Being stung, ouch!

On our first trip into Antalya last week, we wandered down a wee cobbled street and saw a Turkish man sitting outside his shop carving some stone with a scalpel, making wee statues of animals and such. Jason's eye was drawn to these wee cats which look like our wee Miho & Benki. Right, our first shot at bartering. We asked him the price and he wanted 10 euro for one. Oh no, no, no, my friend, too much, too much, 2 euro. At which point he scoffed. Several minutes of banter then happen between us. He tells us that he imports the stone from the Anatolian mountains and he carves the animals at his workshop himself. We haggle back and forth and we eventually get him to accept 10 euros for two slightly larger style cats. We think we've done not bad. We walk away glad at our first positive exchange with a Turkish shop owner.

Then we went to Perge the next day and outside Perge, in the car park, lots of traders had their wares on their blankets and what did we see......a veritable ocean of carved stone cats!!!

A bare-face liar! He must have been sitting outside his shop with a fake scalpel and fake stone carving. Ouch, we got stung!

(P.S. They were selling them there 2 for 6 euros so we only lost a couple of quid, but still, our pride was severely dented.)