Tipping and Haggling

Knowing the rules on tipping is always disconcerting when you travel.

It can be annoying at home in the US as well, but that’s another topic.

Last year in Australia, we got the word – don’t screw up the curve by tipping.  It wasn’t expected and just confused things. 

In Italy, you tip if you sit down (a service charge is automatically added), but not if you get a coffee at the counter.  In the hotel here, there’s tip jars, where presumably tips are divided among the staff, but you normally don’t tip for room service or in the restaurant.

For Taxis, you generally just round up a bit, but it’s not a lot of money and you get the impression it’s more to avoid the hassle of change than anything else.

The message boards and guide books were all over the place about tipping tour guides, drivers, etc.

We talked about it, and ultimately decided that it was better to tip than not, and to try to keep with the local custom but, if in doubt, be generous.

We don’t want to be the Ugly Americans who give everyone a bad name.

As a result, we’ve tipped our guides about 500 Baht for every half-day that we’re with them.  That’s about $15.00.  Drivers who are with us for a full day are tipped about half that much, and we slip a little something to staff members that we interact with as we’re leaving an establishment, if we’ve had contact with them several times, or people like the river raft drivers, the Elephant Mahout or the oxcart driver.

Although through a math error, the ox  cart driver was sadly under-tipped, an error which there’s no way to correct.

There are a couple of reasons behind our decision, aside from not wanting to be poor representatives of our country.

We’ve been blessed.  We know this, in that we don’t have to go hungry and are able to meet our financial needs.  Tipping to some of these people may mean the difference between whether they or their children eat tonight or not.  Neither of us wants to deal with that karmic debt, at least not intentionally.

The other thing is, it could very easily be one of our kids or a niece or nephew, or, under the right circumstances, either of us who are working a job that require tips as a substantial portion of our income.  With three approaching college, there are undoubtedly some part time jobs involved and waiting tables or bartending isn’t at all out of the question – we like to think that their future customers will be generous in light of their service, so we’re, “paying it forward,” now.

The other reason has to deal with currency conversion.  At the night market the other evening, Larry wanted a particular hat from a woman.  She said “150 Baht”, to which he promptly countered.  “Too much.  100 Baht.”  Quibbling continued, and ultimately the price was established 10 minutes later at 130 Baht.

They spent 10 minutes quibbling over 61 cents.

The information we have says that haggling over prices is expected, and in fact it’s somewhat rude if you don’t haggle in the markets.  We’re all for not being rude, but c’mon, how much effort is it worth to quibble over 61 cents?