buying a carpet in turkey

There are some things you should kow about buying a carpet in turkey.

first of all, carpet sellers can spot a foreginer from miles away. they will approach you , ask you where you are from, tell you about people they know in canada, and are so polite and charming you cannot be rude to them. they will invite you to have a drink - turkish tea, apple tea, turkish coffee or nescafe. sometimes wine. and then they show you their rugs. they have two or three helpers who RUN to get the drinks, or the rugs, or to roll them out, or to roll them up. and it is explained to you about carpets, and kilims, and embroidered rugs, and double knotted rugs with nap, and density of knots etc and the meaning of various patterns. and then you haggle about price. you cannot get them down too much, but you can ususally get it for about15-20% less than the starting price.

we did not know all of this pefore. but now we have all this knwoledge. as well as some new carpets. oscar and kati bought several rugs in istanbul, and one of our stops in cappadochia was at a rug factory. they showed you the silk cocoons and how they get the silk from them, and then how they dye the silk, and then the ladies actually making the carpets...one was working on one that they expected would take her 18 months. they are beautiful, and the market for antique rugs appears to be even more robust than for new carpets. many of the rugs are made in the homes rather than in factories. and they are truly beautful. if money were not a factor, space would be. you could not possibly bring home all the rugs that you like. we had no intention of buying a turkish rug, but we did. kind of goldish and bluish. and oscar and kati bought another .

yesterday we also saw a pottery factory where they shape and then paint the bowls and plates and tiles. they were beautiful, but it would be crazy to try to bring one of them home. and they were not cheap. smallish vases were about $400.

we also saw cave churches and more cave homes. some of these homes were occupied as recently as 1972. the government moves people out of them when erosion makes them usafe. i may not have mentioned before, but all of these cave dwellings also have pigeon houses as part of the complex. they ate pigeon meat, and the eggs, and used the droppings for fertilizer and the egg whites for paint. pigeon houses are small houses carved into the rocks where the cave homes are. we also saw mushroom rocks - rocks where the erosion created a cone shaped rock with a large boulder sitting precariously on top. lunch yesterday was in a cave - it was turkish ravioli with a yogurt and broken wheat soup. dessert was figs and apricots in syrup.

it was a mad rush at the airport to return to istanbul. no one respected line ups, and we had to be just as pushy as anyone else to get a boarding pass. but i must say the staff at the airports are patient and helpful. we were really impressed. and no matter how short the flight you got something to eat.

today kati and oscar went to the conference, and bob and i took laundry down the street to a guy who weighed it and said to come back at 5 for it. then we took the tram to the main station, walked along the waterfront and over the galleta bridge. the bridge is lined with men fishing. shoulder to shoulder. some people selling live bait, like shrimp, and little minnows. we saw only one person bring anything in, and that might have been the live bait rather than catch. apparently many turkish men are unemployed, so there is lots of opportunity to fish, and to play backgammon, and to smoke a water pipe. we returned by taxi ( taksi). that was a wild ride. honking is am important part of the safety of cab rides, and sometimes getting through a street with other vehicles is like threading the eye of a needle. and all the time the taxi driver was cursing at the stupids who were in his way.

tonite we go to a ceremony of whirling dervishes, and will probably visit one of the sumptuous palaces of the sultans. we will not be buying any more rugs.