Number 15

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Tourists and a Turkish merchant near the Blue Mosque.

"Where are you from?"
"Malaysia."
"Oh, Malaysia! I never been to Malaysia. You come three girls only?"
"No, no. We come with friends, family..they are inside the Blue Mosque," answered Mek while pointing to the mosque.
"Brothers? So you are married?!" he suddenly seemed flustered, like he was worried that if we were married, he would be chatting with someone's wife. He was fidgeting as if he wanted to leave at once.
"No. There are brothers, but we are friends. Not married." 
"Not married? Single? Okay. You want to marry?" 
 
We were a bit puzzled by then. We did not reply.

"Malaysia women are very beautiful. And nice. Not like Turkey. Turkey girls not nice. You want to marry?" 
I thought it was funny, so I jokingly asked, "There are three of us here. Which one of us would you like to marry?" 
He seemed all shy and replied, "Fifteen."
"Fifteen??" By then I was starting to think that he had got some psychological thing going on over there.
"Yes, fifteen. One, two, three.." he started to count and point to us, one by one, as he counted. Sure enough, Ms E who sat the farthest ended up as the lucky fifteen. I LOL-ed. This was getting more interesting. Ms E was all red, shaking her head and looking at anywhere other than the place where this weird, handsome guy stood.

"You want to marry her? You don't even know her." I could not help it. I think all of this was funny, I wanted to know what this guy was really thinking about.
"Yes, marry. No girlfriend. Girlfriend haraam."  Wow.
"But you have to come to Malaysia." I provoked.
"I can go to Malaysia. No problem." Erk. He was being serious. However Ms E was already giving the "you're dead" look to me so sadly I had to end the conversation.
"You have to ask her if she wants or not since she is the one you want to marry." Haha. I just had to.
 He looked at Ms E but Ms E hurriedly answered, "No, I don't want. I want to marry a Malaysian."
"Oh. Nevermind then. Thank you. Salam." He left as soon as he got his answer.

Me and Mek laughed hysterically afterwards.
"Hensem kot E, orang Turki pulak tu. Kau tak nak pulak. Beriman lagi. Ha, apa lagi nak?"
"Eeeeiii, tak nak aku. Takut!" 
If only she agreed, we would have a more valid reason to visit Turki again. Haha.

A picture of Ms E inside of the Blue Mosque

It was really weird the way he mentioned fifteen. I mean, why fifteen? Later in the evening when we were walking around Istanbul with other members of the group, I just realised that we had 15 members in total. Ms E was always the last person because she was always preoccupied with something while we were already moving and got left behind. Coincidence? Now that, still remained a mystery.