When we visited Turkey in 2001, we went to Side to see the ancient ruins including the Roman Temple of Apollo featured in the photo above. We were disappointed in Side, because of the way modern development had been allowed to encroach on the ruins. This temple bathed in light at sunset was very nice. We stopped here for a while and had a long chat with a young couple from Vancouver. They were very upset about an expensive Turkish carpet they had purchased and then asked the shopkeeper to ship home for them. When it arrived, there was a $400 duty charge to be paid. This was refused by the husband's mother who returned the carpet to the shop in Istanbul. The young people were on their honeymoon, and now had to return to the shop in Istanbul to hopefully sort things out. We realized how fortunate we were that our own carpet had arrived home safely without duty charges, but we had no idea what had made the difference.
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