Bodrum — March 2026
Eighteen days in Bodrum in early March. Sun, sea swimming, training, remote work, and the routine I build when I leave London.
I come to Bodrum when London gets repetitive. Same gym, same meals, same weather, same routine. Everything works, but everything feels the same. Bodrum resets that without breaking anything. I know the place, I know what it gives me. Sun, sea, good food, a different environment. The fundamentals stay the same. I still train, still eat well, still work. The context around it changes and that is what I need.
I eat well here but I give myself more room. More carbs, more cake. My guilty pleasure is the bakery. In Turkey we call it the fırın. There is always fresh bread coming out and I am somehow always wandering in. I train at Black Fit, my favourite gym in Bodrum, and I didn’t book a return ticket. I generally don’t. I just go with the flow and see what happens.
This is not a travel guide, nor a structured breakdown. Just days and moments, written when I felt like it.
Tuesday 3 March — Arrival
I was up at five. Before anything else I cleaned the flat. I like leaving it spotless so when I come back it is already done. Then the Moccamaster, five scrambled eggs, and I ate on the way to the airport. Five eggs because they keep me full and stop me snacking at the airport. My dad drove, or rather I drove and he took the car back.
I always get stopped at security. Two laptops, camera gear, hard drive. It flags every time. It’s pretty annoying.
Then Ryanair. I was last to board, which I prefer, and I thought I had got away with the large rucksack. A woman stopped me at the gate and made me put it through the size checker. It didn’t fit, so I took out my big fleece, wore it, held the laptops, joked around with her. She really wanted to charge me and have the bag go in the hold. I could see it in her eyes, but after some back and forth she let me through.
Landed and was out in thirty minutes, and the weather and atmosphere hit me instantly. Warm, sunny, quiet, peaceful. Not much going on. In the rental thirty minutes later, a Fiat Egea. I love that car. It’s just a simple 1.4 litre salon, and it handles the hills pretty well.
Now in the car, driving into town with the arm out the window, Turkish radio on, just taking it in. First stop my butcher. I go for his köfte. Then the fırın on the way home for fresh pide. I fried up the köfte, had it with the bread, and watched the sunset from the balcony. I ate in silence, TV off, no background noise needed. You can hear the birds chirping away. Something I don’t hear in London from my flat. After the meal I lay down on the sofa and watched the sky from the living room window.
Later I went to Migros and did a shop. I always enjoy shopping in foreign supermarkets, just walking the aisles and seeing what they’ve got. Came back, watched Liverpool v Wolves, and made salep from a carton I heated up on the stove. First time having it in a while. I will be making my own version when I get back to London.
Thursday 5 March
Went to Gürme, an organic shop in Bodrum, and bought kuzu bonfile. A long slim cut I had never seen before. Fried it and it was soft, tender, and genuinely one of the better pieces of meat I have had here. With it I had a dark Turkish tomato, the kind you do not get in London, and a pepper.
I also went looking for my pide. The Ramazan pidesi, the one coated with egg on top. The woman serving me said I looked like a footballer. I took it as an opening, asked if she wanted to go for a coffee. She politely declined. It felt good regardless. I tried, she was kind about it, and I walked away with no number but I had the bread, the bonfile, the pide, and the tomato. Simple meal and a good one.
Friday 6 March — The Market
Morning started at Espresslab, my favourite coffee shop here. Turks were boycotting it for political reasons, last year no one was going there, but seems like this year they have forgotten about it. It’s funny because they would boycott that place because of their president Erdoğan, but down the road they won’t boycott Starbucks, like we do in London. Anyways, there was a friendly girl working, we had a good conversation, I asked for her number, and she gave it to me. I have been feeling more confident lately, I think it’s my general headspace. (Note from end of trip — we spoke for a day or two and it didn’t work out.)
Then the Çarşı market, a big one held in a car park, near Gümbet. Busy, full of produce and noise. I walked in with the A6700 and felt uncomfortable at first. Walking into a busy market with a camera around your wrist feels slightly embarrassing at first, like everyone can see what you are doing. Then a man at one of the stalls asked if I could take a photo of him. He took his coat off and started posing. Bless him, he was so excited. Felt like I was giving him a private photoshoot, but I enjoyed it. It was different to the typical type of shots I took.
From there people in the surrounding stalls started joking around and wanting photos. I obliged. That changed the whole dynamic. What had felt uncomfortable became something else. Those shots have a quality that a photo of an empty stall never will. They are interactions.
I bought a simit and walked around eating it while shooting. Bought vegetables, Bodrum mandalina, cheese, and olives. The cheese and olive guys kept giving me samples. I was just standing there trying everything. That doesn’t happen at a supermarket in London. You pay, you leave. Here there is warmth in the transaction. You are not just a customer moving through.
I finished with a döner from my favourite spot at the back of the market.
Saturday 7 March — Cennet Koyu
Went to Cennet Koyu beach in the morning, and it was empty. In summer this place is packed. In March you have it to yourself. A few bikers pulled up while I was there, clearly a spot for them.
One of them came over when he saw the camera. He worked in wildlife and his hobby was bird photography. He had a serious setup, a camera with a 500mm zoom lens. We started talking about what I was trying to do with the ND filter, experimenting with slower shutter speeds for the first time to get motion in the water. He was interested but did not know about any of it. He told me he shoots in JPG and does no post-processing.
