I'm in the 500 year old house of the travel guy Kenneth who picked us up atthe airport. It's huge, with very high ceilings. He's getting our credit card imprint. We met an Indian-American couple - Alex and Neetu - at the Kochi airport this morning. They are visiting relatives for two weeks, covering some of the same ground we have. Will post their pic soon. The airport guard told me pics were forbidden after I took it. They were on a connecting flight toi Delhi. We had 4 hours till our flight to Goa. So we walked to a Shiva temple someone in an airport shop told usabout. I don't know how to describe it. You walk past a numberof little exhibits about Shiva's life. 10 Rupees for flowers, 2 more to store your shoes, 20 more to go thru this grotto like space below the statue of Shiva (areally big statue). The grotto was a little like a Halloween haunted house - cave like.
Then 40 more Rupees to get coins to put into 109 cups while chanting a mantra.
I don't really know what it all means. It was connected to Kemp Fort Departmentstore where we were almostthe only customers and I bought a shirt. The guy there says the man who owns the store also owns the temple and the profits of the store go tothe temple.
It is generally a pricing arrangement to take advantage of the information asymmetry, i.e. uninformed and curious tourists, to extract consumer surplus, i.e. your willingness to pay. The mechanism funnels buyer's money to the seller. Total welfare may go up or down (I think). No matter what I have said, one thing is clear: the profit of the shop goes to the temple and the temple is owned by the seller. Remove the words from "temple" to "by the" and you see the whole picture.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget, Chinese, Indians, and Jews are among the best traders. ;)