We began our day with a visit to the government-backed pearl market. To say they had a wide selection of pearls would be an understatement. Our guide was named "Rick, like from Casablanca." Rick spent a lot of time telling us about how special and popular certain pearls were and how cheap his prices were followed by the same phrase, "But I'm not trying to sell you anything." He was quite funny, almost a stand-up comedian who's whole act was about pearls.
He concluded his presentation by taking the entire group up to one of his main sales counters and pulling out a series of different strands of pearls. He had said that the complexion or eye color of each woman in our group determined which kind of pearls would be best for her. He proceeded to prove this by putting very expensive strands of pearls on the necks of the women in the group. Amazingly, he was right every time – a set of pearls that would look amazingly beautiful on one woman would not really work for another. Rick knew what he was doing. He finally said, "Now I am selling to you."
I have no idea if we were getting good deals or not, but Rick and his store did quite a bit of business from the Duke tourists. Kathy is not much of a pearl fan, so we did not get anything. Some other folks spent thousands of dollars on some beautiful, unique pearl necklaces. It was a pretty fun time.
The above picture includes Susan Weiner with her beautiful strand of black pearls. Susan's husband Gary has a camera that puts mine to shame. If I am lucky, I will get to post some of the amazing pictures he is taking.
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