"the kind of hogwash tour operators might feed en masse to dorky tourists," ah yes, I'm thinking of the Jaipur tuk-tuk driver who met our train and said, "Welcome to my India, you are my second mothers." We got this thing all over India and it made me - not mad or outraged, but sad, because it made me feel alienated. My feeling was, "Of course you don't know me so you don't know that I will pay you a fair fee even if you don't manipulate me with false friendship," and that it actually prevented real feelings of friendship from developing, but I did understand that to them, I was nothing but a thousand-rupee note because that was what was on their mind.

Also, dude, aren't you supposed to haggle BEFORE the service is delivered?