In Reply to: tipping posted by fleur on Tuesday, 4. January 2005 at 19:27 Bali Time:
Balinese do not generally expect tips but generosity is appreciated. It is sometimes difficult to tip an individual person, in a restaurant for example, as a tip included in the bill often simply goes into the open-ended bucket along with the 'Service Charge' that you'll find on almost every bill. If you want to single out and show appreciation to a particular waiter then ask them to come back after the bill has been quite finalised, then give them something, ‘For you'. On the other hand it's very easy to round up the fare to the next 1000 or 5000 rupiah and thereby give a taxi driver a reward for his (otherwise very cheap) services.
Monetary donations to families are usually spent on family priorities rather than things that might be special to the individual you wished to reward.
Women will inevitably spend extra money or their families rather than on themselves, which is why some practical gifts of appreciation, or 'oleh olehs' (gifts), become very personal and are appreciated so much.
A well known ex-pat who admits to being very generous but claims to be rewarded for it over time, recommends as follows - food and drink, 15% of pre tax bill; cabs - 10%; hotel staff Rp15,000; other services 10% if you're happy with the service.