Haggling over Pennies

It seems ridiculous, but haggling over pennies is a very real part of traveling in the poorest parts of the world. This was mentioned once in a documentary I recently watched; "A Map for Saturday" (documentary produced by friend of some ex Blue Mtn colleagues). In this film the author travels for 360 days or so around the world and while in Thailand he explains how you haggle over even the smallest amounts of money.

I experienced this the other day, before realizing the absurdity of that situation. It was 8:30 pm or so, just finished shooting some photos and had a 15 min walk up a hill back to the hotel. A rickshaw drove down and I grabbed him for the trip up. I asked how much: "30 rupees" - before just saying "yes", I replied "20 rupees" - to which he promptly shook his head "No." Then i realized the ridiculous nature of the situation. 10 rupees is 20-25 cents! Does that even count as a rounding error? Needless to say, i took the 30 rupees ride (which actually was a rip off when compared to our normal 50 rupee rides to town).

One of the points made when we discuss the necessity of haggling for pennies with locals is that this is part the process. Locals will always haggle in order to get to the right level. Tourists, esp westerners, should haggle because the initial price usually starts at 2-3 times the local price (the price at which the good or service will trade). Even though it seems ridiculous to haggle over small amounts of money (by our standards) these "small amounts" are real money to the people. Additionally, it has been argued that foreigners who do not haggle over "small money" are making it more difficult for many of their brethren traveling on a tight budget. If a foreign tourist always trades at 2-3 times the price it will simply set the "white person" price higher than necessary in the future. This seems logical, but there also is a limit to how far one should push people who are very clearly living at much lower living standards. $10 grand per year in these parts of India will give you a relatively comfortable lifestyle.

Apparently, the lesson to be learned from all of this is: haggle with the locals, it is a natural part of the process. Don't feel bad about it...but also have some perspective on the situation. It isn't a big deal for a few extra dollars to go to those struggling to meet what we consider our most basic needs.