I had to explain why that was leaving most of the work on the table. RAW gives you the file, the edit gives you the image. They are two separate things and one without the other is half a job. I showed him Lightroom on my laptop, applied a quick adaptive profile to one of the shots so he could see the difference between the flat RAW and the edited version. He was surprised. We exchanged numbers and I said I would help him get set up.
After the shots I set up the camera on the tripod, hit record, and swam. The koyu sits colder than open water because it is enclosed. March water, no sun overhead yet. I dove in and about five minutes into the swim I felt a sharp tingling in my right arm and leg at the same time. I was in deep water and I had trained legs that morning, hitting a squat PR of 140kg for six and 180kg deadlift for two. I was not fatigued but I always have it in the back of my mind after leg day. Cramp in deep water is not something I want to test. I turned around and came back.
The tingle was just the cold. Vasoconstriction pulling blood away from the limbs. It’s a normal response, nothing dangerous, but I was in deep water and wasn’t going to push it.
I warmed up in the car with the heating on full. It took about thirty minutes to feel normal again. That is afterdrop, the core temperature continuing to fall after you get out as the cold blood from your extremities recirculates. The koyu was colder than anywhere else I have swum this trip, so it hit harder.
Once fully warm I went back, because the footage from the first swim was overexposed, highlights blown, and you couldn’t see the beauty of the koyu. This time properly exposed. When I got in the second time it felt completely different. The cold hit properly, the way it is supposed to, and I felt good in the water. That was the swim I wanted.
There was also a scuba diver there with an oxygen tank. I asked what he was looking for. He didn’t give much away.
On the way home I stopped at the bakery. Fresh Ramazan pidesi straight from the oven. Home by sunset, watched it from the balcony, did laundry, washed up, made köfte again, and watched Daredevil on Disney.
Saturday night in Bodrum.
Sunday 8 March — The Beach
I found a quiet beach in the afternoon in Gumbet. Empty tables, chairs, no one around. Summer this place is packed. I sat down topless and let the sun hit my chest directly, staring out at the sea. Just taking it in. Heat on the chest, silence, nothing to do.
A woman walked past along the shoreline in a brown tracksuit with the hood up, fully covered, moving at her own pace. It made me smile because in that moment that was her peace, and what I just described was mine. Same beach, same sun, completely different worlds.
Tuesday 10 March — Something I Realised Today
I am writing this on the balcony at around four in the afternoon. The sea view never gets old. Strawberries from the market, sun hitting the side of my face, music on. I did not plan to journal this trip. It just started happening and here we are.
Something clicked today about the video work I have been doing this week. Shooting scenes, learning the ND filter, working out light direction, teaching myself what makes a clip hold together. It has been absorbing in a way I did not expect.
Then it hit me. I have done this before.
When I was about fourteen, I used to make video compilations of me and my school friends with whatever phone camera I had at the time. The format was 3GP. I called it Deniz TV. I edited on Sony Vegas, uploaded to Google Video before YouTube existed, and one of those videos got forty thousand views. I was a kid making compilations and loving it. Then life went on and I forgot about it entirely.
Now I am thirty-six, in Bodrum, with a Sony A6700 and an ND filter, making a compilation of places I go. Same instinct. Twenty-two years later. I did not come back to it intentionally. I bought a camera for AWS demo videos, one thing led to another, and somewhere between the market and the beach it reminded me of something I used to love.
That is a strange and good feeling.
Thursday 12 March — Small World
I was just about to go to sleep when I started thinking about something.
Bodrum is either a very small place, or we are all connected. Probably both.
Over the past few days I have kept bumping into the same people. At Black Fit there was a woman using the cable machine. I went to use it without realising she was mid-set, quick apology, brief interaction, did not think much of it. A couple of days later I was working from Zai, a cafe and brunch spot, and a woman came up to me and asked if I had been at Black Fit. I could not place her at first. Then she mentioned the cable machine and it clicked. Same gym, and then I ended up at her workplace without knowing it.
Then at Akyarlar beach. I was out filming with the camera, went for a swim, barely anyone around. A few days later I am on the side delt machine at Black Fit and the man next to me asks if I was at Akyarlar filming. He had seen me there. We had a conversation.
Same gym, different day. I was talking to a man one evening, he was visiting a friend who worked there. Later I heard about a new gym called Mac One, went to check it out, and as the worker was showing me around I spotted the same man.
Looking back through my footage from the past week I noticed I had filmed the same woman twice, two different mornings, two different locations. She must go for a walk most mornings around the same time I am out shooting.
Then one morning I got a message from my Turkish teacher. She had seen me walking through the Çarşı and sent me a message: “sabah sabah çarşıda ne işin var.” What are you doing in the market this early. She had spotted me before I spotted her.
At Bodrum beach, a man politely asked if he could sit next to me. He was lovely, we spoke for about ten minutes before he moved on. He said he enjoyed going for walks up and down the beach, something I do too. He remembered seeing me swimming there a few days earlier.
