Stories of Turkey by Fred and Carol Moore: "Yumurtalik"

A Hot Time in Yumurtalik, Turkey

Fred Moore

It’s Thursday night and we’re not working tomorrow; we’ve decided to check out the new hotel, called the Grand BTC Beach Hotel that has opened recently in Yumurtalik (Turkish for "egg nest"). You may remember Yumurtalik as our little fishing village hide-a-way on the Mediterranean Sea just about an hour from our home.

We leave work as usual and spend 30 minutes collecting our things for a couple nights away. We take our canvas chairs, our own pillows (when we’re not flying we nearly always take our own pillows), our old lap-top, some DVDs and several changes of clothes. We head out a little after five and set off for the autobahn heading east out of Adana. It’s about thirty minutes to the Yumurtalik exit on the autobahn where we have to get off to connect with the two-lane road headed south toward the seaside.

Our toll tonight is a Lira and a half; once beyond the tollbooth we make the first left and take the short highway over to the two-lane going south. We’re always careful along this short stretch; there are generally herds of goats along this roadway and they’re sometimes milling about the edge of the roadway or even crossing the road here, today is no exception. They’re off the road though today and even appear to be penned up behind some make-shift fencing. Carol notices a man carrying a small lamb in his arms as he crosses the road. As we turn left on heading south there are several melon stands along the highway before we pass under the autobahn we’ve just come off. We don’t stop but some of the melons look extremely nice.

The traffic on the autobahn was far heavier than I had thought it would be today, heavier than usual, can’t imagine why. As we travel south now, we encounter far more traffic than I remember on this route as well. The road surface has been recently tarred and topped in gravel but luckily not too recently; the stone seems quite secure even as we’re passed by a number of people who want to get where they’re going, NOW. I note this only because it can be very hazardous driving on this type of road surfacing just after it has been laid down. You can encounter this, often in the summer, in your personal travels across the back roads here. As we progress, Carol points out this very odd looking vehicle coming toward us; it appears to be a farm tractor on stilts. It’s actually a spray rig and reminds me of the equipment you see in grape vineyards back home.

We see several herds of goats and a few flocks of sheep as we continue our drive; I have to completely stop at one point for a herd of milk cows to cross the road. Two men with sticks try their best to keep the cows moving in the direction they wish them to go NOT the direction the cows wish to proceed. There’s been a time or two on this road when the cows have been walking down the road so it’s best to always be alert to the possibility. We pass through two villages on our trip through this flat plain of agricultural bounty. There’s lots of corn this year and it looks really good; there are more fields covered in a multi-colored green, very low growing, crop that I believe may be soy beans (don’t take that as fact). There’s the occasional field of potatoes and many more fields of cotton along here as well.

We’re now cresting the hill just prior to entering Yumurtalik. We’ve passed a few signs advertizing the hotel we’re visiting and now there’s another one just as we enter the village. Minutes later, we ease down into the village and see the hotel on our right. We turn in where the sign indicates there’s parking and go to the rear of the hotel. On the left just beyond the building, there’s a barrier gate and pull up to it; in just seconds, it rises up and we’re in the parking lot. This is a bricked lot with those interlocking pavers and we learn inside the hotel, the lot is electronically monitored, as well as gated. There’s plenty of parking and we pull into a space and stop at a little past six. The slots aren’t marked but cars and trucks have been parked around the outside of lot’s interior.

We get out of the car and walk round to the front of the hotel; we learn later we could have entered the building from a side entrance that’s unmarked right on parking lot. A very thin young lady is manning the reception desk and I offer her my Turkish ID and tell her of our reservation; she beckons a young man from outside before we can say anything further. Again, I explain we have a reservation and then the young woman checks the computer, finds our name and a suite has been set aside for us. We were told, when we phoned, the suites were occupied but apparently one has been vacated and reserved for us. We’ll be in suite 600 overlooking the beach. They ask that we pay now; I find this a little unusual but pay as they have requested.

