We arrived at out apartment at about 7am, the heat was stifling but we had arrived so it didn't matter. We booked in and set about holidaying and exploring the changes that we'd read so much about. I didn't think that there were that many changes so was quite happy.. apart from the canal looking lost and lonely things were pretty much as before with the regular familiar faces who hadn't forgotten us. The food was excellent as usual in our old haunts and also in the new ones we visited.
We did the obligatory 'Lazy Day' boat trip in the first week and the 'Dalyan' boat trip the second week, both were excellent and could not be faulted at all and such good value for money, especially the 'Lazy Day' which was buy one get one free.. 4 quid each, cant go wrong at that price.
We visited our old friend Rodney in his new bar/restaurant - Wembleys - in the old village (we new him when he worked in Blondies when it was Troys) and was very impressed with what he has acheived.
The beach was as hot as ever and the rush for the sun beds by the waters edge was as keen as it always is - that sand is so hot
On this holiday I did discover some things that I wasn't too chuffed with.. our worst eating experience was in the Majestic, the food was fine but the service wasn't too brilliant - this isn't a dig at the staff in any way, it was just so busy they simply couldn't keep up. I think the tables are now so crammed in so there's very little room, the wait for our food seemed endless, especially my deep fried ice cream.. in fact I never got it because after waiting almost 45 mins for it and questioning it I was told that they had forgotten to order it.. but the beer that I'd ordered at the same time arrived regardless. I just think the place is now so geared up to getting people to part with their money that the personal touch has gone.. we also had an item of our property stolen but couldn't prove it so we just paid up and left.. never mind, I'm sure there's some who will dissagree with me but that is just my opinion.
Another issue was that at the apartments across the road from us is owned/run by what I would not describe as a man but a bully with a greed for money that shows..it shows in that we witnessed him beating 2 young members of his staff around the head, one of which packed his stuff and left straight away, the other is still there but looks very sheepish in his prescence.. we watched him call his staff over and reprimand them for not harrassing us to buy drinks (we know this is what he reprimanded them for because we were with my daughter and her husband, he is a Turk).. the owner never spoke to us once he would just walk past our table and look to see if we were spending our money.. needless to say we will not be visiting that place again.
The difference in the prices of things to tourists and Turks was very apparent because we were with our son-in-law most of the time.. even changing GBP into Lira in the cash exchange shop.. because he is a Turk he didn't have to pay commission, I was a tourist so I had to pay it (but when they realised we were together I was given a VIP card for the next time I went in, it entitled me to a no commission transaction.. needless to say I changed it in the bars after that point, commission free.
I also learned that in some, not all, bars/restaurants the last thing that gets paid is the staff wages.. if there's not enough money to pay the bills etc then the wages just don't get paid.. this I discovered by speaking to an old friend there who had to wait 2 years for money owed to him for working the season in a restaurant.
Despite finding out that things aren't always as friendly as they might appear at first we still had a very good holiday and did meet some (hopefully) genuine people who were very friendly indeed and more than made up for the not so good side of things. I noticed a lot of restaurants empty every night, one of them being the Taj Mahal, somewhere we've had really good food on previous visits, I don't know how they can be staying open when they are constantly empty.
We will try and save to go again next year as we feel we've become part of Icmeler, or it has become part of us, not sure which really.. not only that but the Efes tastes much better there than it does from Tesco here in chilly Blighty
Almost forgot, we were flown out by Holidays4U so our filght back was cancelled and replaced by a flight back to Manchester and not Gatwick.. a journey home of 19 hours in total - all part of the fun
