Touts And Hasslers We Love To Hate
Travel Touts And Hassle
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Meeting new people and finding out how they live their lives is one of the great joys of travel. Discovering that people in a different country or on another continent go about their business much like we do, but with their own spin on things, can help break down barriers and open our minds. Nevertheless, while most people we meet will range from so so to really quite lovely, there are some right pains out there too. Here we assess six characters we have met, some all too often, and judge just how much of a nuisance they really are.
The Rude Fat Kid
It started innocently enough. A few children were hanging around the school gates waiting to go home when a coach load of foreigners pulled up outside that pile of old ruins next door and, without even being asked, handed out money and sweets to the kids just for looking cute. What nice people, the children thought and wondered, if they hung around tomorrow, would it happen again?
Where found
Wherever children live or go to school near major tourist sites visited by rich tourists that don’t know any better.
Modus Operandi
Money and sweets is their birthright. They hang around munching junk food bought with cash from the previous bunch of suckers that passed by and now it’s your turn to give.
Why we hate them
What do I look like, a bank for fat spoilt brats? Though you may be in a poor country where a fair amount of the people earn a few dollars a day that doesn’t mean these kids are poor. In a country where excess calories are hard to come by handing out money to the fattest rudest child for 500 miles ain’t gonna happen.
Are they really so bad
His clever daddy saved all those tourist dollars from since he was far younger than the demanding brat with his hand out in front of you. With the saved cash he bought a carpet shop and spoils his boy rotten. Yet the kid still wants more?
How to get rid
You don’t. Just put up with their derision and get away from whatever attraction you’ve just visited as quickly as possible. Alternatively, act like a grown up adult and tell them off.
Nuisance Rating
3 out of 5
The Meeter and Greeter
Get off a bus or train in some towns and you will be treated to a rapturous reception. Everyone wants to know your name and business and, more pertinently, where you will be staying in their town.
Where found
You don’t find them, hostel touts will find you. He knows all the train, bus and boat timetables better than his own face and spends his time scuttling from one transport arrival to another. M & Gs are usually young men with a vehicle who work for a hotel except in Greece where they are a canny middle aged Greek lady with a spare room, dressed in black, on a scooter.
Modus Operandi
The M & G works for a local hotel or hostel. In fact, the cheapest, best hotel in town. No. Sorry. The only hotel in town. The one you were headed to is closed, they are all closed and if they weren’t they are all very bad anyway.

Why we hate them
The lies, oh, the lies.
Are they really so bad
Sometimes you can cut off your nose to spite your face if you ignore their advice. Their place may actually be better than the (since they got listed) overpriced dump Lonely Planet recommends. And he does have a car. Once you have given in they can turn into decent human beings with lots of valuable information to impart. Though make sure you find out all you need now. You won’t see them again until you are leaving town.
How to get rid
Know exactly where you are going and stick to your guns. Show no weakness. You’ve already booked, paid, you are meeting your long lost brother there. Otherwise go where they want to take you and let them earn their commission. Once one M & G has you, the others will lose all interest.
Nuisance Rating
2 out of 5
The Follower
New in town, you know where you want to stay and have shook off the Meeter & Greeters. Only problem is you still have to get to your choice of accommodation and… Is that guy following us?
Where found
Attached to you like a leech.
Modus Operandi
Unlike the Meeter & Greeter, the Follower doesn’t work for any one place, he works for everyone and no one. Alongside you at first, then a few steps behind once you have made it clear you don’t want his help, he will take you to any hotel you want, even if you get there first.
Why we hate them
You have just walked a mile with heavy bags in hundred plus heat to find this place and the little swine nips ahead of you and informs the hostel staff that he brought you there, instantly bumping up your room price.
Are they really so bad
Yes, unlike the meeter and greeter he won’t take no for an answer and has no discernible use whatsoever.
How to get rid
Swear at him, order him off the bus, curse, threaten and be as rude and unfriendly as you can. None of this will work but you will feel better for it once enclosed within the safety of your (now more expensive) room.
Nuisance Rating
4 out of 5
The Ungrateful Beggar
It is not nice being poor. I wouldn’t want to have to beg. But if I did I would at least be grateful to people that gave me money just for stretching my arm. Wouldn’t you be too?
Where found
Any developing country, London, the USA, everywhere. Switzerland?
Modus Operandi
Walks, limps or hops up to you, stretches out hand and asks for money. When you give what you feel should be a reasonable amount (hey it’s free money, even I can eat three times today for that amount in this country) he looks insulted and wants more.
Why we hate them
Because we just gave away money. For free. We had to do something we hated in a place we didn’t want to be to get that pittance and the more I give to ingrates the sooner I will be back there.
Are they really so bad
No, not unless you’re very right wing? Most normal people, I hope, don’t dislike people for simply being poor and homeless.
How to get rid
Pull out a bigger note and ask for the smaller note back. When they hands it over expecting the bigger note, pocket both and walk away. However, remember something made you give to this beggar out of the hundreds you’ve probably already ignored or avoided (the missing leg? Lack of health care, social security and work options in this country?) so it might be nice to hand back your original offering.
Nuisance Rating
2 out of 5
Give Me Dollar Boy
Walking home after a day handing out money to beggars and buying yet more bloody postcards from small children, Give Me Dollar Boy is the final straw.
Where found
Hanoi.
Modus Operandi
Give Me Dollar Boy didn’t connive some cunning plan to meet you on that dark street. You just happened to be a Westerner on the same spot of street at the same time as him. You have money, he doesn’t and, this being a communist country, surely that’s not right. At 14 he hasn’t yet mastered the charm or enterprise required to earn your cash so he just demands it: “Give me dollar”
Why we hate them
Fourteen year old children on drugs aren’t everyone’s idea of fun, and if he can say “Give me dollar” in English, he can say “please.”
Are they really so bad
Yep, they can get quite nasty and threaten your girlfriend too.
How to get rid
He is probably smaller than you or I, so just threaten to thump the little brat. We can feel a bit sorry for him once he’s gone.
Nuisance Rating
4 out of 5
The Taxi Driver
First impressions count. Leaving the airport, travellers normally travel through the ugliest urban landscape a country can offer and the first person we meet is the taxi driver.
Where found
Either circling like vultures around the streets or hanging around in packs outside cheaper transport hubs. Like rats you are unlikely to be further than ten metres away from a taxi driver. Not that we are implying taxi drivers are like rats. Really, we’re not.
Modus operandi
Beep, lie, drive, lie again, overcharge, repeat.
Why we hate them
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Are they really so bad?
There are, of course, plenty of good ones. I’ll always think kindly of Paraguay because of a cab driver. At times they do come in handy taking us from A to B in (usually) the shortest possible time and in the most convenient way.
Even so: the only good taxi driver is a dead taxi driver.*
How to get rid
Say ‘no’ or ignore them and sometimes they will go away to find another victim. But like (more expensive) buses another will be along in a moment.
Nuisance rating
1 out of 5 (when they are wanted). 3 out of 5 (when they are not).
* I’m kidding (a severe beating would be enough**)
** I’m kidding (one punch, but not in the face, will do***)
*** I’m kidding (I’d settle for sustained verbal abuse****)
**** I’m kidding (I can have no complaints if I’m reincarnated as an African American man in the 1970s New York)
Images courtesy CarbonNYC
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