Dark alley showdown with a rickshaw driver
OK so we always come out of the train station and right away the rickshaw drivers want to take us to their hotels so that they can make commision. We normally get something like this, "Ten ruppees I take you anywhere". We never go for these deals because we know their game. So yesterday we were out near the train station checking out flights, it was a 70 ruppee rickshaw ride out there so we didn't want to pay that to get home. Rob has been talking about taking one of these 20 RS deals and seeing where they take us. Normally I'm against it because we have just come off an overly long bus/train ride and the last thing I want to do is fight with one of these guys.
So yesterday we only had our day packs and we were out near the train station. The plan was to get one of these rickshaw drivers to get us close to our hotel and then walk the rest of the way. The key to this plan was to make sure he thought he was going to get commision from our hotel room. We walk out of the train station and ofcourse we are attacked by rickshaw drivers (something we are used to) and they start asking where we want to go. We play the dumbest tourists of all time, "Um...we would like a hotel near the river". You can see their ears poke up and they can tell that we don't have a hotel. They are instantly thinking that they can make a killing on us. We get an offer for 40 RS for a ride to the river and a promise to be shown the nicest hotels around. We are almost about to go for this one when another rickshaw driver undercuts him by 20RS. So we head over to his rickshaw. The other rickshaw drivers are telling us that he is a thieve and we should be careful and that we shouldn't go with him. We would normally be a little worried by this type of statement from other rickshaw drivers but today we were running the show.
So after getting in the rickshaw driver starts asking us questions like why do we travel with so little luggage? We travel light. So after one of the craziest rickshaw rides of all time, we hit one dude on a bike, the rickshaw driver takes us down a super dark alley and turns off the rickshaw. He's all excited because he has a hotel near here. We hand him the 20RS and walk away. He is totally lost because he thinks that we wanted a hotel when in fact we were just getting a cheap ride home. The dark alley that he took us down was so sketchy that I'm glad that we didn't go down another dark alley to see the hotel that he wanted to show us. Finally after all the times we have been ripped off by rickshaw drivers because we are white we turned the tables on them. Made us smile :) I know what you are thinking that it wasn't very nice but we never lied to him we just said we needed to go to a hotel we just neglected to tell him which we wanted.
So yesterday we only had our day packs and we were out near the train station. The plan was to get one of these rickshaw drivers to get us close to our hotel and then walk the rest of the way. The key to this plan was to make sure he thought he was going to get commision from our hotel room. We walk out of the train station and ofcourse we are attacked by rickshaw drivers (something we are used to) and they start asking where we want to go. We play the dumbest tourists of all time, "Um...we would like a hotel near the river". You can see their ears poke up and they can tell that we don't have a hotel. They are instantly thinking that they can make a killing on us. We get an offer for 40 RS for a ride to the river and a promise to be shown the nicest hotels around. We are almost about to go for this one when another rickshaw driver undercuts him by 20RS. So we head over to his rickshaw. The other rickshaw drivers are telling us that he is a thieve and we should be careful and that we shouldn't go with him. We would normally be a little worried by this type of statement from other rickshaw drivers but today we were running the show.
So after getting in the rickshaw driver starts asking us questions like why do we travel with so little luggage? We travel light. So after one of the craziest rickshaw rides of all time, we hit one dude on a bike, the rickshaw driver takes us down a super dark alley and turns off the rickshaw. He's all excited because he has a hotel near here. We hand him the 20RS and walk away. He is totally lost because he thinks that we wanted a hotel when in fact we were just getting a cheap ride home. The dark alley that he took us down was so sketchy that I'm glad that we didn't go down another dark alley to see the hotel that he wanted to show us. Finally after all the times we have been ripped off by rickshaw drivers because we are white we turned the tables on them. Made us smile :) I know what you are thinking that it wasn't very nice but we never lied to him we just said we needed to go to a hotel we just neglected to tell him which we wanted.
posted by Glenn Saqui at 4:32 AM
4 Comments:
Nice work! I totally commend you on your actions! Way to stick it to the poor rickshaw driver! lol Ha hah hhaha, yeah, whatever, he probably had it coming. But seriously, what is the generic Indian word for rickshaw, 'cause it ain't rickshaw, yo!
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From Rob:
98% of the time they do call it a "rickshaw", but occaisonally its called a "tuk tuk". More in Nepal than in India apparently.
Let me clarify a bit here. To them it is not cheating. To them it is just called business. So we gave them some business back. They always want to give us 5 or 10 rupee rides so that we go to a shoddy overpriced hotel and he gets a cut. It gets tiresome always having to watch your ass, so it was relaxing to be in control for a change. Besides, we are in India. Its all about karma. He obviously deserved us to rip him off. We cheat the cheaters. We are the karma exacters.
Oh you big big meanies! It all started when Glenn realized he could out run taxi drivers in Vic. Now, he rips off respectable Tuk Tuk drivers in India.
Well played. Well played.
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