My Holiday In Marmaris (Marmaris)

Member Name: ChrisChoice

Product:	Marmaris
Date:	05/08/09 (243 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap And Cheerful

Disadvantages: Turkish Can Be Annoying

My partner and I booked a last minute deal to Marmaris in June and departed Belfast on the 6th of July. For our flights, transfers and hotel we paid a total of £660, which I thought was pretty reasonable for July.

We left our flat at 6pm on the 6th, Monday, and our flight was at 10.10pm that night. The flight is around 4 hours, and because we flew with Onur Airlines, I found it pretty boring ( I have already done a review on them, so won't get into again here). We arrived at Dalaman airport at about 5am Tuesday (their time). As my parents had been there before we knew to have an English £10 ready for each visa. However, no-one told us this even when booking, so be wary. After our money had been accepted and passport stamped then we had to queue again to have our passports scanned.

Then it was outside to the hot temperatures....even at 5am it was boiling. The airport is well laid out and as you step outside there is a semi circle of wooden huts with each one being manned by a different travel company. Everything is well signposted. We had paid for Taxi Transfers, and so had to wait until or mini bus was full. It only holds about 8 people and so we weren't waiting long. The driver has a cool bag filled with small bottles of cold water which are 2 for £1....this is common on all the transfer buses, coaches and taxis. The transfer time from the airport to our hotel was about 2 hours although this included a quick stop at a small cafe for a drink, smoke, or just to stretch your legs.

On arriving at our hotel, the Sayar Apartments, I was surprised by how clean and tidy everything was. We were checked in straight away and then came back down to get something to eat. We were able to have a full English breakfast for 5lira. This is about £2. A lira, when we were there was 40p. Anyway, went back to reception and paid for air con in our room...this was an extra £25, but well worth it. After having a sleep we were still too tired to do much so we ate again in our apartments and stayed for the evening entertainment.

The next day we had our welcome meeting with the rep who told us more about Marmaris and how to get about it. We were told about the local bus, called the Dolmus. It runs about every 5 minutes and cost 1lira 50, about 60p. It drops you off anywhere you like, you just tell the driver to stop. Again these are small buses, only holding about 15 people. To get around Marmaris the bus is brown, and to go into nearby Icemeler it is a blue one. The main market is in Icemeler on a Wednesday. The rep also told us to be wary around the market for pickpockets and other general safety tips such as not flashing your money and be careful in the sun. She also tried to sell us trips which seemed very expensive so we said we would think about it. I have to say though there was no hard sell involved.

On the Tuesday night we got the Dolmus into Marmaris town and visited the local bazzar. I hated it....everytime we walked past a shop the traders, who sit outside on stools, called out "Alright Mate" and tried to get us to go into their shop....they don't take no for an answer either....often following us down the street....although Caroline loved it, matter of opinion I think.

On our way back to the bus we seen a little kiosk offering trips which seemed quite reasonable. We both wanted to visit the mud baths and so stopped to find out about it. The man started off wanting £45 each for the trip, which included loads of extras, but Caroline, a keen haggler, said no and starting walking away. He threw in a trip to the Turkish Baths and lowered the price to £40 each for both trips, so of course we said yes. We agreed to go to the Turkish Baths on Thursday and the Mud Baths on Friday.

On Wednesday afternoon we decided to go to the market as we had heard that Turkish copies are the best. We paid about 70p for a 40 minute bus trip, again on the small buses. The market was very busy and a lot of the stalls sold the small things. I got 5 t shirts for £10, and Caroline got a Prada bag for £7. Yes, they are fakes but they don't try and sell them as real. Most of the stuff is advertised as "Genuine Fakes", they sell everything. Caroline bought some cushion covers and Turkish tea. A tip here is to bring some English money with you as they will give you a better deal if you use English to pay with. Also make sure you barter as they will drop prices dramatically....Carolines bag started off at 100 lira....£40...

