Conned in India
A repost from the Ripped Off qotw (if you can recycle the questions I can recycle the answers)

Some years back I spent some time in India and while there I went to the beautiful city of Jaipur which is renowned for its jewel trade.

I was there with a couple of friends – all girls and we were having a great time visiting the Pink City.


One day myself and Wendy (for that is….blah, blah) decided to do a bit of extra shopping.

We hop onto a pedalled rickshaw and off we go into town.
En route a couple of young local guys on motorbikes draw level with our taxi and start to chat to us – the usual stuff, Do you like India, Are you from England, etc. etc.
Then they ask us if we want to go get a cup of tea with them…..Oh…go on then, we say (well, actually it was me that said it, my friend wasn’t too sure….).


So soon we are drinking the best British Rail tea you can get - foul stuff; they seem to boil up the water with the tea, milk and sugar all in it.
We chat about our studies – they wanted to improve their English….They asked us about where was good to visit in the UK, what sort of things should they buy as gifts for their parents, where to eat, everything necessary for a visit….even asking for our details back home as immigration references (oh God, yes, I feel ashamed of how naively stupid I was giving that one out - the things I’ll do for a fit looking man….)


After all of this chat they invite us back to their home to meet the family…..Come on, they say, You can ride on the back of our bikes…..


At last my common sense started to kick in….”I want to walk thanks”…you see, I’d worked out that it might be safer if I walk there – then I won’t die horribly in a motorbike accident…
My sensible friend Wendy whispers to me, “Aren’t you worried about where they might take us?” Oh, I think, that’s a thought….


Anyway, we walk through Jaipur, through the tourist areas where all the jewellery shops are, past carpet sellers, deeper and deeper we go into the Muslim part of town.
It was full of women wearing the full burka – pretty much the first time I’d seen it, (this was some years ago now) and it was a little scary, if exotic and thrilling, not being able to see faces….
But we still had the two local guys with us and they kept chatting about how nice it would be for us to meet their family, so on we go.


When we had reached the point at which I no longer knew where we were I started to feel scared…the roads and narrow lanes we had taken all looked the same and I wanted to get back to the safety of our hotel…
But just then the guys said their home was around the next corner and also there was a policeman directing the traffic on the very same corner.
We’re safe, I thought, if we scream now the policeman will hear us.

Yeah, right, above the cacophony of noise that was downtown Jaipur.


Around the corner the narrow street was lined with small shops and even smaller doorways. They led us through one tiny door, into a courtyard and then through a smaller door with led up a narrow staircase.
Even now I still remember vividly the white adobe stairs and walls and thinking to myself that we’d passed the point of no return…we were going to be sold into White Slavery, we'd never see our families again, never see dear old Blighty (I think I really did use that phrase in my head - probably the only time in my life that I've felt like an extra from a 1940s film noir).

We were led into a simple room where the women of the family were eating, as soon as they saw us, strangers, they left the room and shortly the men joined us instead.
Only the two guys that had brought us there spoke English, so conversation was a little stilted – in fact I can’t even remember what we spoke about.
They offered us fruit to eat – which, to my shame I refused because I thought they were going to drug us and take us off to live in UAE as sex slaves….ahem….


They did however invite us to join them for supper…..and I agreed – all the while Wendy was going paler and paler, and bearing in mind I’d refused the fruit on the grounds of being possibly drugged…I can only presume that my young self believed that cooked food would be safe….


Shortly we were all sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating the hottest curry I have ever tasted in my entire life while all the men laughed at us….This didn't feel comfortable.


After we had finished the meal they tried to chat to us about our lives in England and then one of them asked us if we’d like to see something interesting…And if we could guess what it was we could have it…..


Out of a concealed cupboard they dragged a white pillowcase sized sack, it was filled to the brim (just like in a film) with what looked like green marble chips – like the ones that are put around graves sometimes.
That’s what I guessed they were, marble chips….No…not marble….so we didn’t get any….no, these were Uncut Emeralds…..


Then things moved on quickly, did we like jewellery?
Would we like to see their shop, their workshop?
If we went now we could meet their grandfather who was in the shop right now ready to take our order.
We could draw our own design for any piece of jewellery and they’d get it made up for us in a couple of days….


We went to the shop, grandfather was praying, so we didn’t have to go in…it was late by now and we managed to finally say goodbye – they would come to our hotel the following morning for our order…

How did we get away?

“Thank you for your kind offer, but you must understand that I need to speak to my father about this – my father would be very angry with me for going to a man’s house without his permission. He would also be angry if I spent his money on jewellery without asking first.”


They believed me….but still turned up the following morning waiting for our response….So I told them I’d spoken to my father and he was very angry with me and forbade me to talk to strange men again….


They left us with their apologies.

A taxi drew up, Wendy and I asked the driver to take us into town and could he recommend a good jewellers….
I bought a very nice half-carat emerald ring, still got it actually….

So after all that work they had put into persuading us to buy from them we were the ones who did the conning - we got a free meal and a small taste of life in Jaipur.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 22 Oct 2007, 22:19, 2 replies)

Did your bunghole look like a ruby the next morning?
I mean after that hot curry?
(Vic Flange, Tue 23 Oct 2007, 10:54, closed)

Lunar Jim:
eewwwww!
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Wed 24 Oct 2007, 3:16, closed)