Last week my friends and I went to Khan al-Khalili, the most famous market here. The guide book I have and everyone I talked to said it was a pretty stereotypical market and I had a lot of preconceptions about what it was going to be like. I thought it would be big and busy, and I thought I was going to enjoy haggling. Luckily we had my Yemeni friend Muhammad there to be our guide. When we got there though, we were some of the only tourists there, and when you walk by all the shops and booths and stands you get heckled a lot to come buy their stuff. I knew that would happen, but I didn't know it would be like that. I think normally there are a lot of people there to take some of the attention off of a small group like that, but tourism is really down in Egypt right now. If you walked by, the shop keepers start yelling at you "Hey! My friend! You know how much?! You know how much?" and then if you look at them or their product at all it encourages them and they start naming prices about 3 times the value of what they're selling. If you stop to haggle they say that they are giving you the "Eyptian Price" or "Student Price because I know you are student."
My friend Sage wanted a chess/ backgammon board so we stopped in a shop where Muhammad knew the shop keeper from last time he was there. The haggling wasn't lighthearted at all it was tense with a lot of frowning and just saying no that's too much, or that's too low. Then we left the shop without buying one and went to a different shop to compare prices. This one was much higher in price for slightly less quality, but when Sage tried to ask for the price they sat us all down and offered us tea, and then they said they would show him their best quality work. We found out at that shop that it was usually the salesmen's fathers that were making the boards with wood and mother of pearl or plastic imitation. The real ones were much nicer. Eventually my Japanese friend Kuni and I bought some scarves downstairs from the second chess board seller, and we left to go back to the first one. He offered us a slightly lower price than before, and we took it and left. Then we found a cafe in the market to have tea and smoke hookah. Then more vendors came around selling knock-off sunglasses and cell phone cases, and packets of tissues. Overall it was a cool place, but much more stressful than most of us Americans had thought it would be.
My friend Sage wanted a chess/ backgammon board so we stopped in a shop where Muhammad knew the shop keeper from last time he was there. The haggling wasn't lighthearted at all it was tense with a lot of frowning and just saying no that's too much, or that's too low. Then we left the shop without buying one and went to a different shop to compare prices. This one was much higher in price for slightly less quality, but when Sage tried to ask for the price they sat us all down and offered us tea, and then they said they would show him their best quality work. We found out at that shop that it was usually the salesmen's fathers that were making the boards with wood and mother of pearl or plastic imitation. The real ones were much nicer. Eventually my Japanese friend Kuni and I bought some scarves downstairs from the second chess board seller, and we left to go back to the first one. He offered us a slightly lower price than before, and we took it and left. Then we found a cafe in the market to have tea and smoke hookah. Then more vendors came around selling knock-off sunglasses and cell phone cases, and packets of tissues. Overall it was a cool place, but much more stressful than most of us Americans had thought it would be.
Wow. That does sound stressful. I've seen a lot of "scenes" like that from my days of religiously watching the Amazing Race...but it's quite different when you're not followed by hordes of American camera men, sound men, gaffers, best boys, whatever all those credits are at the end.
ReplyDeleteOk, here's the advice of a 4 year blogger. Turn of the damn fucking robot thing. It's annoying, there's a movement in the blogging community not to comment on blogs that still have it, and if you turn off anonymous comments, it's a lot more effective. Meanwhile, old ladies like me have to recruit their 15 year old sons to read that crap and even with him it took us two tries on the last comment. Blogger has an EXCELLENT filter. Trust it. Use the force.
Tina @ Life is Good
Co-host, April 2013 A-Z Challenge Blog
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