Day 4 – Faliraki Rhodes Greece

After a short 1.5 hr ferry ride on the Flying Poseidon, we were finally in Greece!  We were herded through like sheep waiting to get through the immigration.  We negotiated cab fare to our apartment and the cab guy actually dropped us off at the wrong place which was by the beach, another 15 minutes walk with all our luggage in the hot blazing sun.  It was definitely not a great experience, I was certain I was going to give up backpacking.

We were greeted by an nice older Greek woman who showed us to our apartment.  I was so relieved when I saw the place we would be spending the next 5 days.  It was nice to have a “home” and not have to move around for the next couple of days.

The apartment came out to about $120.00 a night for 2 bedrooms with insuite bathrooms in each, a full kitchen, living room, patio, and most important, a swimming pool!  After splitting the costs, it was only $60.00 per a couple per a night, cheaper than most hotel rooms in the area!

We went out to grab a quick lunch to satisfy our growling stomachs.  The Mo and I split a “special burger” and potato “jackets” with beans and bacon at Mike’s bar.  I know its not exactly Greek food but I plan on staying on a tight budget in Greece since the dollar exchange rate is weaker compared to the Euro.  Pretty much everything is 25% more in US currency in addition to the already marked up prices in the touristy beach town.

We returned back to meet our Greek American property owner Steve.  He was the nicest person we have met on the trip so far. He gave us a quick tour of the island and took us grocery shopping to pick up some food and supplies that we would need for our first night since we didn’t get our car rental yet.

We took a dip in the pool to cool down and spent some time relaxing poolside from all the traveling we had done.  It was nice to just relax for the day without having an itinerary.

After the sunset, I prepared some appetizers for us to enjoy with drinks on our patio.  I made sauteed calamari, spiced chicken wings and fried sardines.  Syn made a great garlic pepper sauce to compliment the sardines.

We pregamed and enjoyed our snacks and Helen and I finished 2 bottles of red wine before heading to Bar street.  We walked around as bar promoters tried to lure us in with drink specials.  We stopped by a bar which was offering 2 drinks for 5 euros (a little of $6 USD).  After the drinks we weak, we moved on.

We hit up Jamaica bar and got a round of drinks.  We ordered an apple spice flavored  hookah, waterpipe for smoking tobacco.  We had lots of laughs before stumbling back to our apartment.  The boys ran out and got us a late night snack of a pork gyro and we all passed out.

What a great first night in Greece!

Day 3 Fethiye and Calis Beach

The trip keeps getting better and better! After dragging ourselves out of bed, we finally made it to breakfast. The offerings was the usual Turkish fare, hard boiled eggs, cheese, fruits, vegetables, olives and bread.

We walked into town to pay visit our travel operator and pay off our cruise balances and get information for our ferry to Greece.  With some direction from many people, we were able to hop on a bus and make our way to Calis beach, one of the larger beaches in Fethiye.  We opted out of the picturesque Olunduiz since it was more expensive to visit and we would also be visiting that same beach on our island hopping adventures on the gulet cruise.

Calis beach was a nice pebbly beach. The water was like  bath water with soft waves hitting the shore.  It was definitely not crowded at all, I think it is closer to the end of the season and both locals and tourists are back to their daily grind of work and school.  There was a charge for umbrellas and sunbeds so we just laid out on our towels to save money.  We packed a cooler with water, beers and snacks to hold us over until lunch.

After about  3 to 4 hours, we had enough of the blazing sun and headed out to grab lunch.  We walked by a few restaurants and looked at their menus.  After walking for a short amount   time, Helen suggested a local restaurant on the corner of the main instersection called, “Mehtap.” 

The restaurant had free WIFI so we pulled out their cellphones and logged in to check our emails and the latest Facebook news feeds….yes we still check FB on vacation.

We have yet to have one bad meal so far, all our dishes were absolutely fantastic.  I didn’t try Syn’s omelets but will try to imitate them later in Greece.  Mo’s Turkish meatballs with tomato and cheese sauce was hearty and delicious.  My chili chicken dish was reminiscent of an Indo-Chinese dish with the roasted bell peppers in addition to the grilled chili peppers.  We finished everything and cleaned off our plates.

After arriving back at our hotel room, we booked a “Turkish Bath” tour.  Little did we know that our shuttle driver would be taking us back to the same exact location we just were a few hours ago on Calis Beach.  We were asked to take off our clothes and leave on our bathing suits.  We were guided into a dry  sauna and after what seemed like an eternity decided it was unbearable and moved into the steam room.  We were only in there for a few minutes and decided to start our Turkish Bath. 

There were 4 different middle aged Turkish men working the Turkish bath.  They were extremely friendly and playful.  We each had our own side of the large marble table with columns.  First, they scrubbed off all of our dead skin with a hand exfoliator.  I was disgusted to see how much dead skin I had on my body.  They advised this was a good procedure to result in a nice even tan throughout vacation. 

 

After washing by body with cool, I returned back to the table for a shampoo lather and massage.  This was the best part as foamy soap was lathered onto my body in addition to getting a massage. The last step was a scalp massage and shampoo lather.  Although this left my hair dry since there was no conditioning process, the scalp massage was nice.  The experience will definitely be one of the highlights of my trip.

We went back to our rooms and took a nap and headed towards downtown Fethiye to a highly recommended bar called Deep Blue Bar.  We enjoyed some peanuts and fresh popcorn on the house with our round of drinks.

After a few drinks we went to Mozaik Bacik for dinner.  We read great reviews on different blog sites and tripadvisor.  We definitely enjoyed our meal without going over our budget.

Reading, Resting and Relaxing on the beach-Day 13th

Beach infront of our Bungalow

Hearty Breakfast

Reading my kindle

Restaurant at our place

Waiting for the sun to go down

“Coco Burger” best burger ever!

Closing up the bar again! shots of sambuca

I drink wine from the carafe Not much to say about today, we were super lazy and were beach bums all day.  We hung our at the beach in front of our room for 10 hours, practically all day.  We had the waitress and bartender bring us drinks, breakfast, lunch AND dinner to us beachside.  So we had three meals and lots of booze and didn’t even lift a finger.  I am a bit reluctant to see our tab.  Oh well, we’re on vacation! We only got up to get stuff from our room or use the bathroom.  I started a new book by Kathy Griffin, she is super funny but the book reminded me of the book I just read by Tina Fey. Soooo… not much to say but we slept, read, ate and got drunk…right on the beach.  Great day for rest and relaxation.  I felt like a princess.