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- India Travels (2)
- Uncategorized (6)
- January 19, 2007: more pics!
- January 18, 2007: Back in Bhuj again - interviews finished!
- December 14, 2006: More on Bhuj
- December 2, 2006: Research accomplished!
- December 2, 2006: Shopping spree...
- November 26, 2006: The Scam Complex
- November 23, 2006: The sunnier side of India
- November 23, 2006: Arrived (and alive) in Gujarat
Blogroll
The Scam Complex
One interesting phenomenon many tourists encounter is the fear of being scammed. Its fine getting ripped off once or twice, but eventually the constant haggling and negotiation can be tiresome. At some point its just not worth bargaining anymore - but knowing when the line is reached is very difficult. To complicate matters further negotiations are handled differently in each area.
I had another one of my famous spazzes just the other day in Ahmedabad - when a rikshaw driver tried to charge us double the normal fair. I started yelling at him, freaked out, and eventually after 5 minutes of yelling and spitting another person came to help us out and the rikshaw driver immediately cut the price in half. The total fair: 75 rupees. He wanted 150 rupees. In order to save 1 dollar and 50 cents canadian I had to yell for 5 minutes.
Definately not worth it.
To top things off, this entire fiasco occured in front of Gandhi’s ashram/museum! Very embarassed, I had to walk off my anger before entering the museum. Should I have just paid the rikshaw driver 150 rupees? Could I have somehow applied this concept of ahimsa (non-violence) into negotiating a fairer price?
Alice is studying fair trade cotton production in the area around Bhuj. Fair trade works to improve levels of education, water quality, etc. by having foreign markets pay more for the products, and by helping organize local development in terms of education, sustainability, etc. (more on this to come). Should foreigners from rich countries pay more for everything when they travel abroad, as a means of helping the poor? (Nepal has seperate tourist prices in restaurants for example).
Paying more for a rikshaw ride isn’t quite the same as fair trade, but its obviously going to help a poor guy out! The question is, should you let yourself get ripped off to save yourself the aggrevation, and to help the guy out, or is it more a matter of honesty and principle - whereby arguing with the rikshaw driver will make him think twice about double charging the next tourist?
Alice thinks I could have negotiated a better deal without having spazzed on the guy. I think spazzing worked very well (and twice we have had rikshaw drivers spazz on us demanding more money then was marked on the meter… I have to admit it was these two previous incidents which made me go into spazz mode as a bargaining technique. Believe me, that rikshaw driver will think twice of ripping someone else off!).