Getting to Egirdir from Antalya
took me a little bit of luck.
I transferred at the bus station in the town of Isparta,
where no one spoke English.
Because of the language barrier,
I ended up paying the fare of the leg from Isparta to Egidir twice.
The entire trip took me about four hours.
A direct bus would have been easier.
Stepping off the bus at Egirdir, I was immediately greeted by a crowd of touts who owned or worked for various pansiyons (or pensions, the Turkish way of saying budget hotels or bed-and-breakfast). I was going to ignore them before I realized one of them was from Ali's Pension, exactly where I wanted to stay for the night. He was Ali's nephew and was taking care of the pension for his uncle, who now lived in England. After agreeing on the price (about US$7 for a single room with private hot shower), he gave me a ride to their place on Yesilada, a tiny island connected to the town by a causeway.
He and his wife spoke very good English, and were well aware that their pansiyon was recommended in many travel guides. They introduced me to their big family and treated me to some Turkish tea (typical Turkish hospitality). I spent the late afternoon walking around on the island.
Egirdir is definitely not a world-class resort,
but its beautiful and tranquil lakeside setting contrasts nicely with
the hustle and bustle of the Meditarrean coast.
What impressed me most, though, were the people.
For example, a little kid dashed to me from his family and brought me a handful of fruit that looked like plums. The family didn't speak or understand English. The father put his hand on his chest and said, "Turkey." and then pointed to me. "Hong Kong. China," I said. Then they talked in Turkish for a while. The father seemed to explain to the child where Hong Kong is, and appreciate that I had come there from very far away. He showed me a map of Turkey, and I told them my itinerary, "Antalya. Egirdir.... Cappadocia.... Istanbul." They raised their thumbs when hearing Cappadocia and Istanbul.
Before leaving, they insisted on giving me the map, which I couldn't but accept because I failed to tell them I already had one in the pansiyon. The kid gave me another handful of fruit before they finally left.
They were not the only locals who were watching me. When I unknowingly dropped something, somebody thirty meters away would shout at me. This feeling of constantly being watched took some time to get used to. But I felt safe and welcome. This is in sharp contrast with my experience of traveling in our own country China. For all practical purposes, travelers from Hong Kong were classified as foreigners and were ripped off and mistreated all the same. (This has changed somewhat since Hong Kong's handover to China, but read my Tibet story.) And here I was, in a foreign country, feeling much safer and pleasant than in our motherland.
I enjoyed my dinner that evening at Ali's. The bass I had was way better than the fish served at the five-star hotel in Belek.
I probably would have stayed longer if I had had more time.
The next day I departed for Konya.
You may go back to my travel page, or
for others photos I took, check out
my photo portfolio.