$140 ULTIMATE FAKE MARKET SPREE (Karachi, Pakistan) 🇵🇰

A shopping day in Karachi with two errands: a local shalwar kameez, and a phone that will actually take a Pakistani SIM card. Both happen in the market district around Zainab Market, which Harry has been to several times already and treats as the place in the city where you can get anything. The through-line isn’t really the shopping. It is that he keeps being given things — a cup of chai while he waits, a shirt at below the asking price, an offer to buy him clothes outright, a free lassi in a phone shop — by people who then decline the money, and he spends much of the video visibly unsure what to do about it. He leaves with copy shirts, a tailored kameez on order, a first-copy automatic watch, a Montblanc-style pen and a second-hand iPhone 7.

Key moments

• [00:00] The two objectives: a shalwar kameez and an iPhone, because his own phone won’t run a Pakistani SIM.
• [01:41] A shopkeeper asks him to wait five minutes and sends out for chai while he browses.
• [03:16] He asks for “the bicep discount”, which becomes the running joke of the day.
• [04:26] The copy shirts are made in Pakistan rather than China, 100% cotton, and the giveaway is the quality of the embroidered badge.
• [05:03] The shopkeeper’s directions to the mobile market — same street, past two sets of traffic lights — and his food recommendations.
• [05:33] A shirt at 700, offered at 600, and then the shopkeeper won’t take payment at all. Harry insists and pays 400, about three dollars.
• [06:34] The chai is the sweetest thing he has ever drunk. The man who sent for it watched one of his videos the night before.
• [07:46] Another stallholder offers to buy him something; a third recognises him from Facebook. He wonders aloud whether he could do the entire market without paying for anything, and is uncomfortable with the idea.
• [08:47] A shopkeeper explaining he is heading to Italy to finish his degree, a common route for young Pakistanis.
• [09:17] A portrait painter working by hand: 600 rupees for a 10×12, two to three days’ work. Harry is leaving in two.
• [11:02] Into the market proper for the kameez — cotton against cotton mix, in essentially any colour.
• [11:35] Quoted 3,500.
• [12:40] Down to 3,000 once he drops the trousers from the order, then another 500 off. He puts the final figure at about $14 (from video – unverified).
• [14:14] Measured on the spot, with a choice of how many pockets, and ready Thursday morning for a Thursday afternoon flight.
• [15:30] The watch stall, and the vocabulary that matters: “second copy” and “first copy”.
• [16:00] Second copies around 3,000; a first copy at 8,500, just under forty dollars.
• [16:35] An invitation up to a showroom inside the building, which he takes with a joke about where he might be being led.
• [17:09] The showroom — everything in it from China, wall to wall watches, pens and Louis Vuitton and Gucci wallets. The stallholders say the government gives them no trouble.
• [18:17] An automatic at 1,400. He learns the distinction: the automatics need wearing rather than a battery, and are the better copies.
• [18:54] Told the price is fixed, Harry’s reply is that nothing in Pakistan is fixed price — and gets it down anyway.
• [19:30] A watch and a pen together for 2,300.
• [20:04] First-copy Rolexes at 12,500, roughly fifty dollars. He asks what they cost wholesale, then says he’ll just look it up on Alibaba.
• [21:42] He meets Walid, on his second day in the country.
• [22:20] A juice stall pressing grapefruit and apple through a hand screw press with no electricity at all, finished with a pinch of salt. 150 rupees, under a dollar.
• [24:46] He asks a security guard whether he can hold his gun, gets a yes he isn’t sure was understood, and doesn’t.
• [25:17] Chana chaat from a street cart — potato and chickpea in gravy with mint sauce and a cracker on top, about half a dollar. He rates it one of his favourite meals of the trip, and notes how welcome a vegetarian dish is in a country of meat.
• [27:04] Spice level seven out of ten, which he confirms with the roof of his mouth.
• [29:49] A tuk-tuk across town for 300 rupees. Walid, on his second country outside the United States, says the food hasn’t troubled his stomach once.
• [30:19] Sada Bazaar, the mobile market. The rule he explains: foreign handsets are blocked from local SIMs, which is why he needs a second phone at all.
• [30:49] Six floors of phone shops, and a fake Apple Store.
• [31:53] A free lassi arrives while he shops, with bread to dip in it.
• [32:56] First quote 15,000 for an old model, then 40,000 — about $170 — for the one he’s shown. His budget is $100.
• [33:58] He walks at $110 and is called back before he reaches the stairs.
• [37:25] An iPhone 7, 32GB, at $100, with 85% battery health — checked in front of him — and the Pakistani SIM tested before he pays.
• [40:33] A two-week warranty, and a case thrown in.

Extracted pages

• Place: Karachi
• Country: Pakistan
• Person: Walid
• Tips: Haggle with a reference price