M.O.N.E.Y

A trip to India will change your views about the value of money. It’s on a completely different scale to the UK and especially London, where I’ve lived for the last 10 years. 100 Indian Rupees equates to approximately £1, which makes conversions easy, but knowing what things actually cost and paying a fair price is the hard part.

100 Rupees will buy you a good breakfast in a café, a 30-minute ride in a rickshaw, a 4-hour train journey in general class, or a small bottle of beer. As a rough indicator, I multiple the cost by 10 and ask myself if I would spend that amount in London. For example, I’d be happy to pay £10 for a Full English, a 30-minute Uber ride home, or a 4-hour train journey. A £10 beer might be a bit much, but then alcohol is expensive in India.

Having an understanding of what things costs, doesn’t mean you will get a fair price. You have to work for it. Below are some of our bartering experiences, along with some basic advice on what worked for us.

Bartering

Though most of us earn more than the average person in India, it doesn’t seem fair to pay over 10x more than a local would. You therefore need to barter. The aim of the game is to come as close to the ‘Indian price’ as you can. This can be tricky, as some places have fixed ‘tourist rates’, but everywhere else, hard bargaining is a must.

We have encountered 3 main categories of haggler:

1. The sincere – they are honest about their motivation and admit charging a little more to tourists who can afford it. They admit getting a commission on services they can arrange. I don’t mind paying a little more for the honesty and the convenience.
2. The opportunist – they offer goods or services 3-10x higher, but have very clever ways to overcome objections, in order to make you pay more than the locals. These ones are fun to haggle with and often you meet somewhere in the middle, after earning some mutual respect. They usually admit they ‘had to try’, with a cheeky smile.
3. The deceiver – they will claim your destination is 10km away, when it is just down the road, or will invent some other story as to why the price should be higher. You have to be very firm and direct with these ones to stand a chance of getting a fair price. More often than not, you have to walk away.

We find ourselves haggling most often with hotel managers and rickshaw drivers.

Securing cheap accommodation

On our first night in Delhi, we ended up paying 3,500 Rupees (£35) for a room. It was a nice hotel, but looking back, we definitely overpaid. We were tired after a long journey and had little energy left after our experience with the deceiving taxi driver (see earlier ‘Potholes’ blog post). Since then, we have much improved. Our personal best is 300 Rupees (£3) for a small, but clean, double bedroom for the night. If I was to give one piece of advice to anyone hoping to travel on a budget (in India), it would be never to book accommodation online. The price is almost always more than double, and the rooms are often wildly different from the pictures online – just like that last Tinder date you went on.

Our strategy for securing cheap accommodation:

1. Go online. Search Google Maps for hotels and find an area with a high concentration of hotels. Navigate towards that area, or a chosen hotel.
2. Check sites like Booking.com to get a ballpark figure for the daily rate.
3. Upon arrival, ask the hotel manager the price of their cheapest room. If unsatisfied, offer half the price listed on Booking.com, or less. Be confident!

If you’re travelling as a couple, this can be played out as a team. See example below.

Example

At Agonda Beach in Goa, we wanted to stay in a hut on the beach. Most places quoted over 5,000 Rupees (£50) or more per night. This seemed excessive, but then it was peak season in a very popular destination. Many places still had empty rooms to fill, however. I sat at a café nearby, while Jo checked out a few places. She returned with a shortlist of 2 – one she had negotiated down to 2,500 per night and the other down to 2,000. We decided we wanted the first one. It was then my turn to do the final squeeze on the price. Jo typically gives the impression she wants the room, whereas I do the opposite. “It’s too noisy”, “too small”, “a bit unclean”, “it’s just not what I’m looking for”, “we can’t afford it”. After walking away, we were offered the room for 2,000 per night, as long as we didn’t tell the other guests paying 5,000 for an identical room. After the first night, we approached the owner and asked if he would accept 1,500 per night, if we stayed a further 2 nights. He agreed. After the third night, we explained that we were still exceeding our budget and would need to check out (this was true). We were then offered a room for 1,000 per night. From 5,000 Rupees down to 1,000 Rupees! This reinforced our decision never to book our accommodation online.