Finally, we get the key (card) for the room and we go to the elevator to have a look. We manually open an external door to step inside; the elevator is quite small, three people standing one behind the other in single file fill the rectangular box! Once inside there are two accordion-style doors that fold shut before the elevator will rise. The lobby is quite cool and comfortable but the elevator and the hallway to our suite has no a/c at all (there very warm). Once at our door, I hold the card to the handle and hear the ubiquitous click and a tiny blue light illuminates. I turn the handle and step into a bedroom; it’s extremely HOT and I look toward the right down a hall toward the drapes. We walk that way and try to turn on the lights and the a/c units but there’s no power. Then I remember the switch box on the wall near the door; our card must be in the tray of the switch box before we have any power in the room. Once the card is inserted, everything functions normally; I can’t believe I forgot that tiny little detail.

We return to the lobby and then slip out the side door to the parking lot to get our things; we were offered some assistance at the desk but made the trip on our own. I went up first with the bags and then Carol came along because the elevator is not capable of taking the two of us and all our things. Think small; if I stood with my back to the elevator rear wall (mirror), I couldn’t put my hands on my hips and extend my elbows fully. If Carol and I stood side by side from the door to the rear of the elevator, it’s full, literally! The music is very pleasant though and the interior is quite clean. Ok, so everything’s in our room; I unpack our pillows and set them on the bed. Then I lay the suitcase on the bed and extract our clothes; I hang them in the armoire. It has three doors, one with shelves, the other two the closet where I hang our things. Straight in beyond the door is the bed; it’s very low to the floor but not rock hard, as so many tend to be. It has a padded headboard, I figure it’s mounted to the wall; I don’t attempt to check. Beyond the bed is a bed side end stand with a phone atop; only that one, opposite the door. There are two lights flanking the headboard mounted on the wall with switches at arm’s length from the bed. There’s a very large window on the wall opposite the door with a view of the building across the driveway. At the edge of the window just below the curtain at the foot of the bed and to the side of the bed is a small refrigerator stocked with water, soda and beer which is pay as you go. I check to see how cold it might be inside, as I assumed, without power everything in it is HOT!

To the right and down the hall is the sitting room with the balcony with the sea view. The balcony is large and has a small round table with an upholstered chair; quite odd I think for outdoors. In the sitting room are two loveseats, two side chairs and a large ottoman. Aside from the glass sliding doors on the balcony, the room is completely ‘walled’ with furniture. It looks art deco in design; it’s black and white; the base is all black with a chrome pipe rail along the top back with white and black striped cushioning. There’s a flat-screen TV hung over the side chairs and very little room space at all. Seems to me one loveseat would have been plenty. We’re curious what the other suite must look like, next door.

Back down the hall now between the two rooms is the bathroom; the door faces the foot of the bed. The room is quite large really, there’s a Jacuzzi in one corner with circular glass doors emblazoned with the hotel crest. The bathroom door won’t fully open because the towel rack is mounted on the wall behind it (could have been moved a foot closer to the sink and the door would have been fine!). There’s a large sink top and splashboard but no vanity. The commode is one of those that protrudes from the wall and appears to simply hang there. Carol points out the room’s décor; it’s beautifully done in gold and black accent tiles but the light shield above the sink and overhead are white and blue! They match those in the two outer rooms but fail to accent this room.

In the bedroom again just outside the bathroom door is a large desk/vanity with mirror and its own chair like the one on the balcony; its mass exceeds the given space and it over runs the bathroom door opening by a good three or four inches. Carol wants to re-arrange it; I talk her out of it! On the desk is a stand with four packs of cigarettes; the stocking list for the refrigerator doesn’t indicate any cigarettes so they may be gratis, but no telling (we don’t use them anyway, so it’s of no consequence). Beside them on the desk is the standard hotel folder with pen, paper and envelope; seems so 19th century but maybe people still use these things.

Back to the bed now; it has one Matisse-style cover that simply fits the top of the mattress, barely. There’s no hang over and no other blankets or sheets in the room. There are however, extra pillows. There’s not a solitary picture in the whole place; the walls are devoid of decoration. (That may be a consequence of the fact the hotel is only 3 months old!) That’s the tour friends; what I’ve described is a suite in this hotel for 220 Lira (about $150) per night including breakfast! The view of the bay is quite striking and must be accounted for in the price!

