You have to barter, if that’s how people buy and sell. If you don’t, rightly you will be fleeced relentlessly everything time you try to buy something. Worse, if the traders identify that a particular group of foreigners seem unwilling to barter, they will double the actual prices for those people even if they DO decide to barter. So even if only for the sake of your fellow countrymen (all those of you who travel the world looking obviously like you come from a particular nation), you must barter….
I bartered for two truly lovely wool carpets in Kathmandu, well away from the tourist area. When the price stalled two steps above the amount of one of my emergency cash large denomination currency notes (these were really good carpets), I looked terribly disappointed and produced my emergency large denomination note as if that was all I had. My disappointment combined with the temptation of seeing such an unusually new and large note, brought the price down, to achieve a really good deal. The merchant pretended he had to stop bartering as he couldn’t change the note, so honour was satisfied!