Istanbul, Turkey - Part Two.
Ok, so by this point I've seen the spice bazaar, the mosque, the cistern, on to the next sight, the grand bizarre. In what I now see as a quite fortunate event, life threw me bone in the form of a friendly rug merchant.
It was getting later in the day and even though I was in Istanbul I still had a job to do. So I left the group to head back to the ship but since I'm never one to back track I chose a course that would lead me through Istanbul's famous Grand Bazaar. I was walking along one of the major streets for quite a ways before I started to worry that maybe I was heading the wrong way. I wanted to ask directions but since I knew the second I stopped the merchants would descend like locus, I proceeded with caution, looking for someone who looked knowledgeable but who wasn't going to try to sell me something... I failed, sorta.
I paused for only a second, by that was all it took, an average looking man in his mid-thirties quickly emerged from an unassuming store entrance, approached me and said "hello." Before I could get a word in he told me all about his small rug store and that he would be more then happy to explain to me the finer points of Turkish rug manufacturing. Even though I showed little interest in his rugs and was finally able to communicate that I only wanted directions to the Grand Bazaar, he persisted that I should learn more about rugs. Before I knew it I was on the second story of his store surrounded by rugs. Oh well, when in Istanbul...
The room was about 15 feet by 15 feet. Along the walls were nothing but rugs, rolled up into neat coils. He started off by showing me the cheap cotton rugs and saying how good they work back at "school". Then he moved on to the "wool on cotton" rugs which, as he said, were somewhat expensive. (Clearly this guy doesn't know me.) He explained the knotting process, the types of materials used for dying, the women who made the rugs, etc. I will admit it was very interesting stuff and seeing the pride this man took in explaining his trade to myself, who may or may not purchase a rug, really struck me.
After about 15 minutes of seeing rugs that were in my opinion, of reasonable quality, I pointed to a gorgeous Turkish rug that was lying coiled up in the corner of the room. He pause and shot me an inquisitive look. At this point the shop owner figured out if I was going to buy a rugs, it wasn't going to be anything second-class.
Here's where things got interesting. He showed me a few of the top-quality "wool-on-wool" rugs from around the room. These rugs were definitely a step up or two in quality from those rugs he was showing me earlier. The colors were amazing shades of reds, browns, blues, yellows and oranges. He told me that each of them were hand made and that all colors were made using only natural dyes made from ingredients like, pistachios, indigo, and sugar. Over the next 30 minutes the once bare hardwood floor became covered in 8 inches of rugs. By this point the shop owner was running all over the shop and returning with a never ending flood of high-end rugs. Somewhere in this process I realized I wasn't leaving this shop without one of these amazing rugs and really started getting serious about choosing one and rationalizing how much I could really justify spending.
Another 10 minutes passed before I finally found the one. I don't want to describe it now, a picture will do a better job of it. With the rug selected, so began the negotiations. The shop owner gave me his price and a small story about how this was a good price and that he only makes 10% on the sale of each rug... so just to see if he was bluffing I set my initial price at 80% the asking price. The store owner then looked me in the eye, ask me to take his hand and then, literally over the rug I was buying we agreed on a price that was roughly in the middle. It was a very old-world experience that stayed with me for the rest of the day. With business concluded, the shop owner drew up the sale papers and served me a cup of Turkish coffee as is tradition with large purchases.
While I drank my coffee, he explained to me that the reason he was so slow to show me the good rugs first was that he never knows who's serious about purchasing a rug or even worse, if the person might try to rob him. The way he put it was, "I don't know if they will bring a wallet or a gun."
We talked some more about his business. Turns out he's been in the business for 20 years. When he was 15 he started repairing rugs. Eventually he moved on to selling rugs and then five years later he opened his own shop. He's starting to try to expand his business to America, in particular Hartford, Connecticut.
He talked about how these same rugs go for 500% more in Hartford and that he did not understand why people would pay so much. This (of course) led into a deeper discussion about Americans justify the expense as a way to display wealth. The shop owner said that in Turkey, no one did this because if they did the Mafia would come and take it. It was an interesting discussion.
With the coffee finished and the sale papers complete, I bid the shop owner farewell and continued down the street toward the bizarre. As it turned out, the shop owner caught me only three blocks from the Grand Bizarre. Who knows if I would have bought a rug there, or what the rug-buying experience might have been like. In any case, I saw my rug purchase and the conversations with the kind shop owner as a fortunate twist of fate.
Even though I never saw any official entrance I knew when I was in the Grand Bizarre. The never ending maze of shops, stairs, back alleys and alcoves filled with people, sounds and smells was a clear indication. I wandered semi-aimlessly, checking out everything but never stopping for fear of another shop owner ambush resulting in a large unplanned purchase.
I was still trying to get back to the ship but by this point I was so turned around that the simple directions I got from the shop owner were completely worthless. Lucky for me, logic prevailed. I knew that to get to the AyaSofia Mosque I had walked up a substantial hill. Logic suggested that if I just kept walking downward, I would get to somewhere in the vicinity of the bridge.
Just as the entrance to the bizarre was vague, so was the exit. The only indication was the age of the buildings. As I descended the hill the buildings looked more and more modern in architecture.
Somewhere in this decent I had a zen moment. Here I was, a young man from Virginia walking down the streets of Istanbul with his new Turkish rug with which he had shrewdly obtained. For the first time since I started taking these trips I felt like I was starting to become a real traveler. It was a really good moment.
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