Thursday was the Turkish Bath, which I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to...I didn't want someone massaging me, but I enjoyed it. We were collected from our hotel and brought to what looked like an old house....Inside the man showed us a video of optional extras we could buy, but didn't force us to...We declined and were shown to a locker room to get changed. We were given rubber soled flip flops to wear and just wore our swimming costumes, you do not need a towel...We were then brought back upstairs and lead into a massive steam room. It is all marbled and has loads of alcoves and basins with running cold water. We were left her for 20 minutes, before the man came back in. Caroline and I each had an assistant who laid us on a marble platform and proceeded to rub all the dead skin away, then you have a shower and go back to the platform to get washed, another shower and then you are lead outside where another man wraps you in towels and offers you a drink. After this we were taken upstairs and given a 20 minute massage. This is great, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. During the entire time there is someone taking photos of you, and they get you to do different poses and action shots, like throwing water over each other. You can choose to buy these at the end. they cost 10 lira each or you can buy a CD with all 14 on it for 20lira. We choose the CD and have since printed them all off with no problems. You also pay for the drinks at the end, which I thought would be a rip off as no prices are shown, but it was only 2 lira each for a coke, about 80p. All in all this was a great day which I throughly enjoyed.

Friday then was the Mud Baths which was the one I was looking forward to the most. We were collected from our hotel at 9am and driven to the port where we boarded a large boat which had two decks. Upstairs was full of sunbeds, and some at the front. There was a large section inside with tables, chairs and a bar. The bar served drinks, crisps and ice creams. Again these were paid for at the end of the trip. Overall all day we had 6 soft drinks, a bag of crisps and an ice cream and it was 24 lira, about £9.50.

There is a meal included in the price of this trip, which was served about 11.30am. This was plain pasta, a burger in batter and salad with bread. It was quite nice.

The trip starts with a boat trip of about 2 hours, where you end up at a smaller jet and transfer onto river boats. These play loud music and are very friendly with much smaller groups of just one nationally. These boats took us to Turtle Beach, where we were left to our own devices for an hour. This is a beautiful beach, although another tip is to make sure you wear shoes where you can go into the water as the sand is too hot too stand on.

We were then taken on a boat trip of about 90 minutes through the reeds which is lovely, but make sure you have loads of sunscreen on as the boat is open and there is no shade.

This brought us to the main event, THE MUD BATHS. We got dropped off at a small pier and had to walk up a small hill, which can be slippy, to the entrance of the baths. The smell here is quite bad, like an eggy smell, which is the sulphur pool. We went into the mud pool first and had great fun covering each other with the warm mud, then we had to stand to dry off, which doesn't take long in the heat. Then its over to the showers which are freezing, but very welcoming, to wash off the mud, which gets everywhere and I mean everywhere, before going to the sulphur pool. This is very hot, but also very deep. I don't like being in deep water and so only got in for a few seconds. I am just over 5 ft 5, and my feet didn't touch the bottom. After all this we went to the cafe here and had a coke while waiting on the rest of our party before going back to the boat.

On the way back the boats stop at the Tombs of the Kings for you to get some photos before taking you back to the bigger boats for your trip back to Marmaris. On the way back they stop for about 20 minutes to allow diving and swimming. We just sat at the back of the boat with our feet dangling in the water.

We arrived back at the deck around 8pm so it is really worth the price and I would go again.

Saturday was spent around the hotel and playing in the pool. We also got a tattoo each this day, which was one we designed ourselves and were quoted £50 each in Belfast, well we got it done here for £15 and it looks well and has healed well. The tattoo palour was very clean and sterile.

Sunday was another day of lazing about and doing very little apart from trying to get everything back into our suitcase.

We were picked up form our hotel at noon on Monday and our flight was at 5pm with us arriving back into Belfast at 10pm our time.

We had average temps of 42 degrees each day with nightime being about 20 degrees. I am already checking our prices for Marmaris in October as I would love to go back again. If you are stuck for somewhere to go this year, check it out.


~Average prices~

small coke.....80p.....2 lira
pint coke.....£2.00....5 lira
small beer.....80p.....2 lira
pint beer.....£1.60.....4 lira
large pizza.....£2.40.....6 lira
steak meal.....£8.00.....20 lira

Summary: Worth A Visit