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First customer, lucky customer…

“First customer, lucky customer…” is a cry you’ll commonly hear from traders in south-east Asia and other parts of the world too. Usually you’re not the first customer it’s just banter to get you interested, and by the end of the day you’re “Last customer, lucky customer…” – strange that!?

In this case I was in Turkey and I really was the first customer.

When you’re on a long journey you can begin to collect a lot of souvenirs or you realise carrying around that long zoom lens you never actually use is starting to become an unnecessary burden. So, there comes a point where you need to shed some weight and send some things home.

Whilst in Goreme in Cappadocia I decided to send a few things home and went to check out the DHL shop I’d spotted from the minibus the day before.

When I got there it looked like the shop may not be open, but I was in luck as there was a man inside so I knocked on the door and asked him if he was open. It turns out that he was not actually open yet and he planned to open the shop for business the next week. He was only in to clean out the shop with his mother.

However, he was delighted to see me and he was keen to help, offering to drive me back to my hotel to get my stuff. He said that I could be his first customer and he was actually quite excited. DHL is very expensive, but I thought about it and as he was such a nice guy I decided to go back later with the things I wanted to post home. I have to admit that the chance to be his first customer was appealing for some reason.

Later I returned and had to wait in the shop while he disappeared out of the shop with my box of things. This was slightly worrying, but it turned out that his scales were not set up yet and he’d gone off to get the box weighed at a market or some other place!

During my time in the shop I got to see out back and see how it all works. The package weighed in at 7.5kg, so I was glad to be sending it home. Once all the forms were filled in we had a few glasses of tea and good old chat. He insisted on taking pictures – a picture of him and his first customer for the wall.

So, if you’re ever in Goreme, Turkey and find yourself in the DHL shop glance around the room and just maybe you might see a picture of me on the wall!

Comments

Ayngelina

So cute, I love this story.

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