The Greeks and the Turks have a long, storied history of minor and major feuds dating back to when Paris of Troy seduced (or kidnapped) Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta, kicking off the Trojan War.

Their national animosity might be even older, but books recounting Western history don’t look back far enough to say conclusively.

On a visit to Greece, you might catch someone blaming something petty on Türkiye.

I can’t honestly say whether Turks reciprocate this bad habit.

Even though the people of Rhodes take Helios, the Greek sun god, as their patron, I’ve overheard them blaming the heat of their blistering hot, fire-prone island on nearby Türkiye.

At the time it seemed silly, but standing now on Turkish soil after taking the ferry from Rhodes to Marmaris, I can honestly say that this gripe is true.

On the ferry from Rhodes to Marmaris

Pure wanderlust made my girlfriend and I book ourselves onto the passenger ferry that sails from the Greek island of Rhodes to Marmaris.

The latter is a seaside resort popular with British holidaymakers that’s in the Muğla district of the Turkish Riviera.

There’s one outbound trip in the morning and one return trip in the afternoon, so it makes for a convenient day excursion from Europe to Asia.

It’s marketed as a “day cruise,” but, in reality, it’s more a metro ride that travels across the sea instead of through underground tubes.

In the run-up to our journey, we had been dreaming of sitting out on deck, cool sea wind streaming through our hair, while watching the Turkish mountains gain exotic colours and shimmering details.

The reality is, we’re sitting inside on a few tide-marked seats with hernias of foam, completely sealed in from the elements and the view, which we have to imagine.

This deck is unloved and feels a bit like a community centre.

Looking around, except for a few intrepid tourists, the passengers are taking the ferry as a leg on their long journeys to elsewhere on the globe.

They wear functional outfits and have huge amounts of luggage—we were naïve to think people take this boat primarily for a pleasure cruise.

To rub it in, the ferry to the Greek island of Symi that set sail just before us had a sun deck.

It was teeming with excited passengers who were, quite literally, looking down at us while waving goodbye.

We didn’t wave back.

Gruelling heat and Nimara Mağarası cave

After an hour’s sailing, we reach Türkiye, and disembark straight into another queue for passport control, the second of four such queues that we’ll endure today.

An enormous cruise ship has just docked, disgorging hundreds of its passengers to the seaport of Marmaris.

It was hot in Rhodes this morning, but here in Marmaris, it’s even hotter—nudging an oven-like 45°C.

From the seaport, you can take a short trip to Nimara Mağarası, an ancient cave and the site of a worship cult to the goddess Leto. Human remains have been found here that are believed to date back 12,000 years.

We thought about visiting it, but don’t have the time due to our return ferry to Rhodes leaving at 5pm later on today.

Instead, we content ourselves with a walk up and down the promenade and lunch somewhere.

In such extreme temperatures and in a country that is entirely new to us, even this is likely to be a brutal excursion.

Aggressive hawkers

The heat isn’t the only thing that’s more aggressive on the Turkish side of the Aegean, the hawkers are too.

As soon as we are out of the port district, we’re hassled by people offering boat trips and waiters trying to pull us into empty restaurants.

It’s just before the peak summer tourist season, and they are evidently practicing their pitch.

One enormous man, who looks almost trapped in his wooden hut lined with trinkets and refreshments, takes us for exactly what we are (hot and disoriented visitors) and sells us water and a local map for €2.

His location right outside the port affords his trade one huge advantage—most people leaving the port will eventually have to return to catch their boat.

Correctly wagering on this, he invites us to stop by on our way back for rakı, Türkiye’s variant of the strong, aniseed-flavoured liquor that’s favoured all over Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

“Sure,” we lie, and walk on.

On Marmaris seafront promenade

Rhodes’ dusty and honest seafront has enough history and ancient architecture to impress visitors without relying on special attempts at beautification.

Marmaris, on the other hand, is geared towards a resort-style experience and is heavily manicured, with strips of well-watered lawns and evenly-spaced palms.

It looks rather like Venice Beach in California.

Arched wooden bridges pass over little canals and tooth-combed jetties provide boat access to exclusive residences.

Inside the harbour, hundreds of polished yachts nod up and down in the gentle swell.

