Everyone, young and old seems to be scratching a living from doing something - there surely can't be any form of social welfare here because no matter what age, what time of the day, night or week, rail hail or shine, you can buy whatever you want, and you are relantlessly being persued to part with your money to buy something you probably certainly don't want.
A lot seem to work very hard for what I would imagine to be a very meagre income.
Although so far we've seen almost no beggers doing nothing but beg
In Istanbul especially ( but to a much lesser extent in any tourist area outside the cities ) you are constantly ( like almost every few minutes of the day + night when on the streets ) being offered something - sadly at times you need to be rude and/or ignore these guys ( + it's almost always a male ) to shake them off - other times you can have a bit of fun + banter with them as they are often very witty. Usually they're nice to you / want to know where you're from / have some amazing pick up lines + generally instanly become your friend ( Shona's been given a rose when buying $NZ2 worth of bread from a street vender on her own ).
In every town / city or village, night and day all manner of street venders appear with their little carts or produce laid out on the footpaths / grass verge or the side of the road.
The shops have a lot of their products out on the footpath + side of the street - shop venders are generally standing in front of their stores or in the doorways constanly talking + cajouling everyone walking by ( and generally checking out the talent at the same time ). Shops are generally all clustered together selling like products - say 5 to 10 shops in a row on both sides of the street or bazaar selling almost exactly the same thing ( kitchen pots / buttons / powertools - absolutely everything )
The other curious observation has been to see how many people 'clip the ticket' and/or are involved in selling you something or providing a service - it obviously helps towards everyone having work to do - it also seems to mean a lot of people waiting around for their part in the process to occur
Today for example we caught a 6 hour bus ride from Canakkale ( pop 80k ) to Izmir ( pop 3.5 mil ) - bought a ticket from the ticket office / waited 10 minutes then someone called us out + handed us to someone who took us 25m out to a shuttle bus / another drove us to the bus station / we were met by someone who took us into the bus depot to the ticket office / someone else took us to the bus / a bus attendant loaded us + luggage onto the bus who along with the driver took us to Izmir / the attendant regularly served free tea coffee + food on the way ( a great scheme ) / at Izmir we were met by someone who directed us 200m to an area of about 20 shuttle buses / another caught us at the right shuttle and loaded us onboard / another driver / stopped in the middle of the street in central Izmir and handed us to a Taxis driver who took us to our final destination : that was about 13 directly involved with us - Brilliant service !!! - actually we'd have been totally swimming at sea without them
It's been an absolutly fabulous experience and a total contrast to what we're use to - also worked out that I suck at bartering - but do a great job at fobbing someone off when not wanted
R
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| Two fruit & vege carts + a bread cart beyond |
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| Belt Vendor |
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| Laminating Cart |
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| Bathroom Scales for Hire |
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| Young Boy + Elderly Women selling hand-made purses for about $NZ2 |
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| Vege stall on the move |
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| Button Store |
