Last week my father came from Russia for a one-week holiday, and I was excited to show him the best of Alanya.
Usually, when I walk alone, I look very “local” with my businesslike, definitely not strolling-and-looking-around walk and kind of out-of-season clothes (since the weather always seems colder for the locals than it seems for the tourists).Usually, it is enough for an eagle eye of the salesmen who can tell not only a tourist from a local person, but determine the country the tourist is coming from. If not — my best card is knowing Turkish. That changes a lot.
But that day, when we walked with my family, we looked like a usual group of tourists. It is nice to be a tourist, and it is nice to be a local in Alanya, but the worst thing here is being local looking like a tourist.
Several times I caught the sellers trying to cheat on us. If you are a tourist, you just don’t realize the fact, if you are a local — they never do it to you. Twice they tried to give us old change, which cannot be used anymore. When I pointed out to the fact and they realized that I could speak Turkish, they apologized but not very sincerely.
Next time was just some half an hour later when we were at currency exchange office. That guy, probably, thinks that all the foreigners who can afford holiday in Turkey, are very rich and never count their money.
They also try to charge full fare for the children in the buses, while schoolchildren have to pay just half of it and small children are free from charge. But it’s OK when you don’t know about it. It’s good not to know the actual prices when people try to sell you something three time expensive than it must cost.
When we were waiting in a queue at LC Waikiki shopping center and I saw the salesmen struggling through Russian customers, who couldn’t speak English, I innocently thought that at least they will not have problem with me, but I was wrong. I don’t know what kind of bad luck day it was, but the price in a cashier’s computer didn’t match the price on one item’s tag and not to my credit at all. Anyway, the guys at the store were happy that they could solve this issue using their language.
Fortunately, not all the people in tourism like this. It was just my bad luck day. What I am trying to tell by this nagging, is that if you live here permanently or stay for long whiles, speaking Turkish is vital. It not just lets you communicate with people; they start to treat you different. I actually understand people who work in tourism when they sell the same thing to locals and to tourists for different prices. If you are a tourist, they want to earn money here and now, but if you are a local, they regard you as a potential regular customer who will return if they treat you well.
That’s why, learning a dozen of Turkish words is always useful.
Have a good time and take care!