It's so brilliantly white with a tinge of pink!
And now it's starting to look really quite festive!
Oh Christopher just bent down to take a photograph of me ....
literally like it's a proper tear!
Look at the size of that kebab!
We're Chris and Marianne and we've been travelling full time for the past 3 years.
We did it!
We're currently attempting to drive Trudy our home on wheels all the way around the world!
In the last episode, we left Cappadocia
and realising that we had a problem with our coolant level,
we had a trip to a nearby garage and now we're continuing our journey to Ankara!
Check out how much is on the back of that truck!
It looks like it's going to tip over!
Look at that! You wouldn't see that back home, would you?
I love it!
Okay we're just stopping for a late breakfast or early lunch, it's 12 o'clock we're starving!
When are we not?! So we're going to see if we can find a bit of pide
or something for breakfast.
Look what we've got!
A nice meat pide and a mixed pide Turkish pizza for lunch!
It's good!
it's became one of our staple foods because it doesn't matter where you have it it tastes good!
Cooked in a wood-fired oven and i love it,
between that and gozeleme - my life is complete!
They always serve them with these little pickled chillies
which kind of pop in your mouth when you eat them!
with a bit of pide
Oh i've got a bit of a kick!
Okay my mouth's cooled down now,
it's a little bit hotter than i thought.
All right we're refueled,
physically! And back into our Trudy and onto the salt lake.
That's what i call a straight road it goes on and on for miles!
Straight!
Unbelievable!
And we really are in a bit of a barren part it's just flat lands,
with nothing as far as the eye can see ....
So looking at the map we're not quite at the lake yet .....
But looking over there in the distance it sure as hell looks like a lake to me!
So there are actually two lakes here,
there's a small one and a really big salt lake.
This is the small one and then we'll be driving past the big one,
a little bit later, but it looks really weird just being white!
It's just white that's very odd looking!
So we've just turned around onto the other side of the road,
to see if we can if we can get down there.
I think there's a path down here just have a just slow down ....
So all the cars have stopped by the side of the road here,
to get a photograph.
And it's not far we're just going to go and have a look,
have a walk out.
But there is a little track that goes down there,
but the cars there didn't want to go down and so they kind of blocked the entrance.
I think we would have been all right with Trudy to be fair,
this is the road down.
This park's all right,
the bit coming off the roads a little bit steep there.
But it looks ..
looks like the salt flats in South America you see online.
It's so brilliantly white with a tinge of pink!
So of course mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun again!
We planned to get here earlier,
but with Trudy and her coolant problems,
of course, now it's about one in the afternoon and absolutely scorching!
But we couldn't drive past here without showing it to you and having a look!
So as we were walking down a group of ladies behind us said,
you're not actually allowed to come down here, to walk on the salt.
And to be fair i can see why.
Because everybody's walking down there,
there's quite a lot of people there and some people have driven on it as well.
And you can see that it's churned it all up!
And where it was a lovely white, it's actually gone sort of grey / black!
Yeah exactly.
Okay so yeah,
we just had a chat to the police down there,
and they said here no,
so they're basically protecting it which is good.
It's a good thing!
So he said, and he pointed us towards the Northern lake where apparently there is a visitor centre.
So we're going to go up and have a look up there.
All right back to Trudy.
We've driven about 20 minutes North of where we were,
and you can see there's another massive salt lake here this is the main one.
This is lake Salt, and it's Turkey's second biggest lake.
And 'Salt' in Turkish means Salt.
And there's a big salt production factory,
in this area, and it's huge!
Right next to the road here,
that looks like a salt farm there!
When you buy salt in the supermarket and it says made in Turkey or comes from Turkey - it is probably from here!
We've just spotted a line of people walking out into the lake,
so that must be the visitors centre.
So we'll see if we can get onto the other side of the road.
There you go, we've arrived!
We managed to u-turn, it's busy! There's a lot of people!
Okay we parked up! Look you can see loads of people down on the lake there.
Here is the visitor centre!
It's a thing!
You actually come and it's a thing!
There you go 'Salt Lake' which is the name of the lake here.
It's got a flamingo up there,
because the area is famous also for certain times of year having flamingos!
And it's busy look!
There's coach, doors here's the entrance!
It's not a quiet picturesque peaceful lake is it?
But it's a thing!
It's a thing !
And you're come in through some souvenir shops ....
It's really busy! Here you go look,
here's some of the salt products,
this local salt.
Marianne! That one's open!
Okay so this is? Salt with health benefits ...
You have to rub your hands. What does this do?
It is salt and good for you.
And a tissue to dry your hands
I have really soft hands!
there you go! That's the a great sales technique if ever i've seen one!
I think this is the busiest place i've been in Turkey for months!
