DALAMANIA

Whoever is in charge at Dalaman airport obviously doesn’t care about tourist numbers declining in this part of Turkey.
If you are leaving at the height of, and in the hottest part of, the season, you have to queue outside in searing heat, to get through security. There is a large and very impressive looking area inside, but of course you can’t get to that until you have gone through the scanners.
Once through check-in the only places to sit are in the bars and cafes. Last Monday, at 8.00 pm I went to one of the bars for a drink. No other customers and no-one was serving, though I could see two pairs of legs behind the kitchen area door. So I went to the next bar. One barman behind the counter, four in front of it chatting with him and having a smoke. There was customer there though, just one !
I wanted a G&T - , 24 ytl! that’s about £9 ! It’s the same for all the spirits . Beers were equally expensive. The barman said that the prices had been increased again this year from the high levels last year.
In the three other bars I counted a further 6 customers, and 7 more bar staff, chatting or cleaning and obviously bored. So I saw a total of 8 customers and 14 bar staff. But that evening there were a lot of flights and 8.00pm is a time when people generally welcome a drink.
The laughably called duty free shops were also pretty empty, but then my favourite night cream costs more there than it does in Boots in the UK high street.
Most of the travellers go straight to the departure gate to get a seat. These are obviously designed to dissuade people from doing that, but sitting on uncomfortable, hard. wooden ribs is better than paying the airport prices in the bars and cafes.
The tannoy system reminded me of British rail, unintelligible, and the departure staff have to shout out instructions.
How can the people who run the airport,get it so wrong !
This is time when Turkey needs tourism but Dalaman airport - the last place visited by holiday makers and their last memory of Turkey, is, I think most would say, the last place they would want to visit again.

A LITTLE BIT OF TURKISH

Is a Dangerous thing !
Eric Morecombe famously said , when told by Andre Previn that he was playing the wrong notes. ‘I am playing the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.’
Let me start at the beginning. I have a dog - Lucy, . You might have seen her around. White with brown patches, matches my curtains that’s why I chose her, big feet, nice eyes. Very clever, bit naughty and a slight tendency to bark at passing folk. She likes to sit outside my gate and see off marauding cars , scooters etc. She means well and wouldn’t hurt a fly really, but I have had to occasionally extract visitors from bushes and behind trees. That’s why when my neighbour called to me and said ‘Lucy’, I assumed the worst. I know a bit of Turkish, I discovered early on that ‘hiyar’ means small cucumber and is not to be said to boat captains, you say ‘hayir’ to mean ‘No’, so I get by. I got her gist. “Lucy”, “kopek” (dog) , “cocuk” ( child) with asthma ( choking mime holding throat) , with pregnant mother ( round belly mime) and the beladiye ( the council) Oh no! Lucy had frightened a child who had had an asthma attack and its pregnant mother had complained to the authorities. Lanet Olsen (B….y hell).
I resolved to keep Lucy locked up, and tried to explain that. But the reference to the Beladiye worried me. So when a turkish friend called, I seized the chance to go round and find out what the outcome of the complaint was. Would they remove lucy, take her into care ?
She told my neighbour about my concern, great expositions and worried protestations resulted, then they both started to laugh. I had got the right words , but they were definitely not in the right order. There had been a doggie friend of Lucy’s round, a pregnant dog, a dog whose collar was too tight and she was in danger of choking. The neighbour was thinking of asking the Beladiye to catch it to help it, but on seeing me had tried to enlist my help. No pregnant mum, no choking child, definitely no complaint. Oops , took me ages to explain to Lucy why she was tied to my balcony railings for so long !