The Adventures of Bruce and Ian

After a quick nap and a hot shower (both well deserved), we hit the town in search for some trinkets and whatsits at Batu Ferringhi’s huge night market.

What used to be a calm sidewalk by day, transforms into a frenzy of activity, full of shoppers trying to strike a deal. The bright fluorescent lights of each table and crazy neon colors of trishaws passing by reminded me of a Eastern influenced Las Vegas. It was madness!

Scoping the goods at Batu Ferringhi.

Shopkeepers were hawking their wares with gusto. You could buy literally anything, including:

• Sunglasses
• T-Shirts
• Toys
• Handbags
• “Real” DVD’s and CD’s
• “Real” software

Then there was one table we walked by, that had one item that caught my eye. A plain black Zippo lighter. Now, I’m by no means a smoker – or a pyromaniac either – I just like flipping Zippos open and closing, doing tricks with them, you know – anything that makes me look dangerous…

I decided to make use of the lessons Sarah taught me on our previous haggling attempt and see if I couldn’t get this puppy in my hot little hands for a fraction of the price.

Here’s my attempt.

Lo and behold – here is the patented Ian Method™ of haggling:

• 1. Ask how much the item is.
• 2. Immediately counter the offer. Say it again to ingrain it in the vendor’s head.
• 3. When rejected, immediately ask what other colours are available.
  (this is done to sidetrack the vendor’s train of thought)
• 4. Ask of alternative options or variants of the item that you know clearly don’t exist.
• 5. Slightly raise your counter offer.
  (to the point where it’s a neglible 5 RM away from the original price)
• 6. Add the words “and I’ll take it no problem” – to assure the person that their worries will be put to rest if sold at that price
• 7. Question the authenticity of the item.
• 8. When asked whether or not you yourself can verify the authenticity – ask again.
• 9. Admit defeat and pay the vendor the original price.

Yes yes…I’m a pitiful excuse for a haggler…I hang my head in shame.

After breakfast, we walked a short distance to Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur’s open-air Chinatown market. Attracting a mix of locals and tourists, the market offers a full range of Chinese cuisine, handicrafts and clothing, in addition to peculiarly low-priced DVDs and designer handbags. We’d been exposed to the practice of hawking wares Malaysian-style the night before at Jalan Alor, but the vendors at Jalan Petaling were on a whole other level.

Binders of DVDs, children’s toys, shirts, jackets, sunglasses and just about everything else imaginable were waved in front of us, and calls of “Sir? Sir? Good deal! You buy!” were everywhere.

Haggling’s the name of the game at Jalan Petaling: everything’s negotiable.  If you were unimpressed with the price of an item you expressed interest in, odds are it would drop by twenty percent before you were five steps away from the stall.  I wanted to bring back one of the astonishingly cheap handbags for my girlfriend, but didn’t trust my haggling skills.

I have a tough time doing even the tamest of bargaining at low-key garage sales, and I knew I was out of my league in the lightning-fast trading and bickering that is Jalan Petaling’s lifeblood.  Thankfully, our guide Sarah had stronger nerves than I.

After I picked out a Prada bag that I thought would be well received, Sarah entered into a routine as old as commerce itself. After the “real” price of 100rm was dismissed by Sarah as “very expensive, lah” (the ubiquitous lah can best be approximated as being to Malaysia what eh is to Canada), a quick barrage of numbers, hand gestures, and exclamations of feigned outrage and disbelief began to fly back and forth between Sarah and the vendor.

In less than a minute, the price had dropped from 100rm to 30rm, approximately $10 Canadian. Who’d have thought that there was such a generous subsidy on Italian exports to Malaysia?

Not all of our ventures in Jalan Petaling were as successful. The vendor who sold us a t-shirt that had caught my eye was made out of stronger stuff, and would only go from 40rm to 25rm despite Sarah’s best efforts.

We rounded off our morning at the market with a refreshing drink made from longan (a lychee-like fruit) and gulan melaka (palm sugar), and hailed a cab to take us to the historic Batu Caves.