So we're sitting on the train to Jaiselmer and like 3 guys get on at some random station and start working thier way through the occupents of our car, offering thier tour guiding services to all the visible foreigners on the train ( 2 brit couples, and a couple of Chinese nationals). They are offering a 2 day tour with one night spent in the desert for 300 rupees each including food and hotel. Now just let me explain that for our organized tour plus hotel in Jaiselmer, we're paying R15-20K. so to have anyone offering it for R300 seems almost too good to be true. And it is. A lot of the time what happens is foreighners are scammed into paying these local 'guides' a relatively small sum for touring services, and then the guides either never show up (which is the best case scenario) or they drive the foreigners out into the desert and then leave them there unless thwy pay a large sum to go back...or the absolute worst case scenario, they get kidnapped and held for ransom!
So when we noticed these guys wandering through and heard thier pitch to the chinese couple, we figured it sounded like a total Scam. So we secretly went to the Brits and the chinese ladies and told them to be extremely careful with any unsolicited offers of assistance and avoid anything thwy hadnt planned for themselves. I explained to them what we'd heard and why they had to be careful. They were extremely thankful, and when those guys came back through our car, they were shunned and ignored. I think they heard me talking to the others and they looked massively pissed, but my pops is standing gaurd so its all good.
I guess that was my good deed for the day.
Beware of the Con-artists!
UPDATE: Two of the guys have just been escorted out of the train by two military police officers. SUCCESS!
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