Interacting with the local people is one of the most interesting components of travel for me. You learn local culture, history, language, food, problems and much more. Turkey, as a country is developing fast, but it still faces a gap between its rich and poor. There are people who still survive on a meagre wage. And some of them work really hard like this shoe shine man whom I met at Selcuk in Aegean Turkey. He walks around the town looking for shoes to shine and sometimes sits outside tourist attractions to earn some quick money from curious tourists who have never seen a shoe shine man before in their life.
I had seen a lot such shoe shiners in Istanbul, but never got around to interacting with them. And which is why I opted to get my backpacking boots shined even though it hardly needed a shine. I found out that my shoe shiner was from the Van region of Turkey and that he had a tough time making his ends meet. But, what brought a smile to my face was the fact that he was happy to know I was from India (Hindistan) as he knew Bollywood movies and our famous song and dance numbers.
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