Bodrum (Turkey)

Bodrum (a small town in Turkey)

We are now in Bodrum, which is at the south of Turkey. A small coastal town that boasts of a castle set up by the knights of St. John during the crusades (think French but like the Knights of the Round Table), lots of money in exclusive yachts and resorts on hillsides and a port big enough to take our huge boat. Apparently origionally this cruise was supposed to have a day or two in Istanbul but with the unrest etc decided to change the itinerary and add this place. It was great! We did a tour of the castle which also houses an underwater museum (not actually underwater just artifacts from shipwrecks in the area – and apparently there have been many!) Had a Turkish tour guide of about 50 who loved my hair and kept being sleazy touchy feely. Thought I was British and Dave was a Kiwi!

The castle is unique in that it was built by the French, then some English knights had a tower then some German then Spainish. All Catholic fighting the good fight for God and trying to destroy the infidels (Turks – Muslim) in nasty ways. It got bombed by the French is WW1 and then the Germans in WW2 and it is still there!

The ship wreck part was interesting – they had some very old late Bronze age artifacts from a ship found at the bottom of the sea near here (the oldest recovered from a ship wreck anywhere).

Even bones from a princess found buried near the castle grounds. The guide was interesting in that he said that a scared urn from the shipwreck was abomination to muslims (it was for cremation ashes) but very sacred to Hindus (strangeness of religions).

Anyway the second part of the tour was to go out on a large yacht type boat and go off the boat swimming in the sea, for a while and then onto a second place for swimming.

I actually swam both times (second time jumped in from the deck – yes me in the photo!). Dave said it wasn’t pretty but I did it (quite high up for little ol’ me). The water was a bit chilly but not too bad. We met a Maori girl on the tour from Rotorua who was with 4 others who wouldn’t go out on tours so was alone. Her and I swam together cause she needed a friend and Dave played life-saver in case we drowned! Was gorgeous in the water, sun shining,  off the coast of Turkey ….. just like in the magazines with the rich and famous! The other types who came were funny – one was an old biddie who was British and straight in (gotta love them!) then we had two big types with noodles to hold themselves up! Hey brownie points for getting in.

The funniest part  was here we are out in the middle of the Agean Sea and a little motorised blowup boat turns up pulling along side selling icecreams – like a nautical Mr Whippy! Only in Turkey! He did a roaring trade then moved off to the next yacht that was anchored nearby. We were in a sheltered type bay so other yachts were moored off the beach. Had a laugh tho!

Tonights show was a magician from Spain. He was quite good – not sure what the oldies thought tho.