Why would anyone choose to stay in a 3 dollar shed with a bucket cold water shower when for 5 dollars you could get a nice bungalow on the beach ? Why to be such a cheapskate?
While most backpackers would claim that they are so frugal only to make their dollar stretch longer, this is not entirely the case. There are other reasons to holding to your pennies, some of which are quite shameful to admit.
1. Being cheap is an essential part of the game. Getting to tell your fellow travelers that they overpayed big time is like Nelson ha-haing Millhouse after pulling poor old Millhouse's pants down in front of the class. It's just harmless fun.
2. Not only is it fun to make others look stupid, you also get traveler street credibility by letting them know that you are au curant with the latest of the country you are in. This in turn makes you feel like a hero, something you deserve after sleeping in that shed surrounded by manic roosters on amphetamine.
3. You want to make sure you are not paying a foreigner's price and getting fooled. While haggling down a ricksha ride from 40 rupees (58 euro cents) to 30 (45 euro cents) might not seem to be the sanest thing in the world to do, it's still annoying to find out you fell for a tourist price. Too bad if that 13 cents you saved actually might have mattered to the ricksha driving father of ten - if it didn't why would he try to overcharge you? (Probably just because he often can and possibly because the ricksha drivers have a secret society set up as venue for boasting about how much money they pulled from the absent minded tourist gaping at the holy cows on the street.)
4. Staying in the bottom end guesthouses you'll meet like minded bums with whom you can babble on and on about what a fantastic cheapskate you are while drinking warm rum from glasses cut from empty water bottles and sitting on a veranda with a view to a pile of dirt.
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