The adventure continues….
Kalkan
Billy and Esra hopped on their motorbike and took us to meet Mark and Imelda who own the Pasha Hotel. We relaxed, drank a bit and waited for the one vacant apartment to be readied for us. Billy, Esra, Mark and Imelda are friends so we all sat chatting until Billy and Esra continued up the hill to their home to rest before their evening work. We met and chatted with a British couple relaxing by the pool and then joined another couple who were sitting in the bar area. Both couples were vacationing at the Pasha. The Pasha is rated # 1 on TripAdvisor which lots of Brits use when making travel plans. From our one night stay we could certainly understand why. Mark is originally from London where he had managed 4 star hotels. Imelda, a qualified massage therapist originally from Ireland had moved to London and met Mark. Together they had vacationed several times at the Pasha, breaking their rule of never going to the same place twice. When the previous owners of Pasha had wanted to sell they contacted Mark and Imelda and asked if the couple wanted to buy the hotel. That was in 2008.
http://www.pasha-apartments.co.uk/
Where to find the Pasha
The front garden included a lovely sitting area and a bar where we relaxed while our apartment was being readied. There are 9 rooms/apartments and we got the only one still available.
Our back balcony looked down on the pool.
The L shaped kitchen and sitting area.
The kitchen was totally furnished with everything you’d need to prepare your own meals. Mark and Imelda don’t want to do breakfast so provide a kettle and tea supplies and don’t add breakfast to the cost of the room which is fine with us. We ate so much during dinner at Coast that we had no need for breakfast!
They had the best smelling wonderful sheets! View from our side balcony early in the next morning.
After a bit of a rest and a wash up in our room we got back on the bike and drove down the hill back to town to an Internet Café.
We parked down at Coast Bar and Restaurant on the waterfront and walked uphill to the Internet Café on the right. (Everything is uphill from the bay.) At the foot of the hill we couldn’t resist walking into a carpet shop. We told the young salesman we weren’t in the market but he didn’t mind and taught us more about carpets explaining that he loved them and loved showing them. Even with no customers he sometimes unrolls several just to look at them. He did have lovely carpets! Our carpet plan now is to buy some for our bedsides and we each get to pick one we love even if they are totally different and we don’t like each other’s choice. But we didn’t have the measurements and it wasn’t the right time just then to buy any.
I sat here and sketched while Randal was on the Internet. The young woman sitting on the step had come out to smoke…everyone here smokes especially the young people.
Looking up hill from the small table outside the Internet Café.
July and August are the really busy tourist times but Kalkan hasn’t been over-run yet and I read that more people are buying property to stay and live here. However, our new friend Billy who co-owns Coast says he will retire back to the US because there is too much cultural difference for him and Esra to stay in Turkey.
Who would not want to spend the evening here watching the sun go down?
We sat on a small PADDED loveseat and had our meal overlooking the harbor. We could have moved to a table but it was so nice sitting where we’d had our drinks that we didn’t want to move. Those pink bushes are everywhere..light pink, dark pink and white too. They remind me of rhododendron or mountain laurel
Our wonderful meals.
We had started with meze…several small dishes of vegetables, dips and such eaten with bread. After that I actually didn’t need any dinner so ordered another starter of eggplant with cheese on crusty bread and Randal had a beef dish with eggplant and some kind of wonderful sauce. I had more wine and Randal drank another beer and we had a lovely relaxed evening. During the evening we met Coast’s co-owner Omar and he suggested we visit Patara.
There were lots of other restaurants along the waterfront: the Taurus Mountains in the distance.
Lovely, bubbly, charming Esra, wife of Billy, nephew of Jamal who started the whole thing for us.
Two happy campers!
Most people eat later than we do and that’s why you see empty tables. We went into the restaurant about 6:45pm but 8pm is when people start to come. Most hotels and restaurants close from November to May because tourists stop coming. The closest airport shuts down during those months so there is no easy way to get to the coast area.
Kalkan night life
Next email leaving Kalkan for Patara, pumpkin pancake and a hike through the ruins.