Bargaining without Knowledge

July 29, Khojand, Tajikistan

 

While standing on the sidewalk late this afternoon, looking at the Lonely Planet Guidebook, a couple of nice young men asked me if they could help me find my way. I told them I was looking for the internet café on the map, and they said it was just a half block up, and that one of them was going that way, and he would walk me there. This immediately pricked up the defenses. One common scam is to have somebody bump into you, and want to practice their English. The next thing you know, you are at a coffee shop and the bill comes to $20, or something ridiculous. But it turns out these two guys were just heading up to the internet café. So, here I was accusing them in my brain of scamming, when they were just being helpful.

 

Compare that to the beginning of my day. Yesterday, I had gone to two travel agents and checked out with the Polish guys, and one other set of travelers about how to get to Tajikistan from Osh. Nobody knew how to do it except the guy from "Community Based Travel," the agent recommended in Lonely Planet. And he said (I'm sure he said, but he claims he did not) it would be $90 for the taxi of 4 people. This was less than the $100 I had heard other people paying per person for some transportation into Tajikistan on other routes. It was also in line with my guidebook. But it seemed way too high for what I had been paying. (The 450 kilometer trip from Bishkek cost 700 soms, and this was to cost 4000????).  At any rate, when I got to the cab this morning, it turns out MY SHARE of the cab was to be the $90…..

 

What to do? Was I being scammed? How to know? Problem is that unless you have time to really check things out, hang around with the locals, see the actual route, and a whole lot of other things, you never will really know. That is the trouble with bargaining. It takes experience and knowledge. And unless you are going to invest some time, you cannot gain that experience and knowledge. Having to get all the way across Asia in three weeks leaves one little time for learning local customs and costs.

 

Well, the agent told me, the road is very treacherous, since they have to go around the Uzbek enclaves, (Parts of Uzbekistan are inside the territory of Kyrgyzstan), the road is very rough (it was an eight hour drive, three hours of which  were over washboard—Think GMARS Gibraltar Road and worse for three hours), we had to pass numerous military checkpoints (Tajikistan is one of the greatest exporters of heroin--and the more checkpoints you have, apparently, the more expensive to bribe the additional soldiers to look the other way), and a border…….and so forth. What the agent did not say—is that I would lose a day if I did not get in the taxi right then.  And for all I know, he was right. He was highly recommended in Lonely Planet and by the several other travelers I had talked to, and it was in line with other rates into Tajikistan. It just seemed three to four times too much.

 

Now, money is not the issue here. I know I like to save a buck ("get value" for my expenditures, I call it. Other people call it being cheap). But when you are travelling you have to uphold some integrity. If everybody is haggling, you have to haggle. When the trinket seller manages to get one lazy person to say yes to a $100 doodad, that is what other tourists are going to have to listen to. It's not right. You should not overpay. Besides you will be laughed at for being an incompetent haggler. On the other hand, who cares whether this loaf of bread should cost 8 cents or 12 cents. And when your choice is losing a day, or just grinning and getting in the taxi—what is another $20, or $30? I mean, I did not come to Asia to build up my bank account.

 

At any rate, the driver dropped me off at the bus station south of town—not at the hotel I found in the guidebook. I asked him where we were and how to get to the Leninabad Hotel. (He did not speak English—but was a soldier in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation.) A marshrutnoe was passing by, and he flagged it down, and generally shoved me on it. But I had no Tajik money, and no idea where I was. Luckily, the toothless guy in front of me reached over and paid for me. The big lady behind me kept bugging me about something and then finally said something to the effect of get out, and pointed to the west. I got out, and lo and behold, just a block to the west was the Leninabad Hotel. They took good care of me on that little bus.