2nd holiday of the year complete and what an experience it was! I went to Turkey with my friend Kizzy for my 40th birthday. I wanted to do something different so we decided to do a little road trip over 9 days. We planned to stay in 3 places and hire a car to drive along the coast. People were surprised when we said we were going to be driving around Turkey, saying how crazy they drive! Well turns out, we drive as crazy!

People that have been away with me know that I normally attract drama or adventures along the way, this started as soon as we landed in Turkey. We arrived at the airport and waited to be collected and taken to our hire car. Going smoothly until we realised that they would only accept Kizzy’s credit card as she made the booking, but only I had mine with me. After an hour or so of me arguing with a very inexperienced and rude guy, who literally just walked out of the shop and wouldn’t speak to me anymore, we managed to come up with an agreement with the manager. He wouldn’t speak to me at first, only Kizzy, but we soon made friends and were joking around. Never knew I could be so scary! So, finally 2 hours later we were on our way to the first place, or so we thought. 15 minutes into the journey, Kizzy realised she had left her passport and driving license behind, so U turn made and back to see our friends at the car hire place. Thats when the fun really began! We soon realised that it wasn’t the drivers that were the problem, it was the road layouts and the lack of lines and markings on the road. Due to this, I ended up driving on the wrong side of the road and the wrong way down a one way street. Luckily I realised before the van coming at us was too close! 30 minutes into the journey and the tyre pressure light came on in the car. We stopped at a petrol station to see if there was an air pump, the man working there came over to help, due to none of us speaking the same language I just pointed at the warning sign on the dashboard. He walked around the car, kicking all four tyres then just put his thumb up and said “OK” and that was the end of that! Luckily the light did go off eventually and we didn’t have any other problems with it.

We finally arrived at our first place and we had a great few days. The host was so lovely and really took care of us. It was up a mountain and had such lovely views and very peaceful with our own private pool. It was a good job we had a car since it was up a mountain, but the host was very lovely and drove us down in the evenings. It did get a little stressful as the host didn’t speak English and we don’t speak Turkish, so trying to explain where we wanted to go was a challenge. He didn’t have aircon and it was so hot, Kizzy had to start fanning me and the host offered me a cigarette thinking it would calm me down! I think the Turkish men think I’m a stress head! Driving up and down the mountain was interesting, I kept freaking out when I was the passenger, feeling like we were going to fall off the edge of the cliff, but I started to get used to it eventually. The language did cause us a few issues, but for me the funniest was when Kizzy ordered a Vodka and lemonade. It came and it was a funny green/yellow colour like it was homemade. She sat there drinking it for ages even though it was horrible and when the bill came we realised they hadn’t even put any vodka in it! She only drank it for the vodka and there wasn’t actually any in the glass! Got to say she wasn’t impressed.

I woke up on my birthday to find the birthday fairy had been and put up decorations etc. It was so lovely! We went and spent the day at a water park with Laura, Brian and their children. It was so lovely that we were all in Turkey at the same time. Myself and Kizzy went out in the evening for drinks and had a great time, including getting free drinks!

The next day, we drove to our next place in Kas. It was about 5 hours drive so we split it up and stopped in Side and a little place called Beldibi. We saw some of the Turkish ruins and had some great Turkish food. When we thought it was bad enough we were up a mountain in Alanya, we had no idea what we about to drive to this time. Google maps said we had 30 minutes to go, but yet we were just going up and up the mountain, the roads were so tight and windy, we were sure we must start going down soon, but it never happened! This is the thing with Air BnB, you don’t get the exact location until the day before, so all we knew was that it was in Kas. The last part of the drive up to the house was so steep that we had to abandon the car and walk the rest of the way up. We were met by an employee of the host who didn’t speak any English and kept trying to tell us to drive up the last part, but every time we tried the car was skidding. What had we let ourselves into!

After the dramatic drive and struggling up the hill with all our luggage, we arrived at our second place, and it was definitely worth the drama! The place was amazing. It was a private house with our own private pool and the views were amazing. We decided because it was half an hour of windy steep roads up and down a mountain to get to the town that we were only going to head in once and then make the most of the house and pool. So the first evening we drove down to the town to get dinner and buy some food and drinks for the next couple of days. We were under the impression that Kas was a small quiet town, we were definitely wrong! It was so busy, it took us ages to find a parking space, but it was a lovely town. We went to one of the restaurants to have dinner and ended up getting a lot of free food! We felt sick we ate so much, I think Turkish people may be feeders! Sorry, no insult intended!

The next couple of days were lovely, chilling at the house, around the pool, I was in my element! Kizzy was ready for the next and final place, where we would be a lot more sociable! The last part of the trip was only a couple of hours, so we had lunch in Kas and then drove to Oludeniz. Here, we were in a hotel, so it was a big change from having our own private pool, to sharing a pool and having to fight for sunbeds! It was so nice to have all these different experiences in one holiday. Oludeniz was our most active part of the holiday, we went out every evening, found our favourite bar and got a lot of free drinks and food! I will definitely come back to Turkey! There were so many tattoo shops around that I couldn’t resist getting a tattoo on my last night. I got a purple butterfly in memory of my Aunty Yvonne, who was like a second mother to me. I will treasure it forever.

Kizzy wanted to go paragliding, I have done it before in Switzerland, but I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to do it again. So off we went up the mountain and ready to jump off the top. It was amazing, the views and the feeling of being free, like you’re a bird flying. I did get a little motion sickness so there were no fancy tricks for me! I love making memories like this, its. a great feeling when I tell people these stories and they are so interested in what I have been up to. Which is one of the reasons I started this blog.

So sadly the last day came and we had to drive the car back to the airport and back on the plane to England. It was a great experience and memories for life, I’m very grateful to have amazing friends in my life to make these memories with!

Reading it back, I realised I used the word amazing a lot of times! All I can say is, it shows I had a great time, and maybe I need to find some new words!!