Stupid Tout tricks

kbarrett

I thought I'd start this thread as a spot to post amusing / annoying tout stories.


My favorite was a "porter" riding the free transit bus running from the Dehli international and municipal airports.

He had apparently paid someone for the right to scam / carry bags on the route from the muni airport to the international airport. Someone else had the "rights" to the route in the other direction.

He couldn't figure out why the tourists were all very resistant to his best scams. He realized he had been rooked when I explained to him that all tourists on this half of the route were all flying home, and have probably been subjected repeatedly to every indiascam in existance.

indiamike

Not really a tout story but a beggar story.

There was a young boy I met who was crippled riding around on his cart, the first few days I saw him he kept grabbing at me and begging for money. I did the usual and just ignored him.
For some reason a few days later I saw him and decided to get a big tub of ice cream from the shop and just give it to him.
He was more delighted with that then any cash I could ever give him.

We became sort of chums, as far as a westerner and a beggar can get, and everyday I would get him some lunch and help him out, thinking he was destitute.

One day though, I was riding on the Scooter about thirty km's from where I usually see him, and while I was waiting behind some cars, the public bus pulls up and low and behold who comes hobbling off the bus, but the young boy. We both gave each other a look of "what are you doing here". He then invited me to his house for lunch and I found that, after having lunch and watching television on his very large TV, in his nice house, I had been had.

Oh yes he was crippled, but destitute, I don't think so.

Mike