Adventures in Side and Manavgat

After playing our tourist cards, we spent the last two nights in Side (part of Manavgat) in the care of our Turkish friends Bulent and Elif and their awesome kids Yunus and Aslan.  Chad and Bulent worked together ten years ago at Digidesign and haven't seen each other since, so there was a lot to catch up on!

The view from Bulent's family's vacation home, where we were lucky enough to spend our visit.

The beach below - fine sand and warm water!

On the first night, Bulent and Elif took us into Side for dinner and to check out the historic town.

So THAT's where all the tourists are.

Chad's Iskender Kebap - yummy despite the lingering stomach bug.

[Note from Chad: Iskender Kebap is pieces of butter-soaked pita bread, covered in yogurt, then with grilled/shaved lamb and finally tomato sauce.  It's pretty decadent, and definitely not kosher.]

The lovely ruins lit up at night - you can wander through them as you please.  Some of the tourist restaurants are built right into the old city walls.  Some of the more impressive ruins we've seen, especially viewed at night.

Maybe not our best shot, but me with Yunus, Bulent, Aslan, and Elif.

The next day, we took Bulent and Elif's suggestion and took a rafting trip in the Koprulu Canyon.  It was a great trip - lots of sunshine and rapids that were just scary enough (for me, anyway - I'm sure Chad could have handled more than that).  Luckily we had our waterproof camera so we could get some (water spattered at times) shots of the fun.

Straight off the bus at the base camp, they make you swim in a line through the super cold water - presumably to be sure that you can handle it.  Chad and I were chilly, but fine.  The guy two spots behind me, however, screamed like a girl (I'm sorry, but it's true!) and desperately tried to drown the whole line for the whole two minute swim. Luckily he wasn't in our boat.  Though we had our own guy who shrieked like a girl every time he got splashed.  No, it wasn't Chad.

It's a bit zoomed out, but this is Chad flipping the rock-and-roll devil horns while spread-eagle jumping into the river.

Our second night we took Bulent and Elif out to dinner and went to a restaurant in Manavgat that was refreshingly tourist free, with a lovely view of the river and tasty pastries.  Borek are much like Greek spanikopita, but with cheese instead of spinach.

The Turkish ice cream guys are incredible - they adhere stiff/sticky ice cream to their paddles and then do all kinds of tricks with the cone and the contents when you try to grab it, dancing away from your reach.  Great for the kids.

Mmm, ice cream.  Richer & less sweet than the North American equivalent, and able to be pulled into long strands.

Our last day, we hung out at the pool all day before Bulent (very, very, very kindly) drove us to Antalya, where we stayed over night so we could fly out to Istanbul first thing in the morning.  Such a relaxing couple of days with some great friends who were awesome hosts and spoiled us while we were there.  Thanks again to Bulent and Elif (and Yunus and Aslan)!

Yunus - it's Turkish for "dolphin"

Bulent

[Note from Chad: Bulent and I worked together at Digidesign (now Avid Audio) in the early 2000s; a very fun and exciting time for us and the great group of friends/work colleagues we had.  Since then, Bulent has continued to work on a music synthesizer of his own creation while working full time in IT.  But just before we arrived, he was able to quit his IT job and concentrate on his synthesizer company full-time.  Yay, way to go Bulent!  If you like music and keyboards, you should definitely check out his KV331 software synthesizer (runs on personal computers).  Great stuff.  Chatting with Bulent, I'm a bit sad I didn't stick with that industry.]