I am single tonight for you...

Only in the Grand Bazaar could two bedraggeld girls warrant so much male attention. We wandered into it via the book section which has the most beautiful pictures of various scenes from Ottoman life, they seem to use calligraphy here to actually form shapes and they are covered in gold leaf. Unfortunately they are also about a hundred pounds, so not something for this trip! This gave us quite gentle introduction to what is the hardest selling I have ever witnessed. 'Are you looking for me?', 'Stop following me', 'Ladies, you are going the wrong way' along with 'I am single tonight for you' were just some of the lines shot in our direction from stalls selling absolutely everything; carpets, water pipes, iznik tiles, turkish lights, leather, pashminas, denim, backgammon sets, chess sets, belly dancing costumes, socks, jewellery, perfume, watches and antiques, you name it, you can find it in the Grand Bazaar. However, they were no match for the Lucy-Sarah team.

I has thought that I wanted to get Rob a chess set for his birthday and so we tried to see if we could find a vaguely decent one. This provd to be a bit of a challenge, although it wasn't long before we got offered a 'beautiful marble' one, after having rejected a tea set thinking that neither of our parents would appreciate it making its way back to either of our houses... Anway, negotiations started at 150 YTL (about 75 pounds), at which point Lucy looked at this man as though he had two heads and told him she would pay 20YTL as we were students and had no money. At this point we got the sob story about his 12 children and we had both worked out that this particular chess set was certainly not marble - given that he had about twenty just stacked up and easily pinchable, they probably weren't even worth the twenty we were offering. Lucy was fabulous as this man's price kept coming slowly down to our 20YTL offer. By this time, I thought Rob probably wouldn't thank me for this and so, as self-styled guardian of the purse strings, I said I didn't like it and we walked away. As we did so, he offered it to us for 10YTL - so think how little it must actually be worth...

After more of Lucy's expert haggling and my silent bad-cop routine, we left the Grand Bazaar on route to the Spice Bazaar. Again, outside it was absolutely freezing, but as luck would have it, a street seeler was coming up a little side street crying 'Sahlep' with what looked like a little gold teapot on a trolley. Lots of men from all the surrounding shops rushed out to buy what looked like hot milk, and I suddenly remembered that this was one of the things which Lonely Planet recommended we should try, so we bought one to share. It's actually sweetened milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top and has the consistency of custard. You have no idea how good it is to sip on a wet, cold day.

We found the Spice Bazaar by luck rather than good judgement and were both a bit unimpressed. There are quite a lot of spice stores and varieties of turkish delight as well as 'natural viagra', which looks suspiciously like a walnut, bu the chat up lines weren't nearly as good - 'Only 4 lira for blondes, free for a real one, I pity you' - cheek!!! The other problem I guess is that there isn't enough to make it different from the Grand Bizarre as for every spice stall there is a shop selling tourist tat, so it just doesn't feel unique. We did succumb to buying some Turkish delight to have later on at the hostel.

We headed back, desperate for a warm shower (a bit hit and miss at the hostel) and to dry off a bit. There was warm water than goodness and I think we both warmed up for the first time that day. We were thinking that we would have a quiet night in and maybe go out for a water pipe with Felicity and Stephie later on. However, when they came back, they'd managed to get talking to a local who had recommended a local restaurant, and realising how hungry we were, we decided to tag along and also got to meet an Australian guy called Matt who they'd met during the day. So down various back streets we went, asking random people if they knew where this place was until we came to a canteen which looked quite shabby. No one spoke any English and we just pointed at what we fancied. We were a bit concerned, but actually the chicken stew was fantastic and there was loads of lovely bread to mop it up with. Afterwards, the guy who the two other girls had met invited us all the the local bar where we sat drinking apple tea and playing backgammon. What a memory!