Khan our Rickshaw Driver-Jaipur
As stated in an earlier blog, Khan was at the train station and John negotiated a price with him to take us to our Airbnb (which we love--we have a terrace and a great view of a fort!--Thanks Aunt Megan and Uncle René for gifting us Airbnb gift cards!). We had no idea that he had a rickshaw. We assumed a car but were surprised and confused how our luggage and the 4 of us were going to fit in the rickshaw. Lo and behold we all fit. I should have known given how much I can fit in my mini cooper:-)
When he dropped us off, he asked us if we were going to tour around the pink city (that is what they call Jaipur--you will see why in my next blog) and that he would be happy to show us around in his rickshaw. We arrived in Jaipur on Saturday and were not going to tour around until Monday. We decided to fix a time and see what happens.
As you can see, he showed up with a smile ready to tour us around. He also did not fix a price with us and said we pay him as we wish. This is so interesting to me. He really meant it. We just looked on Ola to see an estimate of what it would cost to rent a car for 10 hours and paid him a little more.
We saw all of Jaipur on a rickshaw. Jaipur is also know for its shopping and instead of going to the tourist shops, he took us to the whole sale markets. We also got see how all the fabrics and jewellery were made. We had this experience in Morocco as well. I don't know about Morocco but I asked Khan, our rickshaw driver, her in Jaipur why he takes us to his places. He was honest and said he gets 2% of whatever we spend.
John and I have a system for shopping. We look at the products and think in our head what would be a good price and what we are willing to spend. If it matches, then we buy it. Khan took us to really good places and we were able to get a lot cool things for all our family and friends back home.
In the end, we felt really good to give back to our rickshaw driver who took good good care of us for the entire day. And we supported the independent rickshaw drivers that are being driven out by large corporations such as Ola cabs. We really enjoyed his company so much so that he is coming back tomorrow to take us to the airport!
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