Old Market in Siem Reap

Here you can find the "wild Isabel" in her natural habitat of shopping.

We went to the Old Market in search of light long pants for Isabel so she can enter the temple complex at Angkor Wat in something less warm than jeans.

Needless to say she was not too unhappy about being there. After about 3 shops you have basically seen it all and tried everything on as they all sell the same stuff.

As soon as you ask the price they will highball, lets say $8 for pants (by the way even their high ball figure is very cheap) then if you take more than 3 seconds to reply they say "but I can give you a discount, how about $6?"

Then you start bargaining and say $2 which is obviously stealing the food off their table or at least thats what you think. They would respond with $5 and then you would walk away and they would scream after you, "ok sir how about $4....?" If you don't turnaround they would try $3 and even $2 in the hope you turn around.

Other sales tricks are, as soon as you walk away they will say "I would give you an immediate sale discount". One lady actually said to me, "what are you willing to pay, I will take it if I still make profit".

We ended up spending $9 for light blue long pants with an elephant pattern and a t-shirt with giraffes on it and we purchased 3 fridge magnets for $1. I think thats good going considering we started at $20 for the pants and the shirt plus we started at $1 per magnet.

{Roedolf}En savoir plus