eachother  and if you have a bicycle its pretty much effortless to visit all of them. However that area is the most expensive of Antalya. A  bicycle there was being rented at around 70 Euros a day- yep Euros not Liras, the first and last time we checked. 

We were able to visit Hadrian’s Gate, Old Town, Duden Waterfall, and the Antalya Museum all before sundown and all on foot. Outside Antalya Museum we had a pretty awkward eye contact with a guy we saw in Bilkent while leaving- still feels like a pretty mysterious coincidence.

Roadside attractions are eyecatching in Antalya

The Duden Waterfalls

Me in front of a cool guy on a Horse

The mighty Hadrian's Gate

A cute Lady in the Antalya Museum

Some Ancient Artifacts from the region

The Roman Statues from the region

This reminded me of:........Yup you got it.

Ancient coins and jewels from the region

Decorated Roofed Coffins are abundant in the Museum

After a pretty hectic day, now it was time to find somewhere to crash. Luckily we had found a host earlier on via couchsurfing who would host us for the night. We contacted him and headed towards his house. He lived in “Liman Mahallesi” where we reached via a free bus ride by telling the driver “Biz turistiz kartimiz yok (we are tourists and don’t have the card)” as almost all municipality buses require a card. We later realized that we could get one time use cards from certain places for riding those buses but whatever. We met our host in a restaurant where he offered us a pretty good dinner on his expense. 

Pidas are THE dinner to have

He later took us to his home and we soon literally crashed on whichever place was available. It seems like we were acting pretty non-Xenophobic considering it was the first couch-surfing experience for both of us, but we felt that we had no other choice. We had been planning to couch-surf for a long time now and I also feel that going to another country which is not notorious for some reason makes you less Xenophobic, atleast that was the case with me.

We later realized that we had crashed at a pretty nice place

Posing with the host

The next morning we were off early and headed to “Olympos” a famous place among tourists for its awesome beaches, about 50 kms from Antalya. We had decided to hitch-hike. And after a snacky breakfast...

...we were on the main road which lead to Olympos with our thumbs up. 

We hitch-hiked from here

After 30 mins to an hour (the duration is still under debate) of trying and changing places we heard a horn from behind us. There was a car near the rest area behind us. We went to the car and the lady incharge told us to hop on. Apparently she saw us standing while she entered the rest area and as we were still standing while she was leaving, she decided to take us with her. And just like that began the most memorable hitch-hike of my life. 

Scenes on the way

 The drive was about an hour long and the conversations were a mix of English and Turkish. Topics included bashing of Turkish politicians and how she wanted to leave the country. She offered us all the eatables she had and we accepted some. She dropped us right where we had to go and left us with a lot of advices for better enjoyment as she knew the area well.

More Scenes enroute Olympos

We went in search of the famous olympos beach but the way was no less mesmerizing than the destination. The road was lined with tree houses and ‘pensions’ (a type of hotel) and led to the ancient city of Olympos for which the area is named.

The city is mostly ruins with only passages, walls and a few standing doors and windows here and there.

The ancient city of Olympos

 Having passed through the city we arrived at the beach which I can easily call as the most beautiful and the cleanest beach I have ever seen or visited. The scenery is just mesmerizing and is enough to leave anyone in awe. The beach is surrounded by lush green mountains on one side and the mighty Mediterranean on the other. 

Only few of the beautiful scenes of the beach

 The water on this particular beach of the Mediterranean was so clean it reminded me of chlorinated swimming pool water. 

The cleanest sea-water 

I can go on describing the beauty of that place but the blog Is already gonna be long enough so lets move on. 

After atleast 3 hours of staying on the beach it had started to get dark so we decided to look for a place for the night. We asked a couple of people whose’ directions took us back to the tree houses and pensions of the area. We chose one and decided to stay there. It was a small business owned by an elderly woman. She offered us a tent for the night along with dinner and breakfast which she cooked herself, for 40 Turkish Liras each.

The night in there was awesome

This was the place for 'sohbet'

The toilets weren't bad either

   It definitely was a night worth spending. Although there was no wifi, the mobile data was operating well enough but we could also have managed without it. The next morning we realized that the there was an entire garden of Orange trees, which provided an awesome morning walk destination. 

The breakfast was good

After breakfast we got on dolmush (the regional buses are called dolmush all over Turkey) and headed to the burning mountain ‘Mount Chimera’ . 

Enroute the burning mountain

Dolmush drops passengers about two kilometers from the hicking trail which leads to the top of the mountain. During the two kilometer walk we came across a board telling that the area was part of a huge national park and also hosted wolves and lions. After having a huge debate on whether to continue or not, we finally went forward and fortunately didn’t meet any of those species. 