It's absolutely rammed!
Yeah, the salt is promoted to have lots of healing properties it's good for removing dead skin.
They've definitely turned it into a tourist attraction with the signs and the seating areas to have your photos.
And they've got this walkway down,
although the sand is very discoloured here,
i assume that's because everybody's walked out on here.
We're doing a quick swap of shoes, although these shoes are old ...
I don't want to get them encrusted with hard salt.
So we've got the water shoes on ... good call!
So at different times of the year this would have different amounts of water in it.
But it never really gets too deep.
It's the second largest lake here in Turkey,
the floor is actually really hard!
I was expecting to sink in a bit...
I'm not sure because it's just been so well trodden in by all the thousands of people that visit.
It's not really the white sand instagram pictures i was expecting!
It's getting soft now,
the whole floor is like
soft wet salt!
Is that not crazy?
That is crazy!
So we've walked quite a long way
from the visitors centre,
and now the floor has actually gone white!
And it is crystal salt!
And the reason it goes muddy is,
just under the surface here
you see you'll hit the mud!
So there's a layer of salt all the way along.
Just crystallised salt!
And now it's starting to look really quite festive!
It actually looks like it's snow!
Oh Christopher just bent down to take a photograph of me,
I didn't even bend down properly!
Chris's bottom is there!
fortunately his pants are the same colour otherwise this could be quite embarrassing!
it's fashionable!
I can't believe it's a proper tear!
It is not a tear, it's a whole buttock exposure!
I'm going to hold the bag like that!
What if i walk like that?
No you're bringing attention to it!
Nobody will notice! Yes they will !
We were just laughing because obviously in the van we don't have access to a washing machine,
So all the time so i say to Chris all the time ...
just go commando!
No i don't and i don't! Can you imagine if i was going commando now?
I'd be arrested - I'd have to be walking miles to avoid people!
Pick me up from a mile down by the side of the road Marianne!
I'm going to walk behind you.
Anyway they shouldn't be looking at my backside!
You know you shouldn't!
Shouldn't be looking! should you?
It was like Piccadilly Circus !
There's a bride as well going out for some photos.
I made it through the shop without getting arrested, so that's good!
Right change of trousers,
back to Trudy!
and off to Ankara!
We had a comment saying to me "you need to have an outside shower" we do!
We just put the shower head out the window!
Chris is rinsing all the salt and the mud off the shoes before they come back inside.
Still exposing yourself? I am!
I've just realised that, whilst there's a car behind me!
We've jumped back into Trudy i've changed my trousers,
all is good and now we're heading to Ankara to meet Ilker our friend,
who we met in Manavgat .... the one that gave us the burnt ice cream.
We just started to see some skyscrapers of Ankara in the distance there,
so we haven't got too far to go.
Just entered Ankara and getting a few waves from people there!
And the city traffic has already started!
How you feeling love? You're still awake?
It is warm! It's warmer here than Cappadocia! Much warmer!
So we're coming out for dinner,
you may remember Ilker from the Manavgat campsite and the famous burnt ice cream incident
So here it is .... burnt ice cream!
it's like cigarettes - yeah!
it does smell like cigarettes!
You don't like that do you?
you don't like that?
Do you like it ?
They don't like it, but they bought it for us ha ha.
But he's taking us out for a nice local kebab,
we just caught up, we're going sleep up outside his flat and just catch up tonight.
They have offered us their home,
but we have to sleep in Trudy!
We have to sleep in there, we can't leave her alone!
In a strange city where she doesn't know anybody!
So this is where we're going for dinner,
the Müslüm kebab,
and it's busy so it means it must be good!
This is nice ezme, onions, a lovely looking mixed salad onion with some sumac.
Look at the size of that kebab! That looks really good !
Look at this kebab! Yeah you got some Adana, roast aubergines there,
yeah this is meat and these are lamb
This is the loin off the lamb,
Oh so they put the whole clove of garlic on the fire?
and then you eat the inside? yeah!
Good?
Like roasted garlic! i love that!
Okay i'm just taking a bit of Adana kebab,
I've heard it's really really good,
it smells good
i'm excited about the garlic! Give that garlic a go! this is amazing !
I wanted to taste the kebab before i ate the whole clove of garlic!
That's a really good way of cooking it because it is it's really mild,
Okay so Ilker was just saying that apparently kebabs are always served with a lot of parsley,
because if you eat meat parsley is good for your stomach and your digestion.
So we've got a bit of a doner kebab with a bit of aubergine some onions,
we're going to put a little bit of parsley in too, and then we've made with this lovely bread here,
which is fired in the wood oven,
our own kebab!
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and join us on the next episode as we explore the Turkish capital city of Ankara.