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M R . R O W E N ' S T R A V E L S
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Every time I buy something or pay for my dinner, I think about how many dollars I'm spending. This makes me think in two ways. One way is that it's fun to do math in my head. If my lunch cost 180 rupees, I can quickly figure out that it had cost me around $2.50. Another way to think about it is that it helps me keep to my budget. I have money saved up for my trip, but it has to last me 10 months, so I have to keep to some sort of budget. I can't be buying lots of expensive things or eating at really nice restaurants, and most times I skip dessert. It takes a while to get used to using new money, but after a while you start to remember that the 50 rupee note is blue, and the smaller bills go down in size, so one rupee is the smallest, and things like that. After a month, I think in rupees.
I also barter in rupees. Bartering is when you
decide on a price. In Nepal, most things you buy, in
a store or from street vendors, have no fixed price,
it's open to negotiation. When I bought apples from a
guy with a big basket on his bike, I asked, "How
much?"
It's really different from America where everything has a price tag and a barcode on it to run across the scanner. Here in Nepal, everyone's trying to get the best price. In Pokhara, Nepal's second biggest city, the cokes were only 15 rupees each. I drank over 100 rupees in soda one night. I was thirsty.
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