Souking Again

The souk is bigger than I thought. I managed to find a side branch that took me almost all the way back to the hotel. It was smaller, and the hawkers were more insistent. I also had something weird happen. I've been going around by myself, wearing loose pants and a headscarf. No problem. This morning I did the same. About half-way to the souk, I ran into Chris, a guy from the program. He stopped and said hi and I told him where I was going. Well, this Indian-looking guy had been walking along and when he saw me talk to Chris he stopped and turned and stared at me. Then he started to follow me. At first I thought maybe he was just going to the souk, like me. I went into a money changer's office, and I was there for 5-10 minutes. When I came out, I saw him again, and he started following me. My first thought was “purse snatcher” but since he kept staring at me, I started to think maybe he thought I was a prostitute? We did have a guy follow our group to the souk yesterday, telling us he had great pashminas, but this guy never did that. It kinda creeped me out. As soon as I got to the souk, I found a shop and ducked inside to look at pashminas. He stayed for a few minutes, then finally left. It worked out great though, because I found a beautiful pashmina!