Day Tripping

It had been 88 days since I had first come to Bodrum on the ferry from the Greek island of Kos. Now it was time to leave Bodrum and Turkey but only for a day! The reason being that my tourist visa was only valid for 90 days. To renew my visa I had to leave and then return to Turkey. The easiest way to do this was to take a ferry ride to Kos. So, for the first time in over 3 months I had to set the alarm clock! The ferry takes an hour to sail between the two countries and as per most days here it was warm and sunny. So I spent the trip up on the sundeck topping up what was left of my tan.
One thing I did find amusing was the fact that a return trip from Bodrum costs just as much as a single trip from Kos [yes Europe is more expensive].

The ferry docked at Kos harbour at 10:30 and was due to depart at 16:30, so i had 6 hours in a off season small island seaside town to look forward to. However, as i disembarked, i found out the ferry was leaving an hour earlier than advertised. Great, an hour less of my time to waste. Now I had been on Kos before, about 3 months ago and had spent 11 long hours waiting for the ferry to leave and take me to Turkey. I had found it a crappy little place but then I was tired and I had my trike with me which limited what I could do and see. This time it would be different because I would be walking.

My joyful frame of mind lasted about 10 minutes. That was the length of time it took me to walk from the harbour and into the main part of town! Damn, there went my optimism. Most of the places were shut and what was open really wasn’t worth going into. As always, there was an exception and that was the old ruins just to the left of the town near the castle. Well, after 30 minutes of walking around the ruins I still had 4 hours and 20 minutes to go. Not that I was clock watching at all you understand!

So all that there was left to do was sit in a café and drink coffee. The good news was that it was a Monday and so I was able to buy an English Sunday newspaper. After a well spent two hours of reading I still had 2 hours and 20 minutes left!

After some more bimbling [which is kind of like walking but just to the left of normal] it was time to head back to the harbour, have a beer in the dockside café and wait till it was time to board the ferry.

Once the ferry had started to move out of the harbour and was heading back towards Bodrum, I remembered that I hadn’t gone into the local supermarket to see if they had any marmite…….bugger!