Tales of the Bazaar

Are you the Marvelous Marvin Hagler of shopping? Then put your shopping gloves on and get ready for the haggle fight of your life at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

Spread out over 58 covered streets with thousands of shops, the Grand Bazaar is one of the biggest and oldest such markets in the world. In fact, it's over half a millennium old and attracts more than a quarter million visitors a day making this the Mecca of Turkish shopping.

The Bazaar -- built in the mid-15th century under the orders of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror -- has its share of pirated DVDs, space-wasting souvenirs and knock-off duds a la Muslim Dior, but you're going for something more than glorified NYC Canal Street-style clutter, the Bazaar's hottest items are intricately woven rugs, artfully designed lanterns, ethnic clothing, handmade pottery and jewelry and foods that could fill an episode of "Fear Factor."

The hard-selling vendors short-circuited my shopping CPU, which is unfortunate because being the "just looking" guy made me as popular as Don Imus at a WNBA game. A German girl in our group did purchase a large, beautifully designed scarf that appeared large enough to double as a bed sheet. And the shopkeeper was so grateful he threw in his personal cell phone number free of charge. Now that's customer service!

Karl Marx wrote, "Shopping is the opiate of the masses," or at least that's my interpretation of what he said having just experienced the ultimate hagglefest. It's a shopping tradition so grand it actually outlasted the Ottomans.

In other words, Empires might come and go, but bargain shopping is forever.