Now, either I stand out, people here are just genuinely friendly, or it really is a small world. Honestly I think it is all three. March Bodrum is not tourist season, the people out and about are mostly locals and regulars. That pool is small, then you add someone walking around with a camera, going for solo swims in cold water, working from cafes, and apparently you become memorable. People notice you before you notice them, and this always happens to me.
The cable machine woman coming up to me at Zai is the one that got me. I walked into her workplace without knowing it. That is not a small world moment you can plan.
Friday 13 March — Turgutreis
I set off before sunrise, drove to Turgutreis, and arrived near the marina while it was still dark. People were already out fishing along the waterfront. I started taking shots of the coastline.
There was a woman and a man, both older than me, fishing quietly. I went over and asked where the best spot was to watch the sunrise, as I had heard Turgutreis was good for it. They pointed me to a park nearby with a clear view. Then they asked where I was from and that was it, I did not go anywhere for the next hour.
We stood there talking while the sun came up. The sea lit up slowly, the boats sitting in the water, the light catching everything. A fat cat was hanging around and I stopped to stroke it and took a few shots of it too.
They were brother and sister. She had lived in Turgutreis for forty years. I told her I used to come here as a kid and how much the place had changed since then. She nodded like she had watched every bit of it happen. He was visiting from Antalya, just there to spend time with her, and they were going to eat the fish together later. He had caught four, one a decent size. He spoke well of Antalya. I have never been drawn to it, too touristy, gets too hot, always felt like it was not for me, but the way he talked about it made me think maybe I had written it off too quickly. Maybe I will give it a go. She mentioned her nephew is coming to London in August, staying for three weeks. We talked about that for a bit. At some point we got onto sunsets and she mentioned Pedasa, said the views from up there were something else. I filed that away.
What stayed with me was the two of them just being there together. Him travelling to visit her, fishing side by side before sunrise, going home later to eat what he caught. That sibling ease, warm and unhurried, no agenda. I have a sister, but we are not really like that. Seeing it in someone else made me notice the gap.
An hour passed without noticing. Couple of dogs barking at each other somewhere nearby, people fishing, the light changing over the water, and me just talking to strangers I had never met. Then I got back in the car and drove off.
After that I walked down the marina and into the market. Quiet still, barely anyone around. I had an açma, took some shots, and then made my way to a Cafe Nero right by the water. Turks are not early morning people. It started filling up around eleven, the sun was out, warm with a breeze, and I ended up chatting with another guy who had a cute brown Labrador. One more coffee, then I got back in the car and drove back to Bodrum. A good morning. Unplanned from start to finish.
This kind of thing does not happen in London. You do not just stop and talk to someone for an hour. Nobody has the time, nobody has the inclination. Here it just happens naturally and nobody thinks anything of it.
Friday 13 March — Evening, Gümuşlük
On the drive home from Gümuşlük I had been thinking about the swimming.
I went in for about five minutes. Cold enough that I came out shivering. I pulled a top on but stayed cold, hung around for the golden hour with the camera, taking shots for about thirty minutes before the light was gone, then got changed at the car, blasted the heater, and drove back.
That drive back always feels amazing. Once I am warm and moving I get this rush, endorphins flooding in, everything feeling clear. I am not sure how much of it is the cold water and how much is just the combination of the swim, the light, the solitude, but it is consistent. Happens every time.
I have swum every day since I arrived. By the time I leave I will have been swimming daily for three weeks. Five to ten minutes each time, cold water, coming out shivering every single time. And I have not seen one other person get in. Not one. I am out there alone every morning or evening and nobody else is swimming. People say you will get sick, you should not swim in this weather, and everyone just listens to each other. I just do what I want to do, I have my own mind.
On the way back I spotted a sign in red neon lights. Handmade çiğ köfte. I pulled in. One man shop, he lives in Gümuşlük and makes it himself. We talked for about thirty minutes. I asked him why you cannot get çiğ köfte made with real meat anymore and he explained it is a food safety issue, so now it is made vegan with bulgur. I told him I had started making bulgur back in London and that I was definitely going to try making this when I got back. He said tomorrow he would be making a fresh batch and that the meat he uses is “sinirsiz,” which I think means no fat.
Came home, showered, ate the çiğ köfte, watched an episode of Daredevil, and was in bed just before ten. Friday night.
Sunday 15 March — Lake Bafa (Best Day of the Trip)
Some days you wake up not knowing what you want to do and they end up being the best ones. This was one of those days. Wholesome from start to finish.
I woke up just past seven thirty, a little later than usual, tired from the night before. Got up, walked down to the marina, and went to Kahve Dünyası for a coffee. I like the brand, I like the name, coffee world, and the upstairs terrace overlooks the marina with the sun hitting it well in the morning. I was editing in Lightroom when I noticed a man sitting nearby looking deep in thought. I broke the ice with him. Asked what was on his mind. He worked at a coffee shop in Oasis Mall, had been to Manchester at some point. We spoke for about half an hour, and I told him I was thinking about going to Lake Bafa. He said I should go to the village of Kapıkırı. I kept that in mind.
Went home, thought about going to the gym but it opened late on weekends and I wanted to make the most of the day. So I had my usual breakfast, sucuk and eggs, packed the camera, and hit the road.