Dozens of others, almost too bright to look at in the sunshine, are conveying happy boaters across the azure waters of the calm and wide bay.

Forests of twisted pine paint the hinterland hills a velvety dark green; a huge contrast to Rhodes’ sandy, arid scrub.

This is an eye-wateringly pretty part of the world.

Whether it’s spoiled or enhanced by a high density of pubs, clubs, and resort hotels is a matter of opinion.

The bad signs of Brits abroad

Beyond the harbour, the usual bad signs of Brits abroad appear.

Irish bars and male‑pattern baldness. Football on the telly and lagers in hand.

In this heat I would love a pint of lager, but it’s just before midday, and drinking too early in the afternoon usually puts me in a bad mood that spoils my evening.

We walk past the “Cork Inn” (of course). It’s hard to imagine a Guinness sitting well in this heat.

The samey seafront cocktail bars play the same breezy tunes that they play everywhere.

And it’s in this alternating pattern of cabana, carvery, and kebab house that Marmaris’ promenade continues for several miles.

Jet skiing in my socks

Speaking of bad moods, I can feel one coming on. (Yep, I can be in a terrible mood, even in paradise.)

Every A-frame bearing a menu of pies, mash, and doner meat is a forewarning that someone is about to stand in your way and harass you.

The hotels at the far end of the promenade are cheaper and seedier than those nearer the harbour.

And the beaches at this end are filthy, with scores of cigarette butts lapping about in the shallows.

A vague wanderlust and the idea of a romantic cruise (that we definitely did not experience) convinced us to take the ferry across the strait that divides Rhodes and Türkiye, but so far, the day has been spent in heaving queues and traipsing past unappealing bars.

To cheer myself up, I decide that my girlfriend and I should go on a jet ski.

You can rent them from piers made of floats that occur about every half a kilometre.

We do a little bit of umm-ing and ah-ing as we have our passports on us and quite a bit of cash. But the jet ski rentals all have lockers outside, so we retrace our steps and take one for a spin.

Once we’ve committed, I’m so keen that I forget to take off my socks.

The man with the Chelsea smile

Back on land, we’re offered photos and some drone footage for more than the price of the jet ski (~ €45 for 15 minutes).

“But it’s an experience!” the man protests when we decline to buy any photos.

Indeed. One that we won’t need photos to remind us of after parting with that much cash.

The jet ski has done the job, however, and has put smiles back on our faces.

Already sunburned, we decide to retreat back to the seaport in search of lunch.

We take the inside path away from the sea to avoid the same hawkers we passed earlier.

Heartily sick of them now, I dismiss a shiny-toothed man that leaps out at us before he can even start to speak.

“I haven’t said anything yet,” he says, offended at me breaking the rules of the game.

Further on, we see a British man with a perfect Chelsea smile—grizzly, symmetrical scars that run from the corners of his mouth up to his ears. You don’t acquire them by accident.

Getting ripped off

To ward off sunstroke, we bought two bottles of Powerade and a bag of salty crisps shortly after we got off the ferry.

In urgent need of a top-up of electrolytes, we stop by the same shop and repeat our order.

This time, the exact same items cost us about a third more. The cheeky shop owner scanned something twice.

I even heard the scanner make two rapid bleeps.

We haven’t got the energy to protest over the equivalent of a euro or two, but this petty action says a lot, and we leave him to his chump change laundering scheme.

Lunch in a Turkish bookshop

For lunch, we find a fantastic Turkish bookshop run by a man who looks like a cherub with alopecia. He’s the sort of person you immediately like.

We’ve been out in the oppressive heat since 8am, and it has had powerful effects on the physiognomy of my girlfriend and I.

She has swollen up and changed colour, like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, while I have gone the other way and become shrivelled like an old parsnip.

We don’t plan on moving again until we catch our boat, and settle into three rounds of fresh lemonade and a slice of San Sebastián Cheesecake.

Our host’s cool air conditioning and the refreshing, sugary lunch makes us feel normal again.

After our protracted stay and compliments on his food and drink, our host rightfully expects a tip, but I can’t give him one.

I’d love to leave a tip, but I’m wholly underprepared as usual, and all I have in cash are €50 notes—no Turkish currency or small change.

He looks sad as he clears up and we walk off. I feel ashamed.

