Originally Posted by flygirl555
While the people will bargain, please remember the people are very, very poor. A few dollars might not break our wallet, but may make a huge difference in their budget. On a few of my tours, I saw people bargain down to the last $0.10 USD - it was discouraging.
I found that often they asked very little money for beautiful handmade items. A few times, when I overpaid by a little for an item, it brought a priceless smile to their faces - definately worth the extra few $$! I still treasure a beautiful, handmade backpack I bought there...even at the full asking price of $15.00 US, it was still a bargain!
Crisp, new US $1.00 are accepted everywhere...so start gathering the best ones you get as change as you are shopping over the next few months and bring them...
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the sound you might hear is me cheering. It makes me crazy to watch people bargaining for a $2 discount (or less) with a dirt poor vendor. I particularly go nuts when they say, "Well, they won't respect you if you don't bargain." Yeah, right.
Last week, I bought a bunch of finger puppets for my sister-in-law's nursery school. I paid $10. A stranger had the nerve to tell me after, "oh, you could have gotten those for $5" I was speechless. I hope the dirty look was enough. He did walk away.