Misguided

I love site-seeing, but I don’t love tour guides. The only one I’ve ever liked was our tour guide in Brazil, but who couldn’t love a woman whose primary use of the bus microphone was to implore us that there be “no more hard stuffs in the little room, only the yellow liquids, yes?” Certainly no one forgets our orchestra tour guide in South Africa, who was so misinformed we learned to do the opposite of what she said. “This place only takes credit card, don’t bring cash.” Ok, cash it is. “You won’t need to tip the driver.” Cash it is again. She was probably right when she advised us not to wear gold or silver jewelry, but she herself showed up on safari decked out to the max. Who doesn’t want to impress the king of the jungle? And one of the orchestra tour guides back on my first trip to Italy was entirely too hot to be on a bus with high school boys…

Given this track record, I was reluctant to book a guided tour in India, but really could see no other way around it. I had a different tour guide for each of the three days of my tour, which was ok with me since I felt more comfortable with just me and my driver. They were knowledgeable enough, but it was awkward just the two of us at the monuments. Usually I like to take goofy pictures with my friends or pictures only I might find interesting. But asking my guide to take a picture of me clowning around with the Taj Mahal just seemed out of place. I was quite envious of other groups taking group shots and posed pictures. The Taj Mahal guy did set me up in some poses, which turned out just plain awkward.

But the biggest thing about the guides that got to me was the tourist trap shops they would deliver me to on my way out. I was fooled the first time. My first guide told me he wanted me to see some local handicrafts before I left Delhi. Seemed fair enough. I was imagining a market where I could wander around and maybe bargain for a thing or two. I had no clue he actually meant a shop where I’d feel awkwardly obligated to purchase something. And even worse, it looked like a real store so I was unsure if bargaining was cool or not. In retrospect I realize I was had. I keep kicking myself for paying full price since I thought it was a more official store.

My driver seemed to have taken pity on me after I spent the first day passed out (potentially snoring and drooling) in the backseat the whole trip. When I briefly woke up, he seemed to be telling me that the guide shops would rip me off, and he would take me somewhere else later, but don’t buy anything at their shop. (He might have been saying “I have my own connection to a tourist trap, please wait and shop there”). It might be because I’m always trying to hide my foreigner status, but there is something fundamentally bothersome to me to be souvenir shopping where all other tourists go. I mean if only tourists shop there, it’s not really representative of the culture, right? I want to shop where locals shop with products they know and trust.

When the second tour guide dropped me off at his shop, I was ready. Well, that’s what I thought, anyway. He actually took me to three different places. The first shop had marble inlay like the Taj Mahal that had me drooling. The shopkeeper proudly showed me a picture of Hilary Clinton purchasing a table (the first shop featured Pierce Brosnan in a similar pose). Believe me, if she was shopping here, this isn’t the place for me! I couldn’t even bargain down the prices they were talking to ship them back to the USA. Every time I said “thanks but no thanks” they would take me to another room. The place was fast becoming a maze, and I had lost site of the exit! I made it out of the first place without buying anything, but he had another place in store! The second place made a big production of how Persian rugs of the area were made, and then finished with “Which one are you buying?” Again we were talking spending real money on them and having them shipped back. But the guy in charge finally got the idea I wasn’t buying big and showed me scarves, which I bought just to get out of there. Well this tour guide was crafty. He walked me right into a 3rd place, just a little booth outside of a monument. And then he was on the merchant’s side in the haggling dispute instead of mine! Two merchants and a guide all arguing against me! I just wanted to leave, but my guide wasn’t even budging. I kept trying to lessen the things I was buying to lower the price, but they kept telling me I needed to buy more! I bought some things, but I wasn’t happy!

Not surprisingly I was fed up by the time I got to the third guide, and I was just waiting for him to spring something on me. Unhelpfully he started out asking if I was paying for my admission tickets. The other two guides had paid saying it was covered by my tour, so they just had to turn in the receipts. But this guy didn’t seem to believe me. Then we had a dispute about the line for the elephant, but more on that later . . .

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