On our last morning in Kathmandu, I thought I'd regale you with one of our minor adventures.
Nepal is a poor country. Westerners are relatively very rich. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people try to get money from Westerners. Foreigners pay much higher entrance fees to museums and cultural areas--quite reasonable, in my view, although it's not clear how much actually goes to upkeep and how much lines someone's pocket. Other people offer themselves as guides and seem quite upset when you say no; others just ask for money. In Pokhara a couple of young students--middle or high school--sold us tickets to a performance of "Romeo and Juliet." We didn't go, but it was unique enough to be worth a few hundred rupees.
Then there was the milk scam.
Walking around Thamel a couple of days ago, where every shopkeeper is begging us to enter, a woman dragging a small girl behind her waived a small bottle at us. "Milk please!" she entreated us. "No money. Milk!" We looked at each other. Very hard to refuse. So immediately the woman shot off, looking over her shoulder to make sure we were following. She stopped at a cold store that sells water, sodas, and small items, and pointed up to a box of powdered milk.
I asked the shopkeeper how much.
"One thousand rupees," she said.
Now, a thousand rupees is about US$15. I haven't priced powdered milk in the US, but I doubt it is $15. So we shook our heads. Immediately the woman pointed to a smaller bag of powdered milk. 400 rupees. Still overpriced, but being soft-headed westerners we signed and bought it.
Now I'm pretty sure the shopkeeper overcharged us for it, and I'm pretty sure the woman got a cut of the scam. On the other hand, it was a more ingenious scam than usual and, well, a few hundred rupees is just the cost of our further education.
(And we should note that scams go on in rich countries too--only we usually know how to recognize those...)
Nonetheless we've had a wonderful time in Nepal. When we return we'll add more pictures, and if we get stuck in Bangkok we'll try to post.
