How Do You Handle A Bad Tour Guide?

I had an experience in Kathamdenu that I had not experienced before: a guide who could not take a hint. When does your patience run out when dealing with a bad tour guide?

I’ve warmed up to tour guides a bit more than in the past because I do appreciate getting more than a Wikipedia summary of a place I visit. My friend had arranged a guide from a reliable travel agency to take us around Kathmandu, a new city for both of us. We visited the
Taleju Bhawani Temple Bhaktapur in Durbar Square, then Gokarneshwar and a walk around Boudhanath/

By this time my friend was tired and just wanted to have dinner. The guide wanted to go onto the next site, but we said, “No, we’re stopping for dinner.”

Here we were right in tourist central in Kathamdenu, but we ate at a place called Roadhouse Café that the guide assured us offered “exquisite” food. Without asking, he sat down at the table with us.

Okay…I guess that is okay, but shouldn’t a guide ask first?

He was talking nonstop at this point and we had experienced just about enough culture and history for the day.

We ordered a cocktail to start…and he did too. The drinks were incredibly weak, but he got a bit tipsy (it was quite obvious) which not only did not slow down his conversation but caused him to start repeating himself.

He ordered several appetizers for the table plus a main course for himself. He also ordered me a local rum to try…thanks, I guess?

Dinner continued and by the time the food arrived my friend and I were just ready to get up and leave. Or better yet, ask him to leave…but I guess we were both too polite…because we just sat there while he drank and talked and drank and talked.

I think he finally realized he was getting close to being drunk because he stopped drinking alcohol and switched to water. And yet in his intoxicated state he continued to talk.

And of course, when the bill arrived he handed it to us…

We requested to go immediately back to the hotel and he did…but became incensed when we chose not to tip him.

Sorry, we are not tipping someone with such boorish behavior who could not take a hint.

Oh, it didn’t spoil our day. On the contrary, it’s a memory we can laugh about now. But it did strike me as strange.

Do guides just invite themselves to dinner? Then get inebriated? Then refuse to stop talking? Maybe I should go back to self-guided tours…?

Learn to read the room…it is an important lesson for us all.