As we munched on our hearty treat at the Yeni Bodrum Ocakbaşı, we gazed across at the Istanköy Hotel. I felt a shudder down my spine. Back in 2008, a couple of months before we finally paddled ashore with all our worldly goods, we spent a week in the hotel courtesy of Thomas Cook. When we arrived we were escorted to a dingy sunken room the size of a broom cupboard. Natural light was supplied by a caged slit. It was not a good start. I complained and we were moved to a better room. I say ‘better’ purely in the comparative sense. Our stay was challenging. The over-familiar staff greeted us with ‘yes, mate’ or ‘hello Jimmy’ and it was impossible to get round the rowdy pool for tattooed honey monsters with their brats in caps (despite being in term time). To top it all, we were sure that something dodgy was going on with our safety deposit box.
We had booked cheap and cheerful because it was only a bed for the night. The purpose of our trip was to dolly-hop across the peninsula trying on the towns and villages for size. Early readers will know that we settled on Yalıkavak, a pretty coastal village, about 20 kilometres northwest of Bodrum.
The town of Bodrum is not well-served with good budget hotels. There’s a real gap in the market for the cheap and chirpy rather than the cheap and nasty.
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Perking the Pansies 
Good Lord!! Sounds like a scary place! If you post this on Trip Advisor, no one will ever venture there again…
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I’m tempted, though it might improved since.
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How funny! We chose the Istankoy for the very same reason in 2008. The one thing it had going for it, was location! But it was a little depressing – we say the package tour crowd, eating breakfast; then plotting up by the pool; eating dinner at the restaurant; propping up the bar. Each time we popped in and out of the hotel to retrieve things from our room – we saw the same set of faces, just in different positions. I’m not sure that any of them made it out of the hotel the entire week we spent there… except to hop on the Thomas Cook tour bus back to the airport.
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It’s like stepping into a parallel universe!
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Ahh, the over-familiar staff – we know lots of them. 🙂 Can’t see anyone filling the cheap and chirpy gap in Bodrum. It all seems very high brow these days. Maybe more so now as we’ve not been for a couple of years?
Julia
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You’re right though I can’t help thinking there may be one or two nice places tucked away in little side streets. It’s a shame we don’t have the time to find out.
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At least you won’t ever have need of a hotel in Bodrum again.
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Hallelujah!
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. . brats in caps – out of term-time? ‘Boffers of the world unite, we alone know what is right!’
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Fine the parents, I say. Rant over!
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