Rich people live there :P

The road

You dont see this everywhere do you? 

The Legend

As soon as we got ready for the hike at the base camp, we saw a group coming down the trail gasping. They warned us that the hike was too much and we wouldn’t be able to do it with our bags on. We, who had taken the risk against lions and wolves, were not going to back down so we didn’t give much of a consideration. However we did become mentally prepared for the long hike as we started saving water and started taking short breaks. But, as soon as we thought that the hike should be atleast half-way through, we realized that we were there. Not to generalize but this aspect of those hikers, who seemed to be Turkish, didn’t inspire us that much. We, who were accustomed to the hiking trails of Islamabad, didn’t find much of a challenge there.

The Firey Peak

Anyhow the fires, although hot, were so fascinating and unique that we forgot all feelings of discomfort and dissolved in the atmosphere. It was definitely a worth visiting scenery which a lot of tourists coming to Antalya take for granted and donot visit, as evident from the lack of tourists there compared to other places.

The Burning Mountain "Mount Chimaera"

Our next stop was phaesalis, another neighboring ancient city to olympos. We took the dolmush to the main road and took a minibus to Phaesalis. We reached there almost about two hours before dusk. The city can be compared to Olympos as similar to Olympos there was a beach behind the ruins of the city. But this city was spread more along the beach rather than elongated towards land as Olympos. 

The History of Phesaelis

An ancient bath in the city

Romans knew how to build Amphis

A random at a door

Some Ancient Language :P

The beach across the city

We also saw a couple having their wedding photoshoot on the beach and dreamt of our futures.

Yup right here

  We left phaesalis at dusk and having no further plans took the next bus to Antalya. This was the most unplanned we had yet been on our trip. After getting to the last bus station the bus would take us, we got off. Now we had to find someplace to have dinner and to sleep. Fatigued from the whole day, it was difficult to decide and look for both and we were also not prepared for what was about to come. We had dinner at a nearby restaurant and started to look for someplace to stay. First we tried the Pakistani approach and went into a nearby mosque. The Isha prayers were at their end. We waited for everyone to leave so that we could ask the imam but then we saw the Imam leaving too. We quickly asked him whether he was closing the mosque and he told us that he had to close it for the night and kinda took us out. It was then that we understood the regional mosque system of Antalya if not of all Turkey. Our next option was the travellers approach so we located a nearby park on google maps and headed towards it. As soon as we got near the park the area started to get poorer, scarier and creepier with every step. But it was our last resort at that time so we had to struggle with our brains, which were at really low charge, to give up the plan as we felt that anything could happen in that kind of area. The area reminded us of the backward regions of Altindag district in Ankara as my friends from Ankara can relate. It was already past midnight by the tme we gave up on our plan. After a long thought on our options at that time of the night, we finally decided to crash by the seaside. There was only one problem, there was no bus or taxi and the beach was about nine kilometers away. With no other options in sight, we decided to go for it and walk the way. Along the way we discussed what to do for the next two days as our return ticket was of two nights ahead. Considering the lack of plans we decided to pay 50 TL and get the ticket rescheduled to the next night. After about more than two hours of walking with breaks, we reached the beach around 3:00in the morning. We crashed on the stony beach which ended the toughest and most memorable night yet, atleast for me. The morning sun woke us up at 6:00 in the morning and we saw a lot of locals having a morning swim. Although we didn’t sleep much but surprisingly we felt fresh and we went to a nearby restaurant for the morning tea and breakfast.

After reading all this you shouldn't ask for pictures of that time.

We had discussed during our walk at night that we would visit “Akdeniz University” the largest university of Antalya today so we headed towards it on foot of course. I don’t know but the thought of taking a taxi was no longer even coming to our brains. We got to the University as soon as it opened and were there for the whole day. Our Bilkent University ID cards were enough to get us in.

We visited almost every floor of almost every building of the university, yes you can do that when you have only one job to do for the whole day. The university was well structured, the buildings were well built and the campus was green. Overall the university had a good impression on us but that went away when we compared it to Bilkent 

A centre Area in one of the department buildings

J Yup Bilkent is Bilkent folks J

This should be in Bilkent

This awesome stadium stood out among the rest

   . As soon as the evening drew near, we decided to head to the Airport. We walked to the main Bus station from where we took a bus to the Airport. The flight was late at night and we reached Ankara at about midnight. We took a bus to the city center where we realized that we were too late for the last Bus to go to Bilkent. And for the first and last time in our trip we had to half-heartedly take a taxi to our campus which added a huge 50 TL (in our economic terms) to our expense of the trip. And like that ended the most memorable trip for me “yet”.
                                                                           Thats all Folks.

P.S: Hope you enjoyed the trip, i'd love some feedback :).