As there isn't much to see for today journey, let me tell you about tipping in South Africa. Yes, it is a tipping country, and Australians hate having to tip. At the top of our voices we want to yell, pay your workers proper wages and get rid of this tipping nonsense. At home, we do tip a little, but it is not expected. If your bill for a meