most memorable tout experience

julesa

is there already a thread for this?

anyway for me - getting off the train at Jaisalmer and being mobbed by what seemed like 100s of screaming touts to come to their hotel. i felt like Paul McCartney in the midst of Bealtemania.

also just not being able to walk around Delhi without being hassled by a queue of autorickshaw drivers. i wanted to buy some invisible paint.

yaron

For me the first time being touted was also the worst time.
It was the famous one of trying to get into the train station near the main bazar to but a train ticket to shimla.
It was a nightmare even though i luckily read about it in this forum it was still hard for to go in they didn't leave me alone and even became aggresive finaly I shouted at one of them and kept on walking upstairs to buy the ticket.

Brisso

Ony an hour in Katmandu, and being approached, followed and haranged by a drug dealer for 30 minutes - waving a matchbox of drugs around, even in front of the policemen. Trying to shake him, but could not remember where the guesthouse was. Unnerving ...

Sama

when a tout outside of the great temple in Thanjavur, after hearing the way I said "don't want" in Tamil, stopped dead in his tracks shocked and with wide eyes asked, "you Tamil, madam?"



HA! I'll never forget that look on his face....

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My India, 2005-2008

PeakXV

I ran into a Kashmiri tout in Fort Aquada that had dogged me for days on Janpath in Delhi on my first visit to India. Now 3 years later he recognized me instantly ' Hello Sir' "Delhi I am remembering' and then invited me into to his 'brother's emporium' for some Kawa tea .... 'only drinking - no looking okay!'. Those fellows certainly get around!


<I have a couple of other similar stories like that too.>

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We shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started ...and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot

Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

Nick-H

Far too good an invite to turn down .

Memory always impresses me, because mine is so poor, but I regularly encounter memory power in India that astonishes me!

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

Piper

Not necessarily a tout story but...
Being followed endlessly one day by a guy who seemingly was selling EVERYTHING---little chess, wooden snakes, drums, pipes, map, helicopter--you name it--this guy had everything. I finally lost my patience, stopped dead in path, and said clearly, loudly, (snarkily) "No snakes, no chess, no drum, no pipe, no map, no helicopter...".

He looked up hopefully, scavenged in his back pocket, and cheerfully displayed..."backgammon madam?". LOL

Nick-H

Maybe he was a doctor, accountant and lawyer too!

Reminds me of a couple of boys who came to my London door carol-singing --- In November. When I told them it was a bit early, one of them looked at his watch and indignantly replied, "It's ten-past-three!"

Kingstonian

When one of my travel companions got out of the car at Fatehpur Sikri, and said, ignoring all our pleas, "Can anyone sell me a memory stick for my digital camera?"

bruce3404

First day in Delhi and trying to find the will call counter for rail tickets, I made the mistake of asking someone on the street.
I was immediately whisked around the corner and upstairs to some grimy little office where they tried to convince me that they handled all the will call tickets for IndiaRail. Lesson learned was to never ask anyone on the street anything!

PeakXV

Well there are many exceptions to this rule .... but a disoriented, gullible newbie on/at Janpath/C.P. is certainly not one who should go around haphazardly testing this postulate.

amarama

I spent the entire day trying to find some official government place. Maybe India tourist center or something. It was a personal challenge to actually find the real place.
Most of the day was spent in one little back room or another, being told I was in the offical place. Finally near the end of the day this guy was selling post cards, so I asked him, where is the tourist office. He said it is right here sir. Really? I looked up their was a sign, I laughed, could this be it. I walk in, two guys are sitting behind the counter, both of them had handfuls of money.
Is this the official government run tourist center I had asked, still in shock. These two guys could not even answer the most basic questions. So I asked, is there something you can sell me? I knew right then. I had found the place.
So I go back outside to ask the tout, how do you make money. His response-sell post cards. How much are they? 3 ruppes. I'll take 20.

LunavadaLad

Jaipur was the place touts stood out for me. One day there I was followed for several streets while looking around. Nothing I tried would make them leave. I was glad to get back to the hotel and reluctant to venture out again as the touts were always around.

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If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home. ~James Michener

Nick-H

Bruce and amarama: enjoyed those stories

Lunavadalad... it is tough when that happens. How come these people don't realise what a negative impression they give and, no, they are not going to get a sale. Like spammers, I suppose: who gives a toss if a few hundred thousand people get pissed off, as long as one of them clicks that link

Vasko

My worst experience was with a tout doubling as a rickshaw-driver. Struck down with fever and the runs I tried to make my way to the hospital in Chennai for a check-up/stool test. No matter how feverish and pitiful I looked, the guy absolutely refused to take me to the hospital before I visited a goods shop. No amount of pleading would do. So I go in, take a look at the various statues, etc., refuse to buy anything and finally convince him to take me onwards to the hospital. In the parking lot of the hospital he proceeds to make indecent proposals about going to his place, rather than see a doctor. The nerve! Luckily we are at the hospital already so I can finally tell him to piss off.

Touts can be annoying, but when you're sick and desperate, they can be downright hellish.