It´s funny how we all start getting used to certain things that we would have thought impossible back home, like bribing all type of officials at the airports.
It's actually pretty hard not to do it! I think anyone travelling to or through Asia should make a special allocation on their budget for bribes.
The other day leaving Vietnam we paid to get our passports stamped without having the ridiculous piece of paper they gave us on the way in, and yesterday when travelling from Siem Reap to Phnom Pehn, at the airport when we were trying to check in our luggage, they official at the desk looked at us and told us we would have to pay $26 for excess baggage.
Pardon for my french but excess baggage my ass, 3 tourists, lets see how much money we can get from them. 57 Kg between 3 people was less than 20Kg each but after almost 3 weeks in Asia we didn't even flintch.
Susana started with the "Dickens' routine" and said we were poor, last day in Cambodia, we had no money and we had to buy food (as if it came straight from a Dickens' story), but the guy didn't take it so she went
to phase two. Diminish the reason for which they are asking you for your money.
She said no problem, opened her suitcase and for the guys amazement she took a loaded rucksack from the suitcase (taking 9 kg out of the total weight), so they guy immediately changed his song and said, ok, ok...you can put the rucksack back in, only $10 for everything...
and Susana moved to step three. "Always ask for a discount" and said 5$ with discount?, and the guy said...no, no, discount from 26 to 10...and that's when Maria came out of the blue and said ok, ok, how about if we meet half way: $7, no 5 no 10 and the guys with some resignation accepted (the resignation face is part of the acting routine they always do after any haggling...they always pretend you just robbed them).
This time we even haggled on the bribe they wanted us to pay them to take our luggage...I think we've reached a whole new level!
Mind you, all these negotiations are accompanied with a lot of conversations in Spanish among the three of us, pretending we are offended and even outraged sometimes, they are asking for too much, putting ugly faces etc... Serious haggling can only be achieved with a team...you need at the very least another person. They do it too...they pretend they confer with their sister, brother, husband, wife or whatever and they agree to reduce the price just a little bit more.
No wonder people complain when they try to open a supermarket with fix prices!
No comments:
Post a Comment