Whilst this may be perceived as being ‘cheap’, it’s worth noting these rooms often go for even less in the off season. When we stay at one place for more than a few days, we naturally become friends with the staff, so they are more than happy to offer us a cheaper price. The savings we make usually end up spent in the bar anyway, and they get a good tip when we check out, so everyone’s happy!

Value of money in India

We’ve gotten pretty good at understanding what the basic necessities cost, like travel, accommodation, food and drinks. Where things start getting really tricky is when purchasing services or items that fall outside of the above categories.

How much should a haircut cost? A tour guide? Getting your ears cleaned? An Ayurvedic massage? A soothing sound healing session? A tailor-made shirt? Or a handmade silk and pashmina scarf?

Let me give you an example.

The silk salesman

The River Ganges in Varanasi is world famous and well visited by local and international tourists. This gives opportunities for the local entrepreneurs. It’s difficult to sit on the riverbanks without people of all ages testing out inventive ways to get inside your wallet. Not in a threatening way, just skilful storytelling and creative manipulation. It can be as entertaining as it can be annoying. Kids asking for ‘Bakshish’ (bribe money) for using your camera, fortune tellers claiming to have a PhD in palm reading, boatmen offering romantic rides to watch people burning at the Ghats … and silk salesmen.  

Varanasi is a city known for silk production. There are many factories that make products from silk imported from places like Kashmir. I learned this from a local man who sat down next to me at the banks of the Ganges. We had a nice chat and he offered to show me around the silk factories where his family worked. It was a free tour and he promised not to try to sell me anything. I was interested and so followed him.

The factories were quite incredible. Narrow alleyways, full of small concrete houses, each used for different stages in the process, such as drawing the designs, or weaving the coloured silk threads by hand. I was told a typical handmade scarf takes 8 days to make, from start to finish. The tour finished in a small warehouse, with shelves full of scarves covering all four walls. This is where I met the silk salesman. I was asked to sit down and he pulled about 20 scarves from one shelf. He took two corners of one scarf and shook it, as if he were a matador enticing a bull, and softly laid it out in front of me. He asked me to feel the material. I must admit, the silk felt extremely soft. He then pulled the scarf from side to side to prove its strength. I was then asked which design I liked best – not to buy – just which pattern I preferred. I pointed out my two favourites. Now which colour? I could see where this was leading, but I selected two. By this point, I had decided I would buy a nice scarf for my Mum, but I had no clue what the cost should be.

He started at 3,000 Rupees per scarf (£30). I did a quick calculation – 8 days to make a scarf, equates to £3.75 in labour costs per day, before the material costs even come in. £30 now seems very reasonable, but then most scarves I’ve encountered back home are cheaper than this … but then I rarely encounter silk and pashmina scarves during my bi-annual shop for clothes. Maybe they cost £100s of pounds? I have absolutely no idea, so now find myself bargaining towards a price that I’m not even sure is a fair one. I aim low – 1,000 Rupees. The man laughs and comes back with 2,500 – the “wholesale price”. After some further back and forth, we settle at 1,850 Rupees (£18.50). I’m feeling proud that I’ve got him down from £30 to £18.50, but still unsure if that’s a fair price. The man seemed very happy to have made a sale – perhaps a little too happy. Have I just been scammed? Is this really handmade? Is it really silk? I’ve seen men with my own eyes handmaking scarves, but not the scarf I purchased. How do I know the material is actually silk? Maybe the warehouse is just full of cheap scarves and the handmade ones are only made to order? I’ve either got an absolute bargain, or I’ve been completely ripped off. I guess I will never know!

It’s worth noting that Jo had an identical experience somewhere else in Varanasi and ended up spending over £80 on 3 scarves … I WIN!