I think I’d have preferred him to yell at me. At least then we’d be equal.

Getting sworn at in Turkish

“Hellooo, friends,” comes a conspiratorial voice out of the ether. The sort of voice someone who has never been mugged might expect a mugger to sound.

But there’s no danger. It’s just the large man who sold us the water and map earlier.

He continues to say solicitous things as we walk by, pretending not to hear.

Once he’s realised that we aren’t going to be swindled over rakı, he lets off a peal of harsh curses in Turkish, and the karmic balance over the Eastern Mediterranean is restored.

Passing out at passport control

The queue for the correct boat was a little difficult to find, but we avoided the faux pas of queueing to board the giant cruise ship.

A box of eight Churchillian cigars tempts me inside the duty-free store, but I’m still feeling guilty about the tipping incident earlier, so instead break a €50 note on a more modest bottle of local wine.

Spending would-be tip money on contraband is becoming a bad habit, and I resolve to carry lower currency denominations in future.

In my defence, when I brought my euros in the UK, they were unhelpfully given to me almost exclusively in €50 notes that we’ve been struggling to break.

A woman who was on the same inbound boat as us this morning has fought her way valiantly back to the seaport and passed out from heatstroke.

The good staff who work for the ferry company help her through passport control.

Due to visa restrictions, our return ferry from Marmaris back to Rhodes is Turkish-run rather than Greek (presumably arranged so that the sets of Greek and Turkish sailors can do one outbound and one homebound trip per day.)

To our delight (no pun intended), the Turkish boat has a sun deck, and my girlfriend and I duly plant ourselves near the railings.

A chorus of cicadas cheers us off as we set sail, pine groves dipping into the sea over hollow cave formations.

The rough return crossing

The mighty Aegean Sea is, according to legend, named after Aegeus, the king of Athens, who threw himself into it after mistakenly believing his son, Theseus, had died fighting the Minotaur.

It’s as stunning as it is contested.

Greece claims 6 miles of territorial waters around each of its many islands in the Aegean (legally, it could claim 12).

This massively restricts Türkiye’s naval and commercial shipping activities. There is also competition for the natural resources that lie underneath it.

As if acknowledging disagreements both modern and ancient, nature whips up a pathetic fallacy of powerful winds in high summer that churn up the otherwise placid Aegean.

These are known as the meltemi winds, which help make the Greek islands great destinations for water sports such as windsurfing, wakeboarding, and parasailing.

On some days, they reach force 6–8 on the Beaufort scale, making sailing scary or downright dangerous depending on the boat you’re in.

Today is one of those days.

We’ve enjoyed 20 minutes of perfect sailing. Some passengers are laying on their backs, baking themselves in the lowering sun. Couples, like us, have been lounging arm in arm.

But out in the middle of the strait, the winds pick up dramatically.

Two‑metre‑high rollers are assaulting the ferry, unhappy about the gale raking their crests into white spray.

The sailors decide it’s no longer safe outside.

“Everybody inside! This is for your safety.”

We all stand up at once.

“One at a time!”

Seasick

The uneven lurching and rolling has become so violent that we all need help to get inside the cabin without falling over.

When it’s my turn, one of the Turkish sailors grasps me manfully and pushes me inside.

The passengers who have chosen to spend the entire trip indoors look worse off.

They are all a translucent shade of blue. Someone has vomited.

Some people have bags pressed to their lips, while those of stouter constitutions use their ferry tickets as makeshift fans and stare determinedly into the middle distance, concentrating on keeping their nausea in check.

The Captain has brought his ship to a crawl.

Seated in the first row behind the door to the bridge, we can hear bleeps that sound urgent and the voice of the Captain communicating with, at a guess, the Port Authority of Rhodes, to get us safely back to land.

The remainder of the voyage happens at a jogging pace, taking the edge off the sickening motions of the ship but prolonging the journey.

After a 40-minute delay, we arrive back into the Port of Rhodes.

The girl who had passed out in Türkiye must have had a torrid trip.

The worse for wear are allowed to disembark first, then we get off, leaving our stomachs behind, to join our fourth queue for passport control.

The mountains of the Turkish coast, easily visible from the northeastern tip of Rhodes, appear blue in late sunset.

Next time, we’ll go to Symi instead.