Holidays Uncovered

Girls Get away

Marmaris, Turkey. That’s where we decided we would go, after much deliberation obviously. There had been other suggestions, Ibiza? – nah, too expensive, Zante? – nah, our whole town was going, Wales again? – nah, we wanted some sun, we wanted the sea (to be warm), we wanted cocktails and maybe amidst the dancing and the sunbathing we fancied a teeny splash of culture, and so we landed on Turkey. I’d like to say it was random but it wasn’t; it’s my favourite country and the girls were probably rail roaded into it. However, we found a hotel that we agreed on, booked a swell ten days in Marmaris and off we jetted, June 2009.
We settled in, taking the amazing Dolmus bus into Marmaris town day and night, relaxing by the beach and frequenting the numerous bars that scatter the front. We smoked shisha, guzzled 2-4-1 cocktails and danced till dawn.

We played volleyball in the sea with some random Turkish waiters from a nearby bar- though harmless fun turned nasty when one friend made out with a particularly vile man, skip, he becomes a creepy stalker, skip, we avoid the bar for the rest of the holiday.

We were asked whether we wished to participate in any excursions and, full of liberation and anticipation we signed up to mud baths, Turkish baths (heavenly) and a 5am start that was a trip to Turkish historical site, Pamukkale, meaning ‘cotton castles’ in Turkish. We were crazy, I know, and the whole day was a disaster, most of it spent either on a coach, traipsing round a carpet factory or watching a man in a shed blow glass…
Our hotel was also turning out to be a nightmare with calls to the room occurring at 3 or 4am telling us we had to vacate our rooms and come to reception if we wanted to see our passports again and asking us whether we wanted to ‘take it up the bottom’ until we politely told the phantom callers (the reception staff) to kindly f**k off! Further faith was lost when our fan erratically began spurting water all over our beds, prompting us to complain to the reception. Assured someone would come to fix it we waited until a man arrived in jeans and a t-shirt alone with no tools. Standing on the beds, he reached up, revealing a hand gun in his back pocket, we took a picture, as you would in the situation and hastily fled the room!

Otherwise the holiday was a success, we befriended local boys and not so local boys and whilst some of us kept our distance, others were keen to get close, resulting in free banana boats (from which one friend kneed herself and had a black eye all holiday ha ha), jet skis and places in the DJ booth of one of the biggest clubs in Europe, I guess the canoodling benefited us all – although some in more promiscuous ways than others!

Lad’s Holiday

Britain has a talent for binge drinking, and when you have a talent it is only right that you try your best to share that talent with the world. Across Europe numerous resorts have become synonymous with invading hoards of young, alcohol soaked, casual-sex seeking Brits. Never one to pass-up a clichéd rite of passage, my friends and I ventured to the island delights of Kavos.

Arriving at the resort was very much like arriving in a post-apocalyptic hedonistic nightmare, in which bars had been assembled using only corrugated iron and a seemingly endless amount of neon, female underwear was considered a superfluous luxury and the only surviving music was karaoke classics of the 70’s-90’s and Umbrella by Rhianna. However, luckily, this post-apocalyptic frontier town had copious amounts of dangerously cheap alcohol and 35-degree heat all-day, every-day so, it was bearable.

Having worked 9-5 in a call-centre for several months prior to the holiday, it was a welcome respite to be able to lie in the sun, meet new people and escape the dull grind of mind numbing minimum-wage work. Even though it often felt we were judged, not on the strength of your character or your ability to wear non-street brand, but on the size of our biceps; speaking to those baking and bingeing around me, it became obvious that amidst the g-stars and the g-strings there were people more than capable of holding humorous, engaging conversations, people who were simply happy to spend time with their friends, and release pressures built up through 48 weeks of work a year.

Despite this, after several nights of enduring Kavos’ collection of Karaoke bars, exploiting ‘all you can drink’ offers and being tempted by scantily clad PR girls into predominately male clubs, we decided we needed to add a bit of culture to our Lads holiday. The closest thing we could find to ‘culture’ was a day trip to Albania. Bleary eyed, and with our enthusiasm waning rapidly, we underwent an hour’s coach journey and two hour boat ride, before we could enjoy the cultural experience of being sold cheap cigarettes by small children on a much worse beach than we had left in Kavos. Knowing I would never have to visit Albania again, the return journey was much more enjoyable.

It seemed Kavos was not the place for cultural experiences, however that is not what a holiday with friends is about. It is about providing a backdrop that encourages good times and for that Kavos had all the
ingredients. As long as you like karaoke!