The narrow streets around the Grand Bazaar were lined by many little stores selling all kinds of Turkish products - carpets, textiles, ceramics, jewelleries etc etc. And without fail you would be invited, coaxed, begged, to go into their shops. Having learnt from our previous experiences on how smooth these Turkish salesmen were in making their sales, we were determined to avoid any of the shops as we had nothing in mind to buy. We had made this trip specifically for the purpose of touring the many unexplored parts of the city.
Alas, we were again caught off guard by this smooth-talking gentleman who almost 'hypnotically' guided us into his shop after we had just finished our plate of borek and cleaned up our cup of coffee.
Most of these salesmen would start by asking ' where are you from Sir/Madam?' - and upon hearing that we came from Malaysia they would immediately rattle off some of the Malay phrases they have learnt e.g. 'apa khabarrrr.....selamat petang.....etc etc'. Once you are caught in this friendly chatter, it would be quite difficult to get away from them.
Pakdokter managed to video this gentleman who turned out to be quite charming and witty. In the end we bought a lovely piece of a table runner for the house and managed to avoid buying more carpets as we already have more than enough carpets at home.
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