My first thoughts after reading this thread, turned to the George Harrison / Ravi Shankar-inspired, Concert for Bangladesh.
Surprisingly, Wikipedia has a very strong entry for the events prompting the Concert:
Long read. Worth it…
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Peter - what sort of scams/cheats did they do? A matter of over-charging, say, for taxis? Or things more serious?
By the by, I follow a particular Tripadvisor forum for a resort in Spain. There are currently two threads running about accommodation scams. One is a company where the owner has simply disappeared with about a quarter of a million euros of payments which should have gone to apartment owners, leaving tourists with nowhere to stay when they arrive. The other is a hotel which, seemingly, has taken deposits and then denied all knowledge of the booking ( at least twice very recently)
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I was wondering the same thing
Other places have dual pricing, whether explicit or implicit (speaking the language for example). It mostly doesn’t bother me.
In poor countries with tourism-driven economies it seems fair to me, especially when they are post-colonial or post-war or post-exploitation of any sort.
If one is lucky enough to be able to afford foreign travel to otherwise poor countries that are rich in something attractive to foreign tourists - be it culture or architecture or food or natural beauty, I don’t feel entitled to experience the place at the same price tag as those who live there.
India has dual pricing for sites and museums - I actually think it’s too low for foreign tourists. Rs 400 for the Mumbai museum - $6. To get into the Met in nyc to see the indian collection, or the Tower of London to see the jewels will never be an option for most Indians, but is certainly an alternative for many foreign tourists, and those cost $25 and £25 respectively.
I’ve never visited Sri Lanka, but it was a favorite of indian tourists for a while (until the recent attacks). From what I’ve heard, they’ve redirected to similar indian locales.
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@klyeoh Yeah, would like to know too.
Been scammed in Thailand, by a travel agency. And by the hotel driver in Cambodia.
For me an overcharged trip taxi/uber fee, I wouldn’t even considered as scam, which happened in Malaysia and probably in some other places, that I didn’t even discover.
Almost everything - taxis included: they’d quote LKR300 at the start, but insisted on LKR1,000, saying they “misunderstood” our destination.
Street food stalls would show us a menu of 3 dishes = LKR250 + LKR350 + LKR300, but insisted on a total bill of LKR1,800 at the end. I normally pay up rather than create a scene after asking for clarification.
My first time in Sri Lanka, so these all gave rather unpleasant “first” impressions. I’d been travelling to India for decades, but never experienced anything at this level. Pakistan & Bangladesh are both in a different category altogether - maybe because of the lack of tourists to their respective countries, people there are more “natural” in their interaction towards us: honest & sincere.
In Colombo, we’ll be accosted on the streets almost at every turn by people who claimed “you don’t recognize me? I work in your hotel …”.
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In this case it would be better travel in Sri Lanka with a guide or a tour with an honest travel agency.
The problem is in order to avoid scam, you need a lot of research, or comparing price etc. This takes a lot of time, you become on guard all the time. It kills the pleasure of travelling.
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Too many to recount here, which I’d not want to do. I’d been travelling around the South Asian subcontinent for so long, Sri Lanka seemed to be the worst when it comes to locals trying to take advantage of foreigners. A pity, as it’s a beautiful country, and Colombo is so much cleaner than any Indian city by far.
I’ve found it’s more about the water than the food hygiene - for me, anyway.
I’m fine until I either
(a) eat something raw (onions, slaw, salad, chaat/street food, thin chutney) that’s tainted by unboiled water, or
(b) overeat (which is about standard at the beginning of every trip)
An Imodium and a day later, back on track.
Yeah, I try to avoid raw food, cut fruits and cold drinks with doubtful ice on the street. But like you say, at the end of the day, with medicine, it should be fine.
If you look back, is there any solution to avoid this in Sri Lanka? Or you will just avoid going back. We are somehow interested.
The feeling isn’t good (being scammed), but at the end, I tried to convert the sum they asked, it isn’t a lot… but I would rather they asked the final sum in the beginning without all the fuss.
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More importantly, why are you not showing us the food? Are you enjoying Sri Lankan food, despite the hassle?
I have taken this country of my list but now it’s back on. Only because I have to see my favourite animal and get it over with. Just 2 weeks during the “gathering season”.
Yes, the food please!
Will be posting them as soon as I get back to Singapore next week. I didn’t bring my laptop for this trip which also entailed quite a bit of travel on Sri Lanka’s colonial-British-era train system. For example, this was the train that took us from Bentota (down south) back to Colombo on a 2.5 hour journey. I’d asked a station staff for my train and had to hide my incredulity when he point to this pile of rust and said, “That is your train, sir.”
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I definitely won’t avoid going back - Sri Lanka has too much to offer, with so many beautiful parts of the country.
Late Sri Lankan architect, Geoffrey Bawa’s estate, Lunuganga, and all the properties he designed are veritable works of art. Those alone are worth the trip to this country.
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It is very tiring having to tolerate their antics and not let it spoil our mood.
Another incident just happened to me just now - I’m staying at the Galle Face Hotel and when we asked about the options to get to the airport later in the evening, we were told a taxi costs US$71, and we had to pay the hotel upfront.
Much later, we overhead a local Sri Lankan hotel guest asking the same question, and he was given the option of a taxi costing only US$20. I’m feeling pretty exasperated to tell the truth.
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I guess they are applying duel pricing, you said the other is a local. Looks like foreigner needs to pay 3.5x more than a local.
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Totally unbelievable, for a premier hotel to do that. Oh well. 
5 years to the day when we at the start of our gastronomic journey across Bangladesh, starting off from the capital, Dhaka, all the way down to the Sundarbans in the South. Looking forward to returning there again one day.
Photos were taken at Hotel Super Saudia Sherpur in the town of Bogra, as we stopped by for their famous “mishti doi” dessert. The old kitchen was an eye-opener.
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