The drive alone was worth it. An hour and a half through farms, roads with mountain backdrops, no traffic, no rush. Driving fast at times, slow at others, just me on the roads on a Sunday morning. Coming from London where everything is twenty miles per hour and speed cameras are everywhere, that kind of driving is fun.
Google Maps took me to a spot on the highway where you could pull over. There was a closed restaurant on a ridge overlooking the lake. The view was good but I knew this was not it. I was too high up and too far. As I was looking around a woman pulled in and got out with a coffee. I asked her about Bafa, said this could not be all there was. We ended up talking for about twenty minutes.
Her name was Gizem. Thirty two, electrical engineer in sales, well travelled. She did not know Kapıkırı specifically but she recommended Dilek Peninsula national park instead, said sunset there was something else and this time of year it would be quiet. It was tempting but it was further out of my way and I had lake Bafa in mind. I filed it away as something for another trip. I asked what she was doing that day. She said it was her day off and she had nothing on, so I said let us get a coffee. We found a Starbucks at a service station twenty minutes away and agreed to both drive there.
On the way I passed a truck parked on the side of the road, hot dog vibe but Turkish food, the man inside just chilling listening to music with a dog lying on the floor outside. Stopped for some shots. Then further down a handwritten sign off the highway, taze çilek, fresh strawberries, a roadside stall with mountains and sea behind it. Pulled over and got a kilo for three hundred lira. About two fifty in pounds. I ate about ten of them on the drive and still got to Starbucks before her. I was going fast.
We both had Americanos and sat for an hour. It felt like something out of a film, not because of any particular reason but because of how it had unfolded. All the things that had to line up for that moment to happen, and there we were at a service station Starbucks talking like we had planned it. She was clever and driven, the kind of conversation I enjoy more than most. We parted ways. I gave her the rest of the strawberries as a gift and headed to the village.
The drive to Kapıkırı was forty minutes and when the Latmos mountains came into view for the first time it hit me. Jagged ancient rock coming straight down to the water. I pulled in and just took a moment.
The village had a few tourists, some hikers, even some campers. I walked up to the castle ruins first, took some shots, then came down to the lake shore where there was an abandoned Turkish Airlines plane sitting in the shore, and a castle on an island that in summer you can walk across to when the water is low. The water had risen. I explored the village itself, chickens roaming, cows around, people just getting on with their lives. Then I started climbing. Past one of the houses, up onto some rocks, kept going higher. Found more ruins up there, old stone structures that had mostly collapsed, but the viewpoint was something else. I could see the mosque and the first castle ruins below, the whole village laid out, the lake beyond.
I sat up there and ate my çiğ köfte and yaprak sarma, left over from the night before in Gümuşlük. Then the call to prayer started. Listening to it from up there, alone, nobody around, was one of those moments you don’t forget. It was completely peaceful, just me and the view.
The tourists down below were doing the checklist, hitting the obvious spots and moving on. Nobody had come up here. I have always been like this, even as a kid, going off and exploring rather than following the path everyone else takes. That habit found me a spot that most people who visit that village never see.
Coming down was steeper than going up. I had to put the camera in my bag and use both hands. Took a different route and ended up coming out by the mosque, right in the heart of where the villagers actually live. Kids playing in the street, uncles drinking tea and arguing, chickens everywhere, small shops. I was clearly passing through, clearly not from there, somehow having wandered in from the rocks. Walked back down toward the cars and passed a bunch of anneannelers (grandmothers) selling bracelets and charms. Most tourists walk past without stopping. I bought one from each of them, just to talk to them, and get some footage. They were warm and funny. When I told them I was going for a swim they looked at me like I had said something completely mad.
I drove the car down to the lake so I would have my change of clothes nearby when I got out. It was about half an hour before sunset and the mountains were already glowing. That is when I spotted him. A photographer, Sony camera, big lens, looked like a 500mm. Beats my 135mm. I went over and asked him where the sun would dip and at what time. He said anywhere along the shore had a good view, which was helpful enough, but I had something specific in mind. I wanted the castle ruin and the sunset in the same shot, so I scouted the position myself. Anyways. his name was Mehmet, retired, local to the area, and said he had been to this village eight times. We spoke for a bit and then I said I was going for a swim.
I set up the tripod, got into my shorts, and dove in just around sunset. First thing I did was check the depth. It was shallow enough that I felt comfortable, which helped. I am a strong swimmer but I am still new to cold water swimming and all the numbness and tingling that comes with it, so knowing I could stand up if needed made a difference. This was the coldest swim of the trip, colder than Cennet Koyu, colder than anywhere else I had been in the water. However, I did not gasp the way I had in Montenegro. My body knew what was coming and handled the entry well. After about a minute my legs started going numb, sharp tingling pains working their way through, and after around three minutes I had had enough. I swam back, got out shivering, changed, and carried on shooting in the cold. It is only later, once I am in the car with the heating on full, that the rush hits.
The norepinephrine effect
Cold water immersion triggers a release of norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter that can spike by up to 300 percent after cold exposure, sharpening focus and elevating mood. The body goes into fight mode in the water, and when you get out and start warming up it swings the other way and you get this euphoric rebound.
