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Very true in India too. You stick out as backpacker very clearly, the prices are set accordingly. I found it extremely hard to haggle with my european mentality

Very true in India too. You stick out as backpacker very clearly, the prices are set accordingly. I found it extremely hard to haggle with my european mentality, and ended up agreeing on still too high prices. It took some time to get better. Then you come back to western world (or anywhere else for that matter) after 6 months of such training and you find out you haggle harder than any locals, sometimes to the point of offense. The most important point in haggling is to not show too much interest. It helps to have an idea about real local prices of items, otherwise its just shots in the dark.

Loughla 5y ago
That was my least favorite thing about traveling/living overseas as a stereotypical looking American. I hate haggling. I hate it more than anything. It's needlessly antagonistic and completely unnecessary. I understand it's a cultural thing, but I hate it more than birds. It was exhausting to buy anything, the entire time. It never got better, even when the shops learned who I was after an extended period of time. Food, water, everything was an argument. I just wanted to exist and check out what was going on around me, not argue with some random shop that my groceries shouldn't be so expensive.
throwaway2037 5y ago
When I have traveled to India, I just wear jeans and t-shirt... and yeah, a backpack. :) Obviously, I am a non-native, but I have not experienced outrageous "foreigners-only" prices ever. This experience includes incredibly remote villages in South India as well as urban centre of Mumbai. That said, I understand that many people have difficult experiences with bartering when they travel in South Asia.