Turkey - the experience

The Tour Group
The tour group was a great bunch of people. Everyone was aged between 25 and 40, with only a couple of people over 35. Most were Aussies and Kiwis working in London. There were also a couple from South Africa (also working in London), a handful of Brits, a Malaysian working in London and a couple of Canadians working in Hong Kong. I had read on the Net that Fez Travel groups were more about seeing the sights and less about the drinking than groups like Contiki and this was true. The people were great fun but were almost always on time for everything and only drank heavily on the last night.
I had decided to take the gamble, not pay for a single supplement and see who I was paired with. I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find that the other 2 girls who were travelling alone had paid for the single supplement and so I got a single room for free. Bonus!
One of the boys had a terrible roommate, who washed his clothes every night and hung them around the room to dry, fell sleep almost immediately after going to bed and snored heavily. One night he opened the balcony door without telling his roommate, who froze all night. What a nightmare!
The only sour note of the tour was the way that it ended. We all filled out feedback forms and gave our tips to the guide and drivers on the way back to Istanbul. Needless to say, we were quite complementary. However, when we got to Istanbul, the guide disappeared and the hotel was lousy. Apparently, some of the group bumped into members of another tour by the same company and they had the same experience. They don't seem to realise how detrimental a poor ending to a tour and poor word of mouth are to their business. I would have happily recommended the tour to others before the last 24 hours but am now not sure.
Health
I was mostly over a cold at the beginning of the trip and had fairly good health for the first 5 days of the trip. After the Turkish Bath, I was quite dehydrated, stupidly didn't drink enough water, couldn't dry my hair and ended the day with a headache and feeling a cold coming on. Got progressively worse on the next day and then that night had diarrhea. Next morning, had some tea for breakfast and then promptly threw up. I ended the tour with a body shaking cough. Despite the illness, the trip was still really good.
Activities
During the Turkish Bath, they scrub you with a salt scrubber. It is amazing how much skin they rub off! Rolls and rolls of it! Skin feels so smooth afterwards. : )
There was the option of taking a hot air balloon ride in Capadoccia. Not being a scenery person (I am the only person I know who preferred the North Island to the South Island of New Zealand - I prefer it because of the history), not liking early starts to days, not liking the price and not liking the cold much, I had decided to give it a miss. Great decision! That was the morning I had the diarrhea and vomiting and when the people came back, they told of how their toes were frozen and some of their cameras were so cold that they didn't work. Not my idea of fun. We were taken to some lookouts later in the day and that was enough scenery for me.
On the last night, we went to a Turkish Folk Night. They did dances from the various regions of Turkey working their way up from the south to the north. They had Whirling Dervishes (not real ones), dances that progressively got closer and closer to Russian style dancing and belly dancers. This is the first time I have seen a great belly dancer who is skinny. She was fantastic. She was able to move each part of her body independently from every other part - her chest, upper abdomen, lower abdomen, hips & legs all moved separately without the sword on her head moving one bit. Cool!
The Turkish People
The Turkish people are, on the whole, incredibly friendly. There are a few exceptions to this. If you ever need a defence line for a rugby team, look no further than old Turkish women. They have the heft and the determination to stop anybody. When I was at the holy relics museum, I was crushed against the Mohammed's beard and tooth exhibit by some very aggressive old women who were not afraid to use their elbows. I got a much better view of the beard and tooth than I ever wanted to along with a couple of bruises. Old Turkish women are also incapable of queuing. They are as bad if not worse than Chinese people (and that's saying something!) They again use their elbows to push their way through and then are ready, planted firmly to fend you off.
Turkish people are also very secular. For a country that is 98% Muslim, there are a remarkable number of people who smoke and drink. My feeling on this is that they adhere to the 5 pillars of Islam and then everything else is just a guideline. The result is a very interesting East meets West country.