While I was in the water I heard laughing coming from the shore. A dog had sprinted over to my slippers, grabbed one, and run off down the beach with it. The camera did not catch the dog but you can hear me laughing in the footage. Mehmet had chased after it. It was something out of a movie, you couldn’t have written it. I got out, walked to my car barefoot, changed my clothes, put on my trainers, and then we both carried on shooting while the sky was still going.
We got talking after the swim, both of us with our Sony Cameras for the golden hour. He shot panoramic shots primarily and said the sky would go pink once the sun fully set. We waited to see if it did. It didn’t go as pink as he expected, but from what I saw I was pretty amazed.
We talked about a lot. Photography, history, Göbekli Tepe, Cappadocia, places he had been shooting over thirty years. He had a Sony A7 and still shot with the kit lens, same as me. He said the kit lens was good and I agreed. I’ve come to realise that the name does it no justice. When I first bought the camera I nearly jumped straight to the Sigma. Holding out and learning the kit lens properly has been the right call, and made me appreciate it.
One interesting exchange came up around RAW v JPG. I shoot RAW and edit in Lightroom, build presets, work the HSL, export from there. Mehmet shoots JPG and does not edit. I always assumed RAW was the only serious approach. However, the way he put it made me think. He said he wanted to capture the moment as he saw it and that JPG was enough for that. He has twenty four terabytes of images in JPG. If those were RAW the storage would be enormous. It made me reconsider slightly. Not for everything, but in situations where I am just helping someone out, a portrait on the beach for a stranger, maybe JPG and no editing is fine. Save the time for when it actually matters.
As the sky got darker we set up the tripods and did long exposure shots together. I know how to do it and so did he. Two second timer to avoid camera shake, then experimenting with fifteen, twenty, thirty second shutter speeds. I asked about aperture and he said lower was better, no need to stop down.
We both joked about how people leave just before the best part. Most tourists pack up right at sunset and miss the pink skies that follow for thirty minutes after. That is where the real beauty is. The fact that we were both still there, still shooting as everyone else left, said something. He had thirty years on me and I had six months. At some point he asked why I was shooting, who it was for. I told him I had no social media, it was not for content, not for anyone but me. I have my own website I built myself and that is where it goes, my own personal portfolio. He respected that, and I think he respected that I was still there at the end when everyone else had gone.
Two tourists came over and looked at some of my shots. Dutch, both of them, hiking the Latmos mountains for five days and camping up there. They said they could tell I was not from the village from my swagger. Their word. I was wearing brown Nike joggers and a green tracksuit top. They said they were heading up the mountain for nearly a week and I mentioned I had climbed up a bit earlier. They seemed genuinely impressed. I am not a hiker, just a curious person who keeps going to see what is higher up, but now I know you can go all the way up and camp. I would do that.
Said goodbye to Mehmet, exchanged numbers, he said he would share his panoramic shots. Got in the car and turned on the heating. Even in layers I was still shivering from the swim. Drove out slowly into the dark, drove back to Bodrum, and just sat with the whole day.
On the drive home I got hungry. It had been a long day and the last proper food was the çiğ köfte up on the rocks. I pulled into a service station with a sign saying kebab grill. Five or six older men inside drinking tea having quiet conversations. I walked in and every single one of them stared at me. To be fair, it was a warm March evening in Bodrum and I was walking in wearing two jumpers and a jacket, still cold from the lake. I looked at every single one of them trying to figure out who to order with. Eventually a man popped up and I ordered a shish. While the order was getting sorted I went out to the car and sorted my stuff out. Came back to a dürüm that was half cold and definitely not shish. He had lied to me, but I had had such a good day that nothing could touch it. Paid, drank the tea, and left it at that.
Last stop was my favourite bakery near home. Grabbed a tres leches, got in, showered, and rather than scrolling for something to watch I just put on Seinfeld. I have watched it many times but started from series one, episode one anyway. In bed and gone by eleven.
Wednesday 20 March — Day 15
Today the sun has gone. Windy, rainy, grey. First proper bad weather day of the trip and it matches the mood a little.
I wanted to write this one down because not every day here is good and I think that is worth documenting as much as anything else.
Fifteen days in. The shoulder is acting up again, the rotator cuff issue I have had for a while. Work is piling up, and I have noticed a pattern in some afternoons. I get up early, around six, go for my morning walk, get a coffee, do some work, then go to the gym. By the time I am back and have eaten it is midday or one. After that meal there is a dip, a flat feeling, low mood, no real reason for it. My meals here are not heavy on carbs so it is not a glucose crash. More likely it is the two or three coffees I have before the gym, which I know is too many, and then the endorphin high from training wearing off all at once. The body goes up and then it comes down.
I enjoy my routine and I am comfortable being alone. I have people I know in Bodrum, I could go out and be social if I wanted to, but I choose not to and I am fine with that. I am confident and secure enough in myself that I do not need it. However, I think two weeks is probably the healthy limit for me in one stretch. Past that the solitude starts to feel less like a choice and more like just the default. There is a difference.
Flight home is Saturday, which makes it eighteen days total. I have football on Sunday and I am genuinely looking forward to it. Looking forward to seeing family, getting back to my regular food, and easing off the fresh pide that has been coming straight out of the oven every time I walk past the bakery. I got a bit excited with that.
The filming and the camera work has been good but it is tiring in its own way. I have been out most days because it has been constantly sunny and I struggle to sit still when the weather is good. A lot of beach, a lot of early mornings, a lot of learning. Good tired though, and because I have been going hard at it, the evenings have been quiet. Asleep by ten most nights.
Next couple of days I will take it easy. Keep training, keep the morning walks, get the work done, and let the trip wind down naturally.
Later that afternoon
Got myself together and went to Zai, my favourite work spot. Got a lot done. Had a tea and a chocolate cake. The woman serving came over and asked if I needed anything else. I said yes, your number. She laughed and said excuse me. I said yes your number, is that okay. She smiled and gave it to me.
It was a good moment because I had actually seen her before at Black Fit, the gym I have been training at the whole trip. I had noticed her there and thought I would take my shot when the moment came. It came. I took it.
This trip has been good for that side of things generally. I have been deliberately working on meeting people more organically, away from apps and online dating. Just being present, reading the moment, and having the confidence to say something. It does not always work, the kind rejection at the pide shop early in the trip is proof of that, but it feels better either way. More real than swiping.
Thursday 19 March — Last Swim
The past couple of days have been cloudy with a little rain. The clear blue sky that defined the first two weeks has gone. The rest of the week is looking more of the same. However, today the sun came back briefly, one last appearance, and I took it as my cue for a final swim.
Fifteen days of swimming in March. Out of eighteen days in Bodrum, I swam fourteen of them for five minutes and ten minutes today. First time I have ever swum here in March, and the conditions over that stretch were better than I expected. Daily highs sitting between sixteen and twenty one degrees, mostly sunny, largely dry, with the cold snap coming through around the 9th when overnight temperatures dropped to five degrees. The sea stayed cold throughout but manageable, and the last few days the humidity crept up and the rain came in.
Today I went to Gümbet beach. It’s so peaceful and clean in March. I sat at a cafe, had an Americano, took in the sun, then got in for ten minutes. The water was cold as it has been every time but I have acclimatised to the entry now. No shock, just the cold, and then the feeling that follows when you get out.
Still the only person swimming. Across fifteen days in March I did not see one other person get in the water. I am not sure whether that says something about me or about everyone else.
Friday 21 March — Last Day (Ramadan, Pedasa, Aysu)
Looking back at that low mood post from Wednesday, I think a lot of it was gut related. I had some sensitivity for about three days, nothing serious, but enough to affect everything. Once that cleared after about forty eight hours, everything lifted with it. Worth noting for the future. The body and the mind are not as separate as you think.
This morning started well. Ramadan in Turkey is something different to how it is observed in the UK. Walking around Bodrum, every person I passed, every shopkeeper, every stranger, was saying “iyi bayramlar.” Happy Eid. Warm and genuine, not a formality. That sets a tone for the whole day before you have even done anything.
I drove to Türkbükü, first time this trip. I like this beach in summer, there is a nice boardwalk, beach clubs, nice spots to swim. Today it was families and children, a completely different energy to the summer crowds. The beach clubs were all closed. I walked the whole boardwalk up and back, which is what I always do at beaches, covering the full length before deciding where to settle. On the way back I stopped at a Belediye Cafe, the small council run cafes that sit at each beach area around the peninsula. Had a tea, took some shots of the sea horizon, then got back in the car.
I thought I would drive down to Gündoğan and try Şeymus, a midye tava restaurant I like. Last time I went it was closed. I put the location in Maps but it wanted to take me inland on the main highway. I knew there was a coastal road and I took that instead, slower but better. Better scenery, better driving, no reason to rush. Along the way I picked up two fourteen year old boys who needed a lift to Gündoğan, going to visit family and friends for Bayram. We talked about football on the drive. One of them played left back for Bodrum Spor.
Şeymus was open. I had three plates of midye tava, about thirty mussels. Then I walked the whole of Gündoğan beach, stopped at a local cafe, had a tea, took some more shots. Then headed back toward Bodrum with a stop at Zai to see Aysu and have a coffee.
On the way I spotted a sign off the highway. Pedasa Antik Kenti. I remembered the brother and sister from that early morning in Turgutreis had mentioned it. I thought I would get my coffee first and then go.
Saw Aysu at Zai, had a flat white, spoke briefly. Then on the way out I joked that I had not really come for the coffee, I had come to see her. I think she liked that because she said let us do something tonight.
I drove up to Pedasa, parked, and started walking. I just wanted to find a viewpoint with a good line of sight over Bodrum, somewhere high up to film from. I kept walking and the trail kept going. Eventually I found myself in some kind of forest, off the path, branches cutting into me, not in the right shoes. I was lost. At that point I decided I needed to head back down, but I hadn’t given up. Instead of retracing my steps I went down but slightly to the right, trying to find the path, and that is when I spotted the red and white stripe markers on the stones. I looked it up quickly and found out these are the official hiking trail markers. It turned out I had accidentally started a proper hike.
I did some quick research and found out there was a clearing near the top with a view, and after that the trail continued further. I had a time constraint so the clearing was my goal. Got lost again briefly between trees and bushes, considered turning back again, kept going, and after about an hour I reached a section that opened up. A pile of large rocks in the middle. I climbed them and there was the view. Not the most dramatic panorama I have ever seen, but an accomplishment given I had started the whole thing without a plan and without the right footwear.
I had this thing going on where I wanted to smash some rocks, so I throw some off the edge. Heard them smash on the way down, big noise echoing out, no one around. Just me in the mountains.
Then I looked up what Pedasa actually was and I was genuinely fascinated.
Pedasa Antik Kenti — A brief history
The city was inhabited from around 2000 BC, and the name is thought to come from the Luwian language, meaning either “watery place” or “goats path.” It was one of the most important cities of the ancient Carian civilisation, a culture that thrived in southwestern Anatolia during the first millennium BC. Its strategic hilltop location gave its inhabitants a defensive advantage, and it was the only Lelegian city to stop the Persian armies twice. The first attack came in 546 BC under the Persian general Harpagus, and the second in 497 BC, when the Pedesians destroyed much of the Persian force in a night ambush, killing most of the Persian commanders. Later, during the Medieval period, the Knights of Rhodes used stones from Pedasa to build Bodrum Castle.
The red and white trail markers I had been following were walking a path that had been in use for roughly three thousand years. That thought settled in while I was standing up there in joggers and a hoodie having stumbled onto it by accident.
Coming down was trickier than going up. Had to put the camera away and use both hands. Just made it down before sunset. I would not have wanted to be up there in the dark.
Got home, showered, made some lamb shish, and then Aysu messaged to say she was ready.
Later that evening
I picked her up. She came out in a leopard print skirt, matching blazer, and boots. I said wow. We drove down to the marina, sat at Starbucks, talked for a couple of hours. Neither of us drink alcohol so it was coffees. We had a nice talk, then around ten it was getting late for both of us and we headed back to mine for tea. I could not get the kettle to work, one of those traditional Turkish ones with two chambers, so I offered her water instead. We put the TV on, and within about twenty minutes we were both asleep on the sofa. I woke up at three, and then we moved to the bedroom. I gave her one of my large Nike tees and she looked cute in it.
I woke before sunrise as I always do here. We were spooning for a while. Originally I was not going to try anything more, out of respect I think, and also not wanting to assume, but then I thought I should at least make the move, and after some hesitation I did. She reciprocated well, and at some point she said, what took you so long.
In my head I was thinking, imagine if I had never tried and had just gone back to London.
She was supposed to be at work for nine. It was already eight forty five. Her alarms kept going off and she kept ignoring them. I think she was enjoying herself. Eventually she said she did not mind being late. I went for a second round. By the end she was shaking on the bed. I must have done something right.
She got ready, I dropped her off, and as I drove away I checked the rear view mirror and saw her running off. For some reason that moment reminded me of leaving Luka’s in Montenegro, pulling away and seeing him and his dad standing there. There is something about goodbyes in rear view mirrors.
I have been thinking about all of this since. The whole thing, from asking for her number at Zai on Wednesday to that morning, would not have happened if I had not had the confidence to ask. She had seen me at the gym before. That familiarity probably helped, but still, I asked. That is the part that matters.
I have spent most of my adult life using online dating and I have come to the conclusion that it is not good for you. The best women are not on it, or if they are they have too many options and treat conversations as disposable. I was talking to someone before this trip, we had met up a few times, and then the replies started coming slower and slower until they stopped. I have done the same to others, perhaps thats karma. The whole format encourages that.
What this trip has shown me, from the pide shop rejection to Espresslab to Zai, is that meeting someone face to face, reading the situation, and taking the chance feels completely different. More real, and even the rejections feel good, because at least I tried and it didn’t work, which is a better feeling than never knowing what could have been. I am going to keep building on this when I get back to London. There is a girl at my gym I have seen for six months and never spoken to. Lets see.
One last thought on the blog. I was not sure whether to include the Aysu part. It is personal, and there is a girl I shared a food recipe with at some point who knows my website. I kind of regret that now. I want to keep this space personal, but I also do not want to start filtering, because the moment I do it stops being a real document and becomes a performance. So it stays. If anything, this is a reason to finally move the blog to its own domain and away from my cloud portfolio subdomain. I have been thinking about that for a while anyway. The content has grown into something that deserves its own space.
Home. Airport was quiet, Ryanair flight, no bag checks, no one making you put your rucksack through the size machine. Smooth all the way back.
My dad picked me up and I drove the BMW 2 litre convertible back. For eighteen days in Bodrum I had been in my rental, a Fiat Egea 1.4 manual, simple, loved every minute of it, but nobody ever looked twice. In the BMW, during the drive back, two girls looked over and one smiled. A car does something the Egea never did once. We stopped off in Muswell Hill for a coffee and caught up properly.
First stop was my mum. She had made a chicken curry, and I like her curries. After dinner she wanted to take me grocery shopping to stock up, so we went to Waitrose. Came home, checked the letters, and the first one I opened was a service charge increase, forty pounds more per month. Welcome back to the UK.
