In Reply to: GIFT FOR DRIVER ? posted by marklyn on Thursday, 1. December 2005 at 19:32 Bali Time:
We bought our driver and his family a washing machine. We asked him on the last day to take us to an appliance centre so we could see what prices and selection they had in Bali - His eyes popped out of his head with excitment when I handed over 900,000 Rph for a washing machine that I said was for him - he could not beleive we could be so generous. It cost us about $120 - a days work.
We used our driver (Made Sukarma - 081 835 4088) every day bar 1 as he had a previous booking, the only day we did not enjoy our time in Bali - we must have caught 4 different taxi all of whom could not understand where we wanted to go - it cost us more in 4 taxis to get to 1 place than his 200,000 daily rate (9 hours of him driving us anywhere).
The washing machine was purchased from an appliance store on the way to the airport from Kuta. Apparenlty you can get then for 700,000Rph in Denpasar.
Some people say we spent too much but our trip was made so much better by our driver - he ate with us and sent the best part of every day bar one with us. He was more like a Nanny than a driver. By the end of our holiday ( 10 days ), my 5 year old disabled son did not want to get out of his van when we went shopping so Made (Driver) would play with him for an hour or so in the van. How much money would you pay (if a service like this was available in Australia?) Also his entire community were using the washing machine before the end of the day.