Day of the Dolmus

Today we decided to have a trip to Fethiye, the town that is about 3 miles along the coast. We set off up the main street to where the dolmus (I don't know the plural of dolmus but there must be one as there are thousands of the things) goes from. I saw one coming with a little sign in the front saying "Fethiye" so I waved at him hopefully and he stopped. "Fethiye ?" I asked, expending all my knowledge of turkish in one go. He nodded, we got in and we were off.We took the back seat, three of four, Mrs C nabbing the window, me in the middle and The Boy on the end, leaving one free. At the next stop we were joined on our seat by a large woman; lucky, then, that Then Boy is small, as her buttocks needed slightly more than the standard Mitsubishi seats could offer.The dolmus had 14 seats and room for a couple to stand but the driver stopped whereever asked and took on more and more people; you could hear the springs creaking at every minor bump. On arrival at the end, about 26 people disembarked and you could almost hear the mechanical sigh as the van eased up.Within minutes of arriving, we were lost, having gone up the hill rather than down. We ambled on in true british fashion until we cam upon a scary looking local with one eye, three teeth and a cowboy hat who showed us the error of our ways and pointed us in the right direction.Luckily, armed with a map from the rep, we found our way to the old town and had a browse round the shops.we paused for a second and a young chap at a stall said "hello". Within two seconds or replying, the stools were out, drinks were in our hands and we were on the receiving end of a Turkish market trader's hospitality. He told us he has just qualified as a gyneacologist and was off to Weymouth soon to take up a job in the hospital there.After a bit of haggling from Mrs C, we bid him goodbye and good luck and left laden down with spices and Turkish Delight. Job done (for him at least). Maybe we were railroaded into buying the stuff but it was good fun and he seemed a nice chap. Women of Weymouth beware, he'll be looking up you soon.On our travels The Boy managed to buy himself a natural sponge (8 grammes, 5 YTL) and a fez which he wants to wear everywhere; I'm planning on getting one too, if they do them in XXL to fit my outsized noggin. Mrs C will disown us one day, I'm sure.After that it was back to Calis in another (less crowded) dolmus, stop for a beer and catch half an hour of the fourth test, a snack at Marias and then to the hotel pool for a cool down.All in all a most enjoyable and interesting day.