📍Bodrum & Cappadocia, Turkey 🇹🇷

Beaches and balloons. 🏝️🎈

Day 1: We arrived in Bodrum and checked into our hotel Bodrum Sade Pension. The location was perfect and super cool. J had to work a bit so Erin and I went to get some lunch and drinks. The company was great; the drinks, not so much.

Once J finished working, he met up with us and we explored the city. We quickly learned Bodrum is the center of high quality fake designer bags, shoes, and sunglasses. We also noticed we were there during their off season so some things were closed and the nightlife was much quieter than we expected. After we walked around, we had a Turkish dinner at Zakka Kafe.

We had some drinks at a cocktail bar named Gekko. FYI, I wouldn’t go to Bodrum if you are searching for a good cocktail…I wouldn’t say the drinks are the best we’ve had.

Day 2: We all decided the beach town vibes meant sleeping in. We had breakfast at our hotel and Erin and I went to the beach while J worked, yes, again. We had a few drinks and just relaxed by the beach all day. Much. Needed.

Once J was done working, we met up for lunch (common theme: J arrives, we eat). Erin and I shopped around a bit and then J and I decided to try a hammam. J found this place with high reviews on Google saying it was an “authentic experience.” Without knowing what to expect we were on our way.

We walked in and the people did not speak English. All they said was, “ready?” Sure, why not? They pointed us to a room, gave us a key to a locker and a towel, and no other instructions. Once we changed into our towels, they directed us into a very hot sauna with white marble benches. When we got in, there was a man laying on the marble stone. We just sat there in silence, sweating, unsure of what was going on. The guy in there got up and poured cold water on himself with one of the faucets around the room, so I asked him if he knew what was going on. He told us this was also his first time and his friend was in the other room getting scrubbed. Finally, one of the ladies comes to get the guy and his friend comes in to the sauna room. We asked him what happened and he explained the scrub. We started talking to him and decided to get drinks all together after the hammam. No better place to make friends than in a Turkish bath. Very clean. We got a great scrub (where they just casually dump water on you), a massage, and we left very clean. 😶‍🌫️

We met up with Erin and had dinner at Sultan Bahçe while making plans with our new bath friends.

We successfully met up with our bath friends and spent the night out with them at one of the local bars. Hands down the best smelling group in town.

Day 3: My aunt’s friend actually lives in Bodrum, so she introduced us to a few vendors in the area. Erin and I spent the morning shopping around very successfully. We got some street food and headed to the airport for our next stop, Cappadocia. While Erin and I shopped, J had a nice relaxing lunch.

We arrived in Cappadocia around 9 pm and had a shuttle pick us up for an hour and half ride to our hotel. Our van got pulled over on the way to the hotel. We have no idea what happened because they were speaking Turkish, but we made it! We checked in at our hotel, Erenbey Cave Hotel, around midnight and had our alarms set for 4:30 am, hoping that the weather would be good for our hot air balloon ride. We had heard that the last four days had canceled flights due to weather and six days before our flight, there was an accident where, unfortunately, three people died. Very comforting information to hear before you are about to go in a balloon that is lifted off the ground by fire (seriously through, what a crazy concept).

Day 4: We were picked up at 5 am and brought to the office where we checked in and had breakfast. Luckily the weather was perfect and we were able to go up! We got to the balloon “take off area” (unsure what to call it) before the sun came up so watching the balloons getting ready was super cool.

It was time to get into our baskets…and probably time for J to change his pants due to his fear of heights.

We kept going higher. And higher. And suddenly we were the highest balloon, about 4,600 feet up. We were so high that the other balloons started looking small.

We watched the sun rise and spent 85 minutes up in the balloon. Honestly, pictures don’t even do it justice. It was the coolest.

We had some champagne with the group to celebrate an exceptionally smooth landing.

We had asked our hotel for a late check out and they kindly told us we could stay until 1:30 pm. Say less…💤 We came back from the balloon, had a great breakfast at the hotel, and took a nap (sleep?) from 9 am to 1pm.

Fully rested, we wanted to explore a bit of the area. The hotel called us a cab and we drove about 40 minutes to an underground city called Derinkuyu. Our cab driver was so nice. He told us it would be hard to get a cab back so he waited for us and was our driver for the day.

We were told to try pottery kabobs, so we asked the cab driver where to get them. He dropped us off at Dibek and it did not disappoint. The kabob is heated up in a pottery jar and then opened at the table. Verdict: very good.

We walked around the town, Erin and J got some mulled wine, and we checked out the view from our new hotel, Elite Cave Suites.

Day 5: The hotel we were staying at was a perfect spot for watching the balloons, but you are never sure they are going up until that morning. We were hopeful and woke up at 6 am to watch from the balcony. Sure enough, they went up. I kept telling J and Erin that all of our rain in Munich was worth it…the sky was clear for us when it mattered here!

We got this routine down: it was time for our post balloon nap. We woke up, shopped around, had some lunch, and went to the Open Air Museum.

We called the same cab driver from the day before because we loved him so much.

Before going to the airport, we told Ahmet we were hungry so he kindly stopped at a restaurant, waited for us to eat, and then took us to the airport. What a guy!

And that wraps up our first two stops in Turkey. Time to find Robby in Istanbul!

Gobble, gobble! (I am so sorry, I HAD to do it once. I’m done.)

AK & J

Fun fact: Turkey is changing the spelling its country to Türkiye…probably because of people like me.

Outtakes 🤭