Now that we’re settled in, we go up one floor to the dining room for an early dinner. This is quite interesting. There’s no a/c on; all the sliding glass windows are open to the outside air which is NOT cool at all; even the roof appears to be glass. There are heavy cloth coverings (reminiscent of canvas) over the ceiling panes and it gives me the allusion of entering a tent. We take a table at the end of the room with a view looking out over the bay. We can literally throw our arms out over the window sill as if we were riding in a car as we sit next to the outer wall. I lean toward the sill and look over, glad I’m seated. There’s a breath of air every now and then but it’s basically dragon breath. The view is awesome though and the beach and shallows are teeming with bathers. The view toward the horizon is hard to convey in simply words, suffice it to say, it’s lovely. Once approached by our waiter; Carol orders chicken schnitzel and I order lamb chops. The food is fairly quick in arriving and it’s quite good; we spend little time however because we're both far too warm.

We return to our room and check out the TV; there are few stations and they’re all Turkish except for two German channels; no international news or other offerings. Generally, Turkish cable includes BBC or one other station with something in English, but not this one. We opt to watch a ‘take off’ on the American show, “Deal or No Deal”. The contestants are talking to each other, non-stop, most of which we can’t understand; but, we can understand when they choose a box and it is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ choice! Some things just don’t need translating! The large prize here is 500,000 Lira, that’s pretty significant, about $330,000 at today’s conversion rate.

Morning comes late for me; I’m usually up and around by six but today I pull the clock to my face so I can read the numbers and it says 840! I don’t remember the last time I awakened that late in the day! I put the clock down and get up; I walk to the end of the hall and look out the balcony window. The sun has climbed quite high into the haze over the bay. I crack open the sliding door and shut it again, another very hot morning. There are a number of people already swimming and many others simply stroll the sandy beach. Carol is getting up now too; we dress, freshen up and then climb the flight of stairs outside our room to the dining area above. There’s no one having breakfast (it’s Ramadan); I don’t know if it’s Ramadan-related or everyone else got up and has gone already. We have the typical Turkish breakfast; white cheese, salami, tomatoes, cucumbers and bread. Carol adds olives to the mix; I’ve not yet acquired a taste for olives at breakfast or any other time for that matter.

There’s little air flowing even though we’re sitting between several open windows. We enjoy the view from up here but would very much prefer a/c to no air at all. I can see the oil tankers queued up out in the bay; we’re just up the coast from the major pipeline that transports oil and gas to the seaside. We don’t spend a lot of time over breakfast. We talk about walking around the village and descend to the parking lot to get our hats from the car. We walk along the street toward the little harbor full of fishing boats and then walk down the long pier. At the end of the pier we find the old café but with a new addition; a deck built out over the water, we decide to sit and enjoy some sea breeze. This building on the pier has been here for a long time (as long as we’ve been coming out here) but the deck is only a few months old. A gentleman comes over and asked if we would like anything; we ask him for some water and he brings a large bottle. We sit quietly and enjoy the sound of the water lapping at the pilings below our feet; we also enjoy the view across the water to the ruins of the castle on a small island not far from where we sit.

There are some light sea breezes across the water and we talk of the sea gulls and other sea birds enjoying their morning scavenging the waters from where the fishermen have dumped unwanted catch over the side of their boats. We’ve walked past 25 or 30 small fishing boats getting out here and the guys are repairing nets and offloading their evening catch. It appears these boats go out at night and return at daybreak to offload and then organize and repair for the coming evening. Few of the boats we pass are inactive; most contain 4 or 5 guys in a flurry of activity. Some of the larger boats are still preparing for the day’s work ahead; they’re drawing canvas and blankets over the side toward the sun trying to get some shade on their day’s work. Toward the end of the pier, boats are lined up on the wharf three deep all lashed together so you can walk from the far boat across the other two to dockside.

