Souks in Egypt are full of vendors that want to sell you things (shocker). They make no bones about trying to lure in tourists and driving the bargaining process. If you’re an aggressive type that enjoys a friendly battle of wills and currency, this scene is right up your alley. If you like to shop and be left alone, then you’re going to be rather annoyed.
But no matter personality and shopping type, you have to hand it to these Egyptian vendors for some of their creative approaches to lure in the buyers. I’ve complied the following list of lines that were fed to my friends and I on our trip to Egypt two years ago:
“Hello, hello! Where you from?”
“Obaaaamaaaaa!”
“Hello, I help you spend your money!”
“No hassle, no hassle!”
“Only 10% hassle!”
Same vendor, 10 minutes later: “Only 8% hassle!”
Same vendor, yet another 10 minutes later: “Ok, only 5% hassle!”
And then there was the guy that merely plucked a huge live lizard from a bucket and wordlessly held it out to us in hopes that we were in the market for a live reptile.
So whether you enjoy or loathe the bargaining challenge that comes with the souks in Egypt, you can at least enjoy the creative efforts to grab your attention - and your money.
Hahaha, aww, I was just in Egypt and this brought back a ton of memories! They were really hard on us in August since tourism has been down. My favorite line to my boyfriend, who everyone thought was my husband, "You can have all of this for your wife." ;)
ReplyDeleteHA! That's a great one! I was traveling with a male and a female friend, and my guy friend had more than one vendor offer up his mother-in-law to him as a 3rd wife. He had pimp status in Egypt :)
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