Tipping

 

This is probably something that did bother me while traveling. In some countries, tipping is common. However, in some countries, tipping might make recipients uncomfortable.

In my home country, we don’t have a tipping culture. Nonetheless, when I visited the U.S.A. for the first time, I didn’t notice about tipping. I was eating in a ramen shop in Boston. I asked for the bill before leaving and paid at the price as listed on the menu. Nonetheless, the recipient asked me that there was something missed. I didn’t realize what he said and he repeated again. Then, I got it. He was mentioning “tips”.

Nevertheless, tipping in India was a little bit complicated. I headed to Delhi to stay for a day because I had to wait for the flight that would depart at night. A friend helped me book a hotel and told me to take a prepaid taxi to the hotel. I went to the counter of prepaid taxi and paid for the taxi. The staff told me the direction to take the taxi and I didn’t have to pay anything else. I took the taxi and asked to go to the hotel, however, the taxi driver didn’t exactly know the location of the hotel. He was talking while driving, additionally, I realized that we were in the wrong direction. There were cars passing by and I was quite scared. It took a while, well, I arrived at the hotel, eventually. The taxi driver kept saying “tips, tips”, well, the staff at the prepaid counter already told me that I didn’t have to pay anything else.

Each country has its culture and it’s always important to know if we need to pay tips. Otherwise, we might look impolite if we forget to pay tips, in particular, some staff did provide great service. Moreover, there is one thing I always remember, tipping housekeeping in the hotel.