Hiker haggles over £1.07 for tea in Nepal, gets chased down mountain

M

meltingparappa

Member
VIDEO - This woman has had enough of tourists and throws rocks at them

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I saw this on facebook and thus braced myself for abject open racism in the comments, and was pleasantly surprised when most people were completely empathetic to the Nepalese woman.

It's a video a hiker from the UK, being chased by a Nepalese woman for attempting to haggle, thinking the tea was overpriced. The video claims rocks were thrown at her, although it's not captured on the video -- just some running and angry shouting.

Random person on facebook said:
The Tourist lady reach beyond the limits. This video also went viral in my country Nepal. The story behind is the tourist stay overnight on a tea house for free as she was agreed to eat and buy a food from them. The tourist is aware of cost but in the morning she bargain to lower the cost and paid lower then the cost in the Menu and left tea house without paying a full amount. The video didn't show everything. That is the reason why the tea house lady got mad at her. This incident happened 10-12 days of far walking distance from the motor access nearly at the elevation of 5000m. Now imagine if you were that tea house lady how much would you charge for one cup of tea? Everything has to be shipped either by helicopter, human power mule, or Yak. every tea house has fixed priced provided by conservation area project. There is no over charged price at all. Everything is written in the menu. The tourist lady went beyond the limit.
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Struck a chord with me because I'm currently planning a trip to New Delhi for a wedding, and it strikes me as the ultimate tourism faux pas to quibble over pocket change in a one of the most poverty stricken asian nations.
 
Tourists who haggle and try to negotiate a "better" deal for something that has been already set in place or agreed are the worst. Had my share of those.

Pay or fuck off.

Can't imagine doing this over £1
 
Tea in Nepal? It's yours my friend, as long as you have enough rupees.

That's Mr Krabs levels of cheap. Pretty sure that's stealing if you agree to a price, get the thing, then leave after trying to haggle for prices falls through.
 
cromofo said:
Tourists who haggle and try to negotiate a "better" deal for something that has been already set in place or agreed are the worst. Had my share of those.

Pay or fuck off.
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What?

When I was in Cambodia, haggling was normal there. If you paid the sticker price you were a sucker. Often it wasn't even me doing the haggling. I'd start walking away because it was too expensive, then they would call.me back offering a lower price.

Edit: oh, agreed upon. Yeah like if you were checking out of a hotel and tried to negotiate the price afterwards, that'd be douchy.
 
You never max out the bar on the first attempt unless you dumped all your points int Charisma as that's always going to upset the vendor.
 
shintoki said:
She didn't haggle.

She stole. Not paying the price and leaving is stealing.
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Actually. In UK law I don't think it is.

https://www.inbrief.co.uk/consumer-law/refusal-to-pay-at-restaurant/

Does a refusal to pay amount to theft?

The criminal offence of theft is that a person is guilty of theft if they dishonestly appropriate property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it. Making off without payment is a form of theft. In relation to leaving a restaurant without paying, the individual/s will be guilty of theft if it can be proved that they intentionally ate at the restaurant with the deliberate intention of leaving without paying the bill.

However, many people refuse to pay the bill in full or in part because they are unhappy with the food and/or the service. In this case, the matter is a civil matter and not a criminal matter.
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We have had people in a restaurant I have worked in before refuse to pay under the conception that the service was bad.
 
Slayven said:
I can never understand shitty tourists. Why you going to wild out in a foreign country
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There's lots of places where locals try to take advantage of westerners that aren't familiar with local prices or exchange rates (*cough*China*cough*).

That said, like.... its normally kind of obvious and not over like $1.
 
Of course she was overcharged in comparison to what a local would pay, that's standard practice. But you can fucking afford it and it means a hell of a lot more and goes a lot further for the local woman than it does to you.

And haggling is a big part of a lot of transactions in Asia, but this isn't the appropriate haggling time. Buying 800 elephant pants at the night market in Pai is when you haggle, not paying for your room and board.
 
andythinkpad said:
You are going to trigger me here. Was there fucking UK?
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Was there fucking in the UK?. I certainly hope so.

I was just trying to say that I've been stung before with UK people not paying their bill and the police did nothing. Maybe this woman thought she was in her rights not to pay?

But yeah, fuck her. Cheap bastard.
 
cromofo said:
Tourists who haggle and try to negotiate a "better" deal for something that has been already set in place or agreed are the worst. Had my share of those.

Pay or fuck off.

Can't imagine doing this over £1
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there are places where haggling is an expected part of the purchase. if you pay the asking price at some of the flea markets ive been to in asia, you are getting fucked to exponential power of the sun. but yeah, there is a time and place for haggling.

funny story though, I witnessed a full blown argument between my friend and his girlfriend (their relationship is toxic as fuck) over a $1 bottle of water at a hooters restaurant. but the kicker is that they didnt even pay for it. i said "its not a big deal" and picked up the tab.
 
If she was staying in a tea house in the Nepalese mountains (on a common hiking route, which it sounds like it was) then it's typical for you to stay in one of the "tourist" rooms for free but you buy dinner and breakfast at the tea house. Nepalese tour guides/porters stay in bunk rooms, which are way less nice than the tourist rooms, and they stay for free because they brought the tourists. It's not like there are standalone restaurants in these villages - the tea houses are there as your ONLY restaurant. You always eat at the teahouse where you're staying - it's common knowledge in that area.

Also, I'm guessing the teahouse owner had a problem with the fact that she was only buying tea after staying the night for free - it's commensurate to buy food too. And as someone else said, the food is so cheap - it's like $4 for a giant breakfast/dinner. It sounds like she was being an asshole.

Haggling is commonplace in Nepal, but there are common rules in the teahouses. Haggling is not something you do there - the prices are printed on the menus.
 
cromofo said:
Tourists who haggle and try to negotiate a "better" deal for something that has been already set in place or agreed are the worst. Had my share of those.

Pay or fuck off.

Can't imagine doing this over £1
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My Godmother does this because she reads guidebooks that say you're supposed to (apparently many travel guides are written by unrepentant cheapskates). We went to the Galapagos, and while we were in Quito, she was trying to haggle the price down on everything. Never mind that the exchange rate was literally thousands of sucre for a dollar at the time; can't pay more than $2.75 for a handcrafted quilt that would cost 100 times that at home. She got legitimately upset after she learned that the taxi driver "ripped us off" by charging around $10 for a ride from the airport, never mind that we would've paid triple that at home. You're making a 6-figure income and you're pissing and moaning over the nickels these people need just to live? What the fuck kind of attitude is that?
 
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