Sherma and I recently visited Istanbul. Our hotel concierge suggested that we go to a famous belly dance / dinner theater. We were picked up by a van that went from hotel to hotel picking up guests for the show. In the van we met a few interesting gentlemen that we asked to share our table at the show.  One was a parisian artist, the other a Moroccan physician on holiday. The artist was hilarious and looked alot like Salvador Dali.

Our travel friends we met on the way to the show.

We arrived and were seated at a table not too far from the stage.  Food was ok but the show turned out to be excellent.  First there were two exotic belly dancers that performed. Although I am no judge of Belly Dancing the dancers were sexy and fun to watch.

Then the Master of Ceremonies explained that they were going to have a Sultan contest.  They picked four men from the audience to compete to be the Sultan for the evening.  I was one of the men selected.  They had a contest where we had to compete in various tasks – such as showing our biceps, repeating drums beats, etc. I won and then I was crowned Sultan and entertained in front of the entire audience – a bit embarrassing!

The Winning Sultan

The Coronation

After crowning a new member of my harem was selected and then she performed especially for me.

The "Private" Dance for Steven

We all laughed so hard. We had a wonderful and memorable evening 🙂