Khan al-Khalili

Cairo has a wonderful old market place - well, it's really about three distinctive market places - called Khan al-Khalili. It can be an maddening place - and also a place where you have to watch out for the touts. I've met some nice touts who actually were great to have around - mainly because they could show you obscure little shops, even if you had to pay them. The ones I've met at the Khan al-Khalili would just want a lump sum payment at the end (although getting them to name a specific figure is like pulling teeth - although you'll know it if it is too big or too small). Depending upon how much time they spend with you the equivalent of four or five bucks is probably plenty. In India it was common for these folks, or even taxi drivers who would suggest an interesting shop you might want to visit, would usually get 20% of whatever you bought. I actually asked an Indian taxi driver in Aurangabad if he was going to get the usual 20% and he said yes, and then suddenly seemed shocked, but laughed, that I had caught him. Some of the touts are pretty unpleasant and simply will not say no. I ended up in a pretty unpleasant experience with a guy who, in addition to the fact that he would not go away, threw out the line that I should not be afraid because "he was not a terrorist," which really set me off because it was the worst kind of pandering (sort of like the zinger from the Kenyan tout about racism designed to hit at your liberal guilt). Anyway, these things happen and you just have to ignore them - if you didn't go down to places like Khan al-Khalili because of the chance to running into an annoying character you'd be missing out on so much (and, for that matter, you'd never attend a faculty senate meeting). You will get plenty of opportunity to work on your haggling skills. Now, I'm not a particularly good haggler, and I've known some great one. al-Capone is pretty good. The best I've seen are John Neelankavil and Raj Nambiar, the two folks who run our Mumbai campus - they are scary good (but then if you grow up in India you have to be). John does it by wearing people down. I have this ridiculous floppy hat that has a logo for the Gate of India on it (Michelle has one too). I saw John work on this guy as we were getting ready to get on a boat to go out to Elephanta Island and by the end I was begging John to stop. John had the guy down to 90 cents a hat and was continuing to pound away. I begged him to stop and John wanted to know if we were paying too much - I told him the same hat would go for $17 at Disneyland and he seemed a little more pleased. Raj does it by confusing the merchant through a meandering series of negotiations and stories - he'll throw out a figure that the merchant says no to, and then starts telling a joke, and then says something like, "so, we agreed upon . . ." and say the last thing he said (even though the merchant had already said no). It seems ridiculous but it worked about half the time. My usual approach is to offer 30% of whatever they suggested as a price and never go over a half (although it doesn't always work). That said, sometimes their initial offer is so high (especialy if they know you are from the U.S.) you can't accept that. When I was in Khan al-Khalili I was looking at buying a khafiya and the band that holds it in place. The merchant's initial price quote was 120 Egyptian pounds, which just made me laugh. I told him that I had bought them several times in Amman and had never paid over 3 Jordanian dinars (around four dollars) for the pair, which led to a discussion about the inferiority of Jordanian products yadda yadda yadda. He said, "OK, what is your offer?" I offered him 15 Egyptian pounds, at which he was mortified beyond all measure and discussed his starving children yadda yadda yadda, and offered 30. I said I might go 20, although the material seemed cheap to me. To this he responded with 25. At that point I thanked him and simply walked out of the store. The key is walking out of the store. Suddenly, and not surprisingly, he replied, "OK, 20, for you, a special price." I was still paying too much, but 20 Egyptian pounds is a lot better than 120 Egyptian pounds, and he he was still making a healthy profit. It's a great place to walk around for hours, even considering the touts.