7/7/2014 0 Comments CarpetsCarpets.
I must commend Svend on completing an afternoon doing what he hates most. Shopping in the Tabriz bazaar. Bunnings hardware warehouse he can do all day every day but souvenir and bazaar shopping he has a 15 minute attention span which is about 3 hours and 45 minutes less than mine. BUT as it was our last day I was determined to complete the mission of buying some carpet or kilim item from Iran. ( I didn't know at this point it was illegal to bring any into Turkey. ) I've been very restrained the last 90 days and hadn't bought anything, mainly because I didn't want to carry more weight, but with limited journeys left and being told Iranian carpets are the best and cheaper than else where, now was the time. I wanted something that I could hang rather than use on the floor, so with the help of our young friend Sahand we navigated the huge alley ways of the bazaar and found roughly what I wanted. Unfortunately the traders bombard you with piles of carpets and pieces and you only have to look side ways at one then they are doing a deal with you on something you didn't really want. Normally this is all done around cups of tea, but unfortunately because of Ramadan we had to go dry. I felt so overwhelmed I had to leave and could easily have given up on the quest. But after a lunch break we went back into battle. We found what we liked and i left Svend to do what he is good at. He was a good match for the traders with them being surprised and commenting on his skill and talking. They'd never seen or heard anyone like him before. (It's a confirmed world wide phenomenon ) They actually asked if he was a carpet trader!!!! Not sure if that was good or not.!! Deals were done and finalised eventually after a few standoffs and now I've got the job to carry a few extra kilos in my pack. Punishment indeed. Now in Istanbul we are having a little look (and surprising the traders here with telling them we already have Iranian carpets, they leave us alone then) and we can see prices are way more expensive. So hopefully we did a good deal and hopefully we like them when we get home!!!!
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August 2014
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