With "suckers" written on our foreheads, we've had to stay on our toes

Since this trip began, we have been griping about the way that many vendors try to take advantage of us, squeezing out a few extra lira here and there through deceit and dishonesty. Since there's no Yelp: Turkey (that we know of), and we don't care enough to write a letter to lonely planet, we will get this off our chests here.

Case 1: The mysteriously valuable bottle of water
In Istanbul, we took the Bosphorous cruise up to the northern tip and walked up to the castle (we weren't good bloggers back then). The boat stopped in a small town from where you could climb up to a castle ruin then return for lunch near the boat before heading back south. There were many many restaurants and I (Robby) was having fun negotiating with a few of them to see who would give us the best price for a fixed fish menu. Of course, each subsequent place offered a better price than the last, so the final place down the line seemed the most reasonable. We made a couple Canadian friends and we all ordered the fish. Without asking, they poured us all a glass of water from the same size bottle as we were carrying in our bags (1.5L). The fish was OK, but when the check came, we saw they had charged us 8 lira for that stupid water. The going rate for the same size water in Istanbul is 1 lira. I made a stink and argued for awhile, but then decided it was not worth missing the boat back. I guess the fish we got wasn't such a great deal after all.

Case 2: The mysteriously appearing mezzes
Same night as the water incident, we went to a small place and ordered some small meals for dinner. They immediately brought out some mezes (small turkish appetizer-lıke dishes). With the water incident fresh in my mind, I asked if the mezes were free. They said no! Luckily, we hadn't touched them yet, so I sent them back. They took them and then put them back on the table free of charge. That would have been nice in the first place!

Case 3: BYO Fish, but not your friends
I wrote about this in the posting about Fethiye.

There have been other cases that we've caught but I'm running out of time. Suffice it to say, I guess we just look like targets...or we are a little daft. But if we were more daft, we'd get ripped off without even noticing, and then we'd have nothing to gripe about. How boring would that be!?!