Bus Trip and Antalya - Day One.

Holy heck. I don't think that we are cut out for ten hour bus rides. We do manage some sleep, but it's super uncomfortable so by the time we get to Antaya we are pretty tired, sore, and grumpy. Good start! We almost attempt to bus to our hotel, fortunately we decide not to and catch a cab instead. 

Our room isn't ready which we had expected, it was not yet nine am, but they invite us to have some breakfast and relax by the pool. Breakfast is ok, this is the first hotel to cover the food in the buffet line up to stop the flies crawling all over it, the pool on the other hand is slightly less appealing. We've been around enough pools to know that the water shouldn't be creamy... After eating our breakfast we head down to the beach instead.

At the beach comes a small culture shock. The couple of kilometres in either direction from where we start is lined with permanent sun loungers, umbrellas, food/drink kiosks, and more. There are public swimming areas as well, which are also full of umbrellas and stuff. The coast is split into lots and lots of "beaches" (a small section of the larger beach, cordoned off to become its own little entity) which are pretty much coastal businesses. We walk East and pass several beautiful "beaches" which look like they have emerged straight from a film set - think brush stick roofing, beds on the beach with soft fabric curtains fluttering in the breeze, toned attractive people serving drinks, that kind of thing. In our travels we also see several which have closed down, their buildings falling into disrepair, decks crumpling, etc. Then there's a beach named something like Relaxation Beach which is quite ironic as they have a full dance floor where a foam party is currently trying to start (at midday) and the DJ is playing some terrible music so loudly that you can hear it a couple of beaches away. It's really odd and we don't like it much.

I feel like I need to mention somewhere that the water temperature is around 28 degrees Celsius. It's incredible. The air temperature feels hotter than anywhere we have been previously, and the humidity makes it almost claustrophobic. I also find Antaya disappointing, I'm slightly upset that we have two nights booked here, this wasn't what we were expecting.

We return to our room in the late afternoon for a nap, then head out for some dinner. The area in which we are staying does not appear to see many English speaking tourists, and when we finally find a restaurant with aircon they ask us if we speak Russian or English. The food is great - it's the first steak and lamb that we have eaten since leaving NZ. We fill ourselves up before returning to our hotel to drink a beer and watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on YouTube. It's pretty good.