Fake Market Hunt in Kandy, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

Harry alone in Kandy market in torrential rain, working through the clothes and fabric stalls, and then — because someone he met earlier in the week recognises him and offers — through the local produce market next door, which turns out to be the better half of the video.

The description’s own summary is that his bargaining skills are terrible, and the video largely bears it out. What is more useful is his tactic: rather than grinding, he asks the seller straight out what a local would pay — and they tell him. See ask what a local pays.

Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles.

What he buys, and for what

• A handmade wooden puzzle box with a hidden compartment: asked 900, paid 800 — about $4. He says on camera that this is the tourist price, and that he doesn’t much mind because it’s handmade.
• A cricket cap: asked 1,200, talked down through 1,100 to 1,000, about $5.
• A polo shirt of contested authenticity: asked 790, paid 700, a little over $3.
• A mask to frighten his friends with: 200.
• A mixed bag of Sri Lankan sweets: 250.
• A fake Rolex, not bought, at 1,700 rupees — which he points out would be the price in pounds if it were real. His own test for a fake, given roughly, is whether the second hand sweeps or ticks.

The tourist price is not hidden here. Asked directly, one seller confirms that a local coming into the same shop would be quoted less, and Harry does the arithmetic out loud without treating it as an outrage.

The market he wasn’t looking for

A man he’d bumped into days earlier — the one who told him to eat kottu — recognises him, says it is his day off, and starts walking him around. Harry says plainly on camera that he assumed he was being steered to the man’s own shop to have money made out of him, and that it wasn’t that at all: he is simply being shown the market.

What is in it:

• Tea, including a green tea that smells of mango.
• Spices sold as medicine rather than as cooking ingredients.
• Vanilla pods, which prompt the biggest surprise of the video — he had not known vanilla grew as a plant.
• Fruit and vegetables: papaya, avocado, mango, pineapple, coconut, jackfruit, and sugar cane he is given a piece of.
• The fish section, which he can smell before he reaches it, with fish long enough that nobody around him can supply the English name.
• Crows the size of the rubbish they are working through.

The sweets

• Oil cake — soft, syrupy and very sweet, and the thing he most wants more of.
• Soft sugar balls that look hard and aren’t, which he takes to be called bombon.

Key moments

• [01:04] The puzzle box, and how the compartment works.
• [02:36] “If a local comes in here, what do you say?” — asked and answered.
• [04:11] 800 for the box, about $4, knowingly the tourist rate.
• [06:45] The cap, 1,200 down to 1,000.
• [09:30] The polo at 700, and the honest note that his haggling isn’t good.
• [14:12] The fake Rolex at 1,700, and how to spot one.
• [14:44] A stranger offers to show him around.
• [16:43] Mango-scented green tea.
• [17:13] Spices sold as medicine, and vanilla growing on a plant.
• [20:04] The apology: he had assumed it was a hustle.
• [20:35] The fish market.
• [24:52] Oil cake.
• [27:07] The sugar balls that aren’t hard.

Extracted pages

• Sri Lanka
• Kandy
• Ask what a local pays