Clothing: All of our guidebooks seemed to disagree on what was appropriate wear, so here are our observations. Ian was ok in shorts/tshirt almost everywhere we went in Turkey. Only in ultra-conservative Konya did we feel it was necessary for Ian to wear long pants (this is where combination/zipper pants came in very handy). In the mosques, we took off our shoes and “recombined” to wearing pants. Shorts are not ok inside a mosque.  There were absolutely no women in shorts except for some disrespectful tourists. Inside mosques, she wore a headscarf (the more touristy mosques handed these out at the entrance) and covered her shoulders. In large tourist sites (like Ephesus), women can probably get away with wearing shorts.The Turks were effusively grateful for the respect we were showing. Such small things – putting on my pant legs, and her putting on her headscarf – earned us top tourist marks in their books. The smiles and approving nods were constant evidence of this. We were shocked when we saw some tourists taking off their headscarves as soon as they were past the officials at the entrance. This is their place of worship, the least we can do is respect their customs.

Tipping: We never quite figured it out here. At restaurants, we varied between our standard 15% if we liked it, and 0 if we didn’t. Our guidebook said to round up. At Mosques, it’s customary to make a small donation ($1) when you leave. We never tipped bus drivers (intercity or intracity), nor was it expected.