In Reply to: Haggling over price for Drivers & Tailor posted by Pastor on Wednesday, 22. June 2005 at 08:12 Bali Time:
We paid 150,000 for a driver for a whole day. He took us everywhere. Didn't realise we got such a good deal! He was absolutely lovely too. Taught us to speak Indonesian and he also was very good at English. He waited for us in the car if we fancied going to look at something or get money changed etc. He never took us to "friends shops" unless we asked him to and the car was always clean and cool and smelt great - I know that last thing is probably irrelevant but the car smelt better then the ones at home, I couldn't get over it! We still keep in touch with him now.
You can barter with almost everything in Bali - that includes drivers and tailors. Like MissD mentioned though, the money is nothing to us and a few dollars means the world to them so I'd suggest having a price in your head that you're willing to pay and don't go over it. We can all afford to be reasonably generous though. We tip taxi drivers here (or at least I do) and that's generally $5 or so and we pay a fortune for the fare so why not be as generous in Bali? Just a thought...