If you've traveled around much, I'm sure you've already encountered situations where someone in a position of power is asking you for money for just doing their job - or worse, just because they got you by the balls and they can take this opportunity to extort you.
I'm posting this because I want to hear about you guys experiences - and maybe if you have any good advice on how to get out of these situations as quickly/cheaply as possible.
I also know some of you guys always proactively bribe people that may be of use even before needing anything for them - for example the security guy at your hotel, that you know is going to see you bring up a different slut every day. I haven't done this yet, but I think I should honestly. Would like to hear your experiences with this.
Ok I'll go first, here's a few examples of situations I've had to get out of by paying bribes - and some advice on how to handle them. Notice that its important to always isolate the person you are bribing, the more people know about the bribe (their colleagues, etc), the more expensive it will be.
- Vietnam, driving my scooter with 3 other friends from Saigon to Mui Ne beach - we get stopped at a fixed road checkpoint in the middle of fucking nowhere in the mekong river delta - we show them our driving licenses. Now the guys start yelling in vietnamese at us. It was impossible to understand what the problem was, but eventually we figured out that they said we need an "international drivers license" - and right away some of the guys grab our scooters and start loading them onto their truck. As this is happening, a full vietnamese family of husband, wife and 2 children all piled up on top of 1 tiny scooter races by and they dont get stopped.
I tell the main cop please, join me here behind the bush so we can talk about this- he follows me, I give him around $20 in viet cash - he gestures that its not enough, I gesture that we have nothing else (not true), he yells back at his colleagues and our scooters start to get back unloaded so we can get the fuck out.
- Mozambique, pretty much every day that we drove- the same every time, police stops us, says we are speeding, we say thats impossible (the roads are fucking terrible and we were in a shitbox compact car with tiny wheels). They say speeding means we have to go to the police station (again not true, technically its just a ticket) but we are surrounded by them and its dark too - so I proceed to say "vamos a falar la de homen a homem" (lets go over there and talk man to man) give him $10 and drive off. A situation like this or similar happened around 5 times in the week I was there.
I also had a much more painful one but we ended up not having to pay, instead we wasted 4 hours at a police station - in hindsight, paying would've been much better.
From all the stories I hear about Mozambique, I think we actually lucked out though. We met some south africans that said the cop asked for their passports and then KEPT the passports for ransom until they paid some huge amount of money.
Another tip for when you're driving yourself in Africa or South America as a gringo (aka corrupt police magnet) is to keep all your money spread out in different places: some in your wallet, some under the carpet, some in the trunk, etc etc. Because if they see you have $100 in your wallet, you will have to give them the $100. Keep it all spread out.
- Uganda, just a few days ago I go back to a bar that I've been to a handful of times now. The bouncer is some rasta dude which I always shake hands with and have some small chat about whatever, now this time he says "welcome back, can I tell you something?" so he takes me a bit outside of the bar and says to me "hey, you seem to be doing well here, why dont you give me some cash? like $10 or $20 would be ok. you bring a lot of girls here and I never said anything". I'm like what? I try to laugh it off, and trying to figure out what to do here. One side of me says, its not much and he's a good sport. But the other side of me says, what the fuck- I cant financially reward this kind of behavior, fuck the guy. So I ended up saying to him "haha you're funny maybe next time dude"... but I haven't been back yet. So what would you guys do in that situation?
I am mainly worried that by paying this guy once, he will keep asking later. And I could also tell the owner of the bar (an expat) about this and the bouncer could lose his job. I know life is rough out here, but that shit rubs me the wrong way. What would you do?
I'm posting this because I want to hear about you guys experiences - and maybe if you have any good advice on how to get out of these situations as quickly/cheaply as possible.
I also know some of you guys always proactively bribe people that may be of use even before needing anything for them - for example the security guy at your hotel, that you know is going to see you bring up a different slut every day. I haven't done this yet, but I think I should honestly. Would like to hear your experiences with this.
Ok I'll go first, here's a few examples of situations I've had to get out of by paying bribes - and some advice on how to handle them. Notice that its important to always isolate the person you are bribing, the more people know about the bribe (their colleagues, etc), the more expensive it will be.
- Vietnam, driving my scooter with 3 other friends from Saigon to Mui Ne beach - we get stopped at a fixed road checkpoint in the middle of fucking nowhere in the mekong river delta - we show them our driving licenses. Now the guys start yelling in vietnamese at us. It was impossible to understand what the problem was, but eventually we figured out that they said we need an "international drivers license" - and right away some of the guys grab our scooters and start loading them onto their truck. As this is happening, a full vietnamese family of husband, wife and 2 children all piled up on top of 1 tiny scooter races by and they dont get stopped.
I tell the main cop please, join me here behind the bush so we can talk about this- he follows me, I give him around $20 in viet cash - he gestures that its not enough, I gesture that we have nothing else (not true), he yells back at his colleagues and our scooters start to get back unloaded so we can get the fuck out.
- Mozambique, pretty much every day that we drove- the same every time, police stops us, says we are speeding, we say thats impossible (the roads are fucking terrible and we were in a shitbox compact car with tiny wheels). They say speeding means we have to go to the police station (again not true, technically its just a ticket) but we are surrounded by them and its dark too - so I proceed to say "vamos a falar la de homen a homem" (lets go over there and talk man to man) give him $10 and drive off. A situation like this or similar happened around 5 times in the week I was there.
I also had a much more painful one but we ended up not having to pay, instead we wasted 4 hours at a police station - in hindsight, paying would've been much better.
From all the stories I hear about Mozambique, I think we actually lucked out though. We met some south africans that said the cop asked for their passports and then KEPT the passports for ransom until they paid some huge amount of money.
Another tip for when you're driving yourself in Africa or South America as a gringo (aka corrupt police magnet) is to keep all your money spread out in different places: some in your wallet, some under the carpet, some in the trunk, etc etc. Because if they see you have $100 in your wallet, you will have to give them the $100. Keep it all spread out.
- Uganda, just a few days ago I go back to a bar that I've been to a handful of times now. The bouncer is some rasta dude which I always shake hands with and have some small chat about whatever, now this time he says "welcome back, can I tell you something?" so he takes me a bit outside of the bar and says to me "hey, you seem to be doing well here, why dont you give me some cash? like $10 or $20 would be ok. you bring a lot of girls here and I never said anything". I'm like what? I try to laugh it off, and trying to figure out what to do here. One side of me says, its not much and he's a good sport. But the other side of me says, what the fuck- I cant financially reward this kind of behavior, fuck the guy. So I ended up saying to him "haha you're funny maybe next time dude"... but I haven't been back yet. So what would you guys do in that situation?
I am mainly worried that by paying this guy once, he will keep asking later. And I could also tell the owner of the bar (an expat) about this and the bouncer could lose his job. I know life is rough out here, but that shit rubs me the wrong way. What would you do?