Some devotees who come to Vrindavana and Mayapur are quite wealthy and do not care much about money. That’s the stereotype many locals have, at least. In practice, however, most devotees come on a budget and need to stretch the rupee, so to speak.
These are a few tips for visiting or living in Mayapur and Vrindavana on a budget, and getting honest prices according to my experience:
1- One of the greatest difficulties and expenditures, when we visit Mayapur and Vrindavana nowadays, is renting an apartment. The biggest problem is that most of the visitors come to Kartika and Gaura Purnima, therefore the apartments that are available for the season are mostly apartments that stay empty the rest of the year. Understandably, the owners have to charge more for it. One solution is to try to find some like-minded devotee with whom you can share, be it by renting a room or a bed at his or her place, or by sharing an apartment. Apart from getting some good association, the price will be much lower.
2- Apart from renting, the second biggest expenditure of devotees in Vrindavan and Mayapur is usually prasadam. There are very affordable options for taking prasadam connected with the temple in both Vrindavana and Mayapur. The last time I checked, the evening Prasadam at the Krsna Balaram temple for devotees cost just 40 rupees. In Mayapur, there are several options, also starting from 40 rupees at the Sulab Kitchen, apart from the Mahaprasadam from the stalls around the territory that are also quite affordable. However, there are many restaurants around and outside the campus, and these can be quite expensive. If one is on a budget, the best way to save is to just stick with the prasadam from the temple.
3- When buying things, it helps to treat the vendors respectfully. There are always some black sheep around, but most vendors are just local devotees trying to maintain their families. When they see that you are a Vaishnava and respect them they tend to give honest prices. When you are arrogant, they presume you are some materialist (which may be actually correct, otherwise why you would act like that?) and charge accordingly.
It’s normal to bargain, but it should be done respectfully. To get a good price, don’t buy on the first encounter with a vendor. Instead, walk around, check prices in other places, and come back later, or the next day. After they see that you are walking around and comparing prices, they tend to give you an honest price.
Dishonest vendors usually try to press you into buying immediately by using different psychological tactics. That’s one of the signals that you are getting a bad bargain. Don’t believe in miraculous discounts: If a vendor confidently starts with a high price and starts to quickly lower it when you don’t show much interest, it’s better to buy from another place, he is probably just trying to cheat you. Honest vendors usually don’t have such large margins.
4- Rickshas can be quite expensive, especially at festival time. If you want to get rickshas at the normal price, get a shared ricksha, mixing with the locals. The system is that the driver picks and leaves persons at different points and collects 10 to 50 rupees from each, according to the distance, putting as many people in the ricksha as the physical laws allow. He can thus make 1000 rupees or more on a trip to Govardhana by charging 50 rupees from each, for example. If you try to get the same ricksha on an exclusive basis, you may end up paying 1000 rupees or more.
5- In Mayapur, the electric riksas have a fixed price, usually 50 rupees for a trip to a short distance. However, usually only locals can get this price. Drivers usually charge 100 or even 150 rupees for foreigners, and it’s difficult to make them lower it on festival time, when the demand is higher. 100 rupees may not sound very much, but the expenditure can quickly mount. However, this is the price for the entire riksa (not per person) and therefore you can get four devotees and share amongst the group. You can also consider buying an used bicycle and getting rid of the riksas altogether. The bicycle can then be sold or donated when you are about to leave. It’s usually possible to buy an used bicycle for 3000 rupees or less.
6- Just like at the times of Mahaprabhu, there are a lot of Muslims in West Bengal. They have beards, hindus not. They also dress differently. Salute muslins with “salamaleico” and make the pranama sign with the hands and they become much softer.
7- One interesting concept we have in India is the MRP. If you look carefully, every product has an MRP stamped somewhere in the package. MRP stands for “maximum retail price”, and works as a limit for how much a product can cost. It is considered unlawful to sell products for more than the MRP (although this can also happen in touristic places). This is a way the government found to avoid people overcharging for products in remote regions.
In some cases, the MRP is the fair price for products, like in the case of water bottles, for example. A half-liter bottle costs 10 rupees and the guy selling it usually makes two rupees of profit. However, in most cases, products are supposed to be sold for substantially less than the MRP.
If you go to Amazon India, for example, you will see that most products are sold with “discounts” of 20%, 30%, or even 50%. In most cases these are not really discounts, but just the normal prices. The “discount” is just how much it is being sold under the MRP. In most stores in India, there are prices on the shelves, and you can compare the prices they are asking and the MRP of the products.
One difficulty we have in Mayapur and Vrindavana is that usually the stores usually sell the products at the MRP price, which means quite expensively. One reason for that is that they are remote regions, therefore the prices of transportation can be higher than in the capitals. Another reason however is that the owners think that Western devotees are rich 🙂
Many sellers work with two prices, one for locals and another for people they perceive as tourists. When we pay the MRP, it usually means we are paying the tourist price. This of course doesn’t interfere with our ability to benefit from the holy dhama and achieve love for Krsna, but it’s just something to keep in mind if you are trying to live in India on a budget.
If you are staying for a long time and is living on a budget, you can open an account on Amazon and start getting your bhoga from there. You can usually save 20 or 30% by doing so, which can make a considerable difference at the end of the month. Check on the Amazon Fresh section and compare the prices with the shops, you may be surprised.
8- Apart from everything else, the best way to get lower prices is to just look for local products. Things that are produced locally tend to be quite cheap, while imported products can be often more expensive than even in Europe or the United States. During Gaura Purnima, for example, brocolis and coconuts can be extraordinarily cheap, but if one wants to instead eat apples and avocados, he will have to spend a lot.
One of the problems we often face when visiting India is that we try to emulate our regular lifestyle, finding similar apartments we live in our countries, finding the same products, eating the same things and so on. We try to keep ourselves safely inside our cultural bubbles instead of exploring the new environment. As a result, not only we miss most of it, but we also end-up expending a lot more.