As we sit and enjoy the morning out here, we’re nearly opposite our hotel across the bay. There’s a large ferry-like boat (it has been here a good while, was here for our last two visits I believe) docked out here near us though and we can’t see our hotel through it but we can see some of the main street across the water. I look off toward some of the hillsides above the village and tell Carol how nice it would be to have a house on one or the other of them. There’s something about the seaside that is calming and even though the heat is nearly unbearable this morning, we sit and consume the entire bottle of water before we walk back around the harbor.

On our way back to the hotel we run into our old fish restaurant owner and he has another restaurant now on main street, serving kabobs. He invites us for lunch or dinner and we tell him thanks. We get back to the hotel and go to our room; it’s far too hot for anymore walking today. Carol spends time crocheting and I read. I look out across the water and as the sun continues to climb the view gets a little clearer. There are mountains across the bay as we look toward Hatay and Antakya. I stand up to look at the beach and there are far more people out now than early this morning. It’s interesting, 90% of those I can see are male. There’s one lady in the water fully dressed and a few others milling about on the sand. There are several small groups a boys playing soccer on the beach but no sun bathers that I can see. There are two small paddle boats playing about between us and the castle ruin in the water some 200 yards from the beach. I can’t imagine how cool the water is nor can I imagine being out there in the direct sun for hours at a time. We’ve come to relax and that’s what we’re doing; there’s little to do here in this quiet little fishing village and the heat makes staying inside the right thing to do. We had a late breakfast and decide at four to have an early dinner. We go down to the street and walk next door to Beyazsaray. We order two chicken doner over rice plates and a salad. While we’re waiting, I tell Carol the gentleman waiting on us looks quite familiar and the next thing we know he’s telling us he used to work at the old hotel down the street. His name is Ahmet; he’s very pleased we’ve stopped at his restaurant. Apparently the old hotel owner died and his wife now runs things and is not doing very well. Our doners and the salad are very good and we pay only 17.5 Lira. After dinner we return to our room and dry out again; the heat is just far too much.

As the sun falls in the west the moon rises over the bay; the darker the sky becomes the more pronounced the glaze cast across the water by the moon. A wonderful soft white illumination widens from horizon to the beach just below our balcony. There are still a number of people on the beach and even in the water. With the moon casting its beautiful glow across the bay we step outside into the still very warm air to more fully enjoy these lovely surroundings. The hotel has a beachfront café across the main street and live music that is just getting started – as always the music is far too loud even though we’re six floors above it and across the street. It isn’t unpleasant music, but it’s simply far too loud.

We’ve set up our laptop and sit to watch some of our DVDs that we’ve brought along. We’re enjoying a vast number of British murder mystery TV series; we have two with us and spend nearly three hours with them. It’s late and we shut down the laptop and retire for the night. This morning, I’m up as usual, I walk down the hall and open the balcony drape; the sun is just rising over the mountains on the other side of the bay. The water looks to have a strip of fiery golden glaze from the horizon to the beach below me. There are a few swimmers out already and several people walking the beach. As I scan the water from left to right I notice a number of fishing boats headed this way. The ones still out quite away from me look like tiny dots of back again the slightly rippling blue-gray water surface. Out almost on the horizon there’s a tanker moving out into the Mediterranean, this ship is so large I have to spend a few minutes watching it over the castle ruin to actually notice it’s moving away from the coast. I’ve never seen one of these massive ships up close but even from this distance it isn’t difficult to imagine its enormity.

Carol is up now as well and we collect our things, pack our bags and prepare to return home. Once everything is packed and set near the door we ascend the stairs and have breakfast. I talked of a little breeze yesterday, well today, there’s not a single breathe of air. All the windows are open but not even the paper napkins move on the table next to our plates. We’re still the only guests at breakfast and spend little time because it’s simply not comfortable in this heat. After breakfast we take the bags to the car and then return our door card. We stop at the market next to the hotel and buy some tomatoes, cucumbers and peaches (these are large and beautiful). We take them to the car and set off for home, another quiet time away.