Dalyan Mud Bath

The Dalyan mud baths sit inland from the coast on the shore of Lake Koycegiz in southwestern Turkey, where fresh water, the Mediterranean and mineral-rich thermal springs meet across a small area of wetland. The main complex, at Sultaniye on the lake's southwestern bank, stands on a fault line at the foot of Olemez Mountain, and the geology is the whole point: it is the fault that brings hot sulfurous water to the surface here. Most visitors arrive by boat, on the shallow-draught wooden caiques that work the Dalyan river and its reed channels out of the town.

The Lake and the Channel

Lake Koycegiz covers about 5,200 hectares, which makes it one of the largest coastal lakes in Turkey, and it reaches depths of between 20 and 60 metres. It formed roughly 7,500 years ago in the aftermath of Mediterranean earthquakes. Fresh water arrives from the Namnam and Yuvarlakcay rivers, warm sulfurous water seeps in along the fault lines, and brackish water pushes up from the sea through the Dalyan channel, the narrow reed-lined waterway that runs past ancient Kaunos and reaches the Mediterranean at Iztuzu Beach. The whole basin is a Special Environmental Protection Area, with marshy forests of the endemic Oriental sweetgum, Liquidambar orientalis, and five uninhabited islands out on the water, one of them a former prison island.

Kaunos and the Long History of Bathing Here

Archaeological evidence indicates that the springs were already used for their therapeutic properties by the people of the nearby ancient city of Kaunos, and finds at both Kaunos and Sultaniye point to a sanctuary of the goddess Leto near the present spa. Roman-era remains show that some form of bathing and treatment facility has stood on this spot since the earliest settlement of the area; the surviving bath ruin was restored in the 1990s and is now the centre of the complex.

Kaunos itself lies a few kilometres west of modern Dalyan, on what was once the border between Caria and Lycia. Its harbour silted up from around 200 BC onwards, leaving the city roughly 8 kilometres inland today, and it was abandoned entirely after a severe malaria epidemic in the fifteenth century AD. The six rock-cut tombs in the cliff above the river, with their Ionic columns and triangular pediments imitating the fronts of Hellenistic temples, date from the fourth to the second century BC, and the theatre below them seated around 5,000. Excavations began in 1966 under Professor Baki Ogun and have continued ever since.

The baths also owe part of their reputation to legend. Local tradition links the mud to Cleopatra, said to have visited the wider region with Mark Antony and to have used it to preserve her famously admired complexion. There is no evidence for the story, but it has proved durable.

What Is Actually in the Water

The thermal water itself is measurable regardless of the legend. It emerges at around 39 to 40 degrees Celsius and carries hydrogen sulfide, calcium sulfate, bromine, iron, calcium and potassium, along with a notable radon content that makes it mildly radioactive; Sultaniye is counted among the more radioactive springs in Turkey. The sulfur gives the whole complex its unmistakable smell of rotten eggs, which nobody warns you about in advance. The mud is a mixture of clay and the same water, and it is traditionally recommended for skin complaints, arthritis, rheumatism and muscle fatigue. The routine is simple enough: coat yourself, let it bake dry in the sun, rinse off in the thermal pool, then finish with a swim in the lake.

The Delta and the Turtles

Downstream, the same boat trip usually takes in Iztuzu Beach, a 4.5-kilometre sandbar that separates the Dalyan delta from the Mediterranean and ranks among the most important loggerhead nesting sites in the Mediterranean, averaging around 300 nests a year. It was protected in July 1988 as part of the Koycegiz-Dalyan Special Environmental Protection Area, following a campaign begun the previous year by June Haimoff against a planned hotel development and backed by the WWF, Greenpeace and the IUCN. From 1 May to 31 October the beach is closed to the public between 20:00 and 08:00, vehicles are banned, sunbeds are kept out of the nesting zone and speedboats must stay a mile offshore. Monitoring since 1988 has shown a stable nesting population and even a slight increase.

Reached inland from the coast rather than by open water, the baths are nonetheless one of the anchorages you'll visit on a private gulet charter from Gocek, usually woven into a longer day of cruising around Gocek and Dalyan.