Still maintaining a sesame pretzel diet but feeling much better, I was extremely happy to get on the road. We were heading to the docking point for our overnight boat ride. And on the way we were going to stop somewhere just for me. Santa Claus town. Otherwise known as Demre. The town, thought to be the birthplace of St Nicholas, is home to Byzantine church honoring the chriskindle saint. The church has been excavated and while the frescos are not the best ones in Turkey, the church is worth a visit, even just to see the swathes of Russian tourists. Man are they pushy. This heavily made up young girl, gesticulating wildly and pretty much yelling at her boyfriend in Russian shoved me out of the way so she could have her photo taken where I was standing.

Elsewhere the town is a broken down ex-tourist town where buses just stop for a pit stop and pretty much no-one stays overnight. Being the only Christmas themed stop in a largely Muslim country, complete with life-size concrete Noel Baba or Santa in the shopping complex, I imagined it would be a good stop for my traditional Christmas ornament. I was wrong. Because of the desperation to grab the tourist hordes as they stop momentarily, the locals are pushy, charge really outrageous prices and, most of all, sell really poor quality souvenirs (possibly made in China). After chasing me up the street to buy a really sub standard Christmas babushka doll for close to $20, this one guy tried to tell TC he would have no problem taking a flick knife through Australian Customs. For the record, you can’t.

We stopped for lunch – Gozleme – but I stuck with my sesame pretzels, not wanting to risk it, given we were about to go out on a boat.