Trip report: Casablanca and Marrakech

"tim....." wrote in message
...

"Mike...." wrote in message
...
Following up to Dusty Furtile Morrocan
wrote:

If the negotiating is fun, then it's not a waste.

as much fun as dealing with estate agents and used car salesmen.

Yep. ISTM that it can only be fun if the opening offer is reasonable and
you
are trying to beat the guy down 10-20%. But when the opening offer is 4
times the absolute maximum I would consider paying and I need to offer 10%
of his price to get a deal, it's bloody hard work.


My worst was in Cairo, when the opening price was 150 times the eventual!
300 Egyptian pounds for a genuine ancient small lapuz statuette down to 2 EP
for the powdered lapuz thing that it was! It was worth the 15p/30c for the
crazy conversation!

Surreyman

On the particular moment of Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:20:08 +0000 in
relation to Mary's disappointingly immaculate rumpy pumpy, Mike....
put forth:

Following up to Dusty Furtile Morrocan
wrote:

If the negotiating is fun, then it's not a waste.

as much fun as dealing with estate agents and used car salesmen.

In Turkey it can be great fun dealing with the local salesmen. FWIW I
hate estate agents and car salesmen.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
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--

On the particular moment of Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:57:58 +0100 in
relation to Mary's disappointingly immaculate rumpy pumpy, Keith
Anderson put forth:

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 12:28:48 -0000, "tim....."
wrote:


I had exactly this problem in China.

They opening line for the con is "I want to talk with you to practice my
English" and you very quickly learn that eventually they will get around to
inviting you to one of the standard "con traps", so you start to tell
everybody who approaches you in the street to "go away".

Yet I heard many stories of people who did actually make friends with local
Chinese who "wanted to practice their English". They must have got
incrediably lucky.

tim

Friend of mine and me I did a trip to Marrakesh and spent 3 nights
there.

It was enough time to learn to spot the hustlers a mile off, so we did
a bit of reverse hustling and approached them.

"We're going to the medina, and if you'd like to come with us and
practice your English, you're most welcome. Only 20 dirham."

They laughed their heads off and said "Thank you, Meester, you very
funny" and away they went.

Yeah, I ended up doing something similar, by carrying a bag of
pistachio nuts, and saying "I give you good price, my brother lives in
Morocco too. Only 200 dirhams for 3 pistachios.". It worked well until
I finished them.
--
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DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
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--

In article ,
says...


So you got ripped off a bit.

By a few Euro. I guess he'll survive.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

In article , says...

A problem with being excessively pestered is that you can find
yourself rudely shunning genuine kindness through no fault on anyone's
part.

Well, during my last trip I wasn't excessively pestered. I even hired
some local guides in Fes and Meknes. Paid 100 dirham in Fes and 50 in
Meknes. This may be nice money for a local, but from my point of view
it's good value, because I was short of time anyway and would have
missed many interesting spots had I walked around alone.

It's a matter of letting locals earn some money in exchange for a
service and not being too concerned about spending a few Euros.
It's pointless in my opinion to be excessively stingy when travelling
and turning every cent twice. There are people who take great pride in
negotiating prices down to very low levels - why should somebody work
the whole day for just a few Euros?
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

"Alfred Molon" kirjoitti
.com...
In article ,
says...

A problem with being excessively pestered is that you can find
yourself rudely shunning genuine kindness through no fault on anyone's
part.

Well, during my last trip I wasn't excessively pestered. I even hired
some local guides in Fes and Meknes. Paid 100 dirham in Fes and 50 in
Meknes. This may be nice money for a local, but from my point of view
it's good value, because I was short of time anyway and would have
missed many interesting spots had I walked around alone.

Luxor area in Egypt seems to be particularly bad. All sorts of cheap Jacks
are swarming around. As a whole the city is a big dump. They are collecting
a good deal of money by tourism but little money is spent to polish the
city.

"Markku Grönroos" wrote in message
ti.fi...

"Alfred Molon" kirjoitti
.com...
In article ,
says...

A problem with being excessively pestered is that you can find
yourself rudely shunning genuine kindness through no fault on anyone's
part.

Well, during my last trip I wasn't excessively pestered. I even hired
some local guides in Fes and Meknes. Paid 100 dirham in Fes and 50 in
Meknes. This may be nice money for a local, but from my point of view
it's good value, because I was short of time anyway and would have
missed many interesting spots had I walked around alone.

Luxor area in Egypt seems to be particularly bad. All sorts of cheap Jacks
are swarming around. As a whole the city is a big dump. They are
collecting
a good deal of money by tourism but little money is spent to polish the
city.


The town is Egyptian. How would you want it 'polished'?

Surreyman

"a.spencer3" wrote in message
...

"Markku Grönroos" wrote in message
ti.fi...

"Alfred Molon" kirjoitti
.com...
In article ,
says...

A problem with being excessively pestered is that you can find
yourself rudely shunning genuine kindness through no fault on anyone's
part.

Well, during my last trip I wasn't excessively pestered. I even hired
some local guides in Fes and Meknes. Paid 100 dirham in Fes and 50 in
Meknes. This may be nice money for a local, but from my point of view
it's good value, because I was short of time anyway and would have
missed many interesting spots had I walked around alone.

Luxor area in Egypt seems to be particularly bad. All sorts of cheap
Jacks
are swarming around. As a whole the city is a big dump. They are
collecting
a good deal of money by tourism but little money is spent to polish the
city.


The town is Egyptian. How would you want it 'polished'?

Surreyman

same way as UK i s'pose ---- let them all come