Carpet/saddle repairing in Mardin Bazaar.

LARGE

After yesterday's early start I treated myself to a lie in this morning, which turns out to be not that difficult in a windowless room.

It did mean that I missed breakfast, though, which meant that come midday I could have an entire kebap to myself. So, just after midday I had an entire kebap to myself.

The only downside to this veritable feast is that we were ripped off. It was one of those scenarios where you order something, and they bring something else, so you just go with the flow as to not cause a fuss.

But then the plates keep coming, salad, onions, pickled chilli peppers, spicy lentils. Suspicions start to simmer at this point but it's far too late to go back to the start in attempt to re-traverse that first language barrier which delivered us into this situation.

Now all you can do is hope that the price is reasonable. But it wasn't. Slapped with 15 Turkish Lira each, for a dish we didn't order and a dish, moreover, inferior to the cheaper kebaps we had down the road the day before.

Even being slightly ripped off, when you've put so much effort to into avoiding it throughout the trip, casts a deep, regretful shadow over the next five minutes of your existence.

I guess I'm over it now, though. The most annoying thing was that I reckon the guy new exactly what was happening the entire time.

It's at times like this you wish you'd brought your notebook so you can pretend to be some internationally renowned travel writer, scribbling angrily and jotting down the names and details.

The best I could offer was a phone-snap of the restaurant, but I think the rip-off merchant took it as a compliment, so that backfired...

***

I may be offline for the next few days as tonight I'm bussing to Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.