Wandering Aimlessly Through Turkey's Bazaars

Today was a day of getting lost.

After waking up at 2:00 am for me and 4:00 am for Crystal (I need better sleeping drugs), we were up and ready to go as soon as the shops opened at 9:00. Our first challenge was to figure out the tram system to take us to the Spice Market. No problem, we were off to a good start. For about $1 each we were headed toward the sea for our first shopping experience.

The Spice Market is a mini bazaar selling, you guessed it, spices - mostly saffron, henna and teas - with just enough craft-type stalls included to make it interesting. After getting off the tram I started us off in what I thought was the general direction of the Market. As all of you know, my sense of direction is not, uh, well developed, and the maps we have aren't of much use because very few streets have signs. After a few minutes of wandering aimlessly and me telling Crystal "That building over there looks like a Spice Market!" she finally took the map and got us to the right place.

After some nudging, Crystal was the first to "break the seal" and buy a pink belly dancing outfit for Coral. I was next with three new pashminas that apparently I overpaid a $1 for. That's the problem - the Turkish shop keepers are much better bargainers than we are - and we even have experience bargaining.

From the Spice Market we walked over to the Mosque of Sulliman the Magnificent. And, once again, when I say walked, I mean we kind of meanderd in the general direction until we found these big blue tourist signs in English that pointed us in the right direction. Unfortunately the mosque is being restored and we could only see the moseleums of Sulliman and his wife Roxelana. They were adorned the gorgeous Turkish tile we see everywhere and we were really disappointed we couldn't see the full mosque.

We stopped for a relaxing lunch in a courtyard in order to gather our strength for the final shopping experience of the day - The Grand Bazaar. This maze of 4,000 shops was built in 1453 and is considered the oldest shopping mall in existance. When we were in Bangkok we had a blast at the Tuk Tuk market - the biggest market in existance. Now we can claim the oldest and the biggest. We're so proud.

The Bazaar is what we expected - a confusing maze of little shops with shop keepers trying to entice the people passing to come into their store. We were actually prepared for more aggressive behavior than we encountered and found it easy to wander - if not navigate - the warren of shops.

After an hour, maybe two, we had wandered in enough circles and found a few quiet little side streets to feel like we saw it all. I knew we had the full experience when a Turkish textile merchant fell in love with Crystal and gave her his phone number. I had to pull her out of his store before he proposed.

Of course we left the Grand Bazaar from a different entrance than we entered. Since maps are of no use to me, I just started plowing through the streets assuming at some point we'd find something recognizable or stumble upon one of the blue tourists signs that would point us in the right direction. Crystal wasn't quite sold on my strategy, but she seemed to feel better when she was at least holding the map. Finally we came across a big building that we were sure must be something important and started searching for it on our poorly drawn tourist map. After a few minutes some locals took pity on us and in Turkish pointed us in the direction of the Blue Mosque and within minutes we were home. Success!