There were two reasons why we go to Pammukale; to see the famous white castle (travertines) and to do paragliding. All my life (gitu), I've always wanted to go the travertines and to actually witness it with my own eyes was just amazing. We paid 25 lira at the entrance and you can spend all day long at the place. You can even go for a dip if you want to but obviously, we didn't. To walk around the travertines you have to take off your shoes and I thought it would be like walking on sandy beach or something but no, I was wrong. It felt like I was walking on the reflexology pebbles thingy for hourssss and god it hurts like hell. I guess I'm not that healthy haha.
Anyway, a little fun fact about travertines; it was formed by pure white calcium and urm, fast forward a little bit, it then went under some kind of process urm, processes-which-I-don't-know-what and tadaa, it turned itself into travertines! I honestly don't know but it's got to do with the high percentage of calcium in the water and something something. Haish go and google it guys, dont be too dependent on me to explain everything haha
Oh by the way, we were not sure why 80% of the travertines were dry. Like, whyyyy. I want to see all of them full with the light blue waterrr. And so because of that, we decided to spend the evening exploring Hierapolis which was an ancient Greek-Roman City that was built around the travertines. Well, the ruins wasn't that bad, quite okay, but you have to walk up the hills lah. Like I'm not that fit to do that lah. But I did anyway, so congratulations to me *throws confetti*
The next day we went for paragliding and paid 125 lira which was pretty cheap. But it was raining the wholeeee morninggg. Like we were up for breakfast around 9am and the rain just wouldn't stop. Then around 2pm the sun started to shine and thank god, they didn't cancel the activity. I'm always a big fan of extreme sports but I wouldn't say that paragliding is thattt extreme since I was just sitting on the seat and enjoy the view from up the sky. I wish I was the pilot, that would be more extreme hehehe. Anyway, to say that it was a good first time experience, I would have to say no. I was the first one to go and apparently it was kinda like the 'trial' to see whether the wind was good enough to fly through Route 1. And it wasn't. So I ended up flying for around 7 minutes or so which was frustrating. And the view wasn't that impressive either. The others took Route 2 and they were up in the air around 12 to 15 minutes and they even went above the travertines. Don't get me wrong, this is not a rant, I'm just sharing my experience. I'm pretty sure my friends enjoyed their ride and I'm glad for them. Maybe it wasn't my day, so it's alright :)
Anyway, here's a little tip: you can always negotiate the prices in Turkey. We lowered the price for paragliding from 140 lira to 125 lira. You can even negotiate on the bus tickets haha. It's really up to you.
The next day, we went to Antalya. There wasn't much to see here though to be honest. But it has a nice old city, a calming one I would say. You can also go for a boat ride along the coast. And remember when I said you can negotiate everything in Turkey? Well you can definitely negotiate this one haha. The actual price would be 40 lira per person, well, let's just say that you can actually get 5 lira per person. I believe that it would be a 40 minute ride on the boat. So it's such a steal.
Oh like I said, there's not much to say about Antalya. But I enjoyed it. Anyway, here's a photo of me being all touristy in a Turkish scarf :P
