Day 65: Kas to Alanya, Turkey, 310km 32-35°C

A later start.

Usually we are in the road by 8am at the latest. 

Breakfast was served at 8am so we enjoyed that and set off.

The plan was to arrive mid afternoon. 

At the end if this post you will see that the best laid plans can go awry.

Lovely hill country, magnificent rocky mountains,

Valleys filled with glass houses,

Mosques. Several in some towns. New ones, some being  built.

The roads are excellent, instead of overbridges and flyovers there are traffic lights and a version of roundabouts where  traffic from side roads cross the highway. 

 The traffic lights show the time to lapse before they change. When I see 94 seconds I melt a little inside in the afternoons when the sun is on my dark-blue back. But sometimes we have a chat with the cars alongside. We are a novelty - There are very few touring adventure motorcyclists on the road. Also most Turks know about Yeni Zealanda (NZ)...

It is now compulsory for all children to visit Gallipoli once during their school years.

Military service for one year is compulsory for young men. During that time they visit Gallipoli.

New Zealand has a high profile at Chunuk Bair which is where the main Turkish memorials are and also the NZ cenotaph erected by the Turks to honour those who came from the uttermost ends of the earth and the NZ cemetery.

Then very opulent hotels and many kilometres of high rise apartments. Mostly new.

This is the popular Anatolian coastal summer holiday location for Scandanavians, Germans, Russians, the French, Brits.

 

 

Bougainvillea galore.

 

A newish pink frosted mosque.

Typical road scenes for the first part of the day.

 

 

 Under shade in Main Street, Yeni.

 

Tomatoes are King in this town. Even the public toilets are decorated with one.

 

Tomato sculpture decorating a roundabout at Kasapçayiri.

 

The white areas are the glass houses as shown in Google maps.

 

 

It gets hotter and hotter while we stop at the lights.

 

Time to look around.

Most apartment buildings are new and most have solar heating units on their roofs.

 

Then the hotels. 

Huge resort hotels, cheek by jowl.

 

 

 

 

 New mosques are being built in many towns.

My camera battery went flat.

We spent about an hour and a half searching for the Sunprime hotel in Alanya. We knew it existed, we had a booking, we stopped and asked, we got someone to phone for directions, the GPS showed us three locations.

Just when we were about to go and find another hotel for the night... we stopped behind a bus that stopped and there in front of us was a tiny sign saying Sunprime hotel.

Very hot and bothered we were.

Lovely welcome. 

A swim, a beer and a buffet meal and to bed.

It turns out the hotel  doesn't have many independent traveller guests like us. Most of their guests book through agencies. 

What it did was confirm for us that we are not the sort of travellers who would be likely to fly in and lie in the sun for two weeks and then fly out. 

That is a strange notion to us...although a little tantalising thought when we are managing the last hot half hour coming into a town.