Antalya Warnings and Dangers

Be careful all travelers to Antalya
My bother and sister in law just returned from Antalya a couple of days ago.
They booked a 5 star hotel-package from a reputable travel agency here in Germany.
Three days before their return back to Germany, while my brother was out, my sister in law decided to go for a walk in the small nature path starting at the hotel. Half way through the path, she was attacked and raped by a Turkish man, and pushed down a steep mountain cliff where she sustained heavy injuries, need less to mention the mental damage he caused her.
Any way, my brother went to the Police which only made things worse. The police treated the matter recklessly and as a matter of fact, they seemed to get a kick of the whole thing.
And what's even worse, is that it all happens in the middle of Ramadan, the holy month, where, to ALLAH, supposedly, looking at a woman with lust is as big of a SIN as raping here.. Ooh we are so furious....

As you can still see in my text, the keyboard is different in Turkey - especially and specifically the "i "character, which is an "i" without a dot on it on the keyboard, but will turn into a "Y" with an accent on top of it in the text.

That's prettty annoying when you brought plenty of work to be finished in the local internet cafes.

However you can go to word's "replace" function and "Yapestir" all the Y's into perfect i's, but it's very very nervewrecking, time and Lira-consuming and somehow never comes out even.

I am not sure how well a laptop, if you happen to own one, and only that one, would respond to sauna-temperatures plus extreme humidity in the summer....

We booked a guided tour with Maki Tur in Antalya to Myra and Kekova, because the prospect said that we would be sailing over the ruins of a house, a church and a port of the sunken city of Kekova. Ahmet, our guide did not want to go out on the boat, but after some persuasion he agreed. However, we were shown nothing at all of the sunken city. We only saw a few remains of the ancient Greek city on the coastline. So when we wanted to go on a tour to Perge, Aspendos and the Kursunlu Waterfalls we decided to book with another firm. To our surprise we got the same guide again, because several tourist firms put their clients together. The guide, who doubled as driver, showed us the imposing remains of Perge and the theater of Aspendos, but, instead of taking us to the Kursunlu Waterfalls, as promised, he took us, without saying a word, to the lower Duden waterfall, which is very close to Antalya, and not in a national park as the Kursunlu Falls. He probably thought that those stupid tourists would not know the difference, and he would save time and money. So make sure beforehand that you get what was promised.

my wife and i went to antalya last year september 2007 , on the way home getting off the coach at antalya airport the turkish guide gave us her e mail address and mobile number!!
we began writing but when we stopped writing at christmas time she threatened to ruin our marriage she was sending threatning texts even christmas day!! which ruined our christmas and new year!! we complained to our tour company and even numerous e mails to the company in which she worked for, NO RESPONSE. in the end (march 2008) we had to change our email address.and mobile number. i even suffer from depression now. WARNING if you go to antalya and happen to meet a young attractive tour guide on your excursions or transfer coaches pls avoid ! beleive me i dont want this happening to anyone else.

For those of us used to having a porcelein bowl for our bodily functions, don't let habit catch you off guard here. One slip and it could be a memory you'll never forget (no matter how hard you may try!)

Men! The men in Antalya are, I'm sorry to say, dangerous, sexist, vulgar and creepy (if you are a woman). I could not safely leave the hotel by myself by day or night, we had to go out in groups of three and probably every other time we would be followed home by Turkish men in cars or have to run down other streets to lose them. We got harrased where ever we went. One girl I knew of becuase good friends with a supposedly charming young Turkish man and he became her 'boyfriend'. For 3 weeks he met her at the hotel and we would all go to dinner, he seemed to be different and respect her, he didn't act pushy, until the night when she trusted him and he said he was taking her to meet his family. He did take her to her families house and his brothers and father took it in turns to gang rape her and afterwards they through her out onto the street. What made it worse was the police would not get involved and do anything about it.

I swear to God (not much should be taken of that since I'm an atheist) but this is where my organized and paid for tour took me for lunch! Needless to say life belts and rafts were a prerequisite! What had happened was that they had had the heaviest snows on the mountains for about 30 years and guess where the water went when it melted! Luckily our riverside restaurant had an upstairs section but unluckily they were so concerned about the floodwaters that we ended up eating elsewhere.

This is really an anti-warning. A lot of people are concerned and ask is it safe in Turkey. The answer is absolutely yes. You are safer in Turkey than you would be in just about anyplace but Mayberry.