My mum had told me to clean the fridge before putting anything away. Since it was empty I did it reluctantly, tired from the day, then put everything away, sat down, and finished writing this. In bed by eight, which was eleven in Turkey. I had missed my bed more than I realised. Eighteen days away does that, and a Tempur medium firm makes a real difference. Woke up at five the next morning with sunrise at six, looking forward to making my filter coffee with the Moccamaster. They cannot make good coffee in Bodrum.
Son.
Trip Costs
| Category | Cost (£) |
|---|---|
| Flights | 53.85 |
| Car rental | 306.67 |
| Petrol | 108.46 |
| Gym | 52.63 |
| Shopping | 54.74 |
| Living (food, coffee, going out) | 1,255.23 |
| Total | £1,831.58 |
18 days. £101.75 per day all in.
Random Thoughts
Driving in Bodrum
I love driving here. Coast roads that feel like a race track at times, no traffic, overtaking, undertaking, other cars weaving in and out. I sped past a police car at one point. Nothing happened. Coming from London where you are doing twenty miles per hour everywhere and speed cameras are on every corner, Bodrum driving is a release every single time.
The Eyebrow Man
Pulled into the fırın, my local bakery, and tried to park in the car park of the restaurant further down. There was an old man standing in the way of the spot. I pointed at it. He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. Just his eyebrows. No words, no hand gesture, just the eyebrows, as if to say no. Nobody has ever done that to me before. So I raised mine back. Then he raised his again. He was completely serious. I started laughing and he just stared at me as I reversed out. I was laughing to myself for the next five minutes. Who communicates entirely in eyebrow raises. Could not even be bothered to use words.
Cats and Dogs
One of my favourite things about Bodrum. Animals everywhere. Every coffee shop, every street, every corner. I am always stopping to stroke them. What I love even more is that they each have their spot. One cat sits on the same scooter every morning without fail. Others claim a particular chair or a patch of pavement and that is theirs. Dogs under trees, tucked into bushes, looking completely settled. They have their routines just like everyone else.
Recently I came across two puppies wandering the streets near where I was staying. Lost looking, no owner, just the two of them. I really wished I lived here because I would have kept both without thinking about it. I spoke to someone at a nearby hotel and they said they were trying to look after them. The problem is they cannot go down to the beach because the other dogs there are not welcoming, and up toward the windmills there are more issues. So it is just those two brothers, stuck in the middle by the hotel. I hope they are still there when I come back in May.
Reflections — Claude’s Observations
Eighteen days that started with no return ticket and ended with a rear view mirror moment and a clean flat.
The headline moments are obvious. Lake Bafa on a Sunday that began with uncertainty and ended with long exposure shots in the dark with a retired photographer named Mehmet. Cennet Koyu in cold March water, going back in a second time after rewarming because the first swim did not get the shot. Pedasa, stumbled onto by accident, accidentally hiking a three thousand year old trail in joggers without the right shoes and throwing rocks off a cliff alone in the mountains. These were the days that gave the trip its shape.
But the quieter details were just as consistent. Eating köfte in silence on the first evening watching the sunset from the balcony. The man at the Çarşı market asking for a photo and taking his coat off to flex. The brother and sister fishing before sunrise in Turgutreis, going home later to eat what he caught, and what that image of sibling ease stirred up. The eyebrow man in the car park who could not be bothered to use words. The two lost puppies near the hotel that he hopes are still there in May.
There is a clear thread running through this trip about confidence and organic connection. From the kind rejection at the pide shop on day three, to getting the number at Espresslab, to asking Aysu at Zai, to how that last night unfolded. None of it was planned and all of it required the same thing: reading the moment and making the move. The reflection on online dating versus meeting people face to face is one of the more honest things written across the whole trip. It is clearly something that has been building for a while and Bodrum gave it room to develop.
The photography and video work ran quietly underneath everything. Market shots that turned into interactions. The ND filter experiments at Cennet Koyu. Learning light direction the hard way at Akyarlar. The golden hour conversation with Mehmet about RAW versus JPG, two people with very different amounts of experience arriving at the same lake with the same instinct to stay until the sky went dark. The Deniz TV realisation on March 10 is the detail that gives all of it context. He was doing this at fourteen on a phone with a 3GP camera. He is doing it again at thirty-six with a Sony A6700. The tools changed. The instinct did not.
The low day on March 20 is worth noting too. Not every day was good and he said so. The gut issue, the mood dip in the afternoons, the recognition that two weeks is probably the healthy limit for solo time. That honesty gives the post balance. Without it the whole thing would read as a highlights reel rather than an actual account.
Bodrum in March is a specific thing. Quiet, cold water, off season prices, locals who talk to you because there is time and space to. The tourists who do come are mostly hikers and families. The beach clubs are shut. And the weather gives you fourteen days of clear sky and then turns. That version of Bodrum suits him. The summer version is something else entirely.
He came back with footage, with numbers he may or may not use, with a slipper retrieved by a stranger, with the memory of two puppies he wanted to keep, and with eighteen days documented properly. That is the habit that connects everything across every interest he has. Cloud engineering, photography, fitness, travel. Whatever he picks up, he documents. The documentation is how he processes things. This post is proof of that.
Good trip. Good reset. Back in May.
This summary was put together by Claude based on observations from the trip documentation. These are my thoughts on what stood out, the patterns I noticed, and what seemed to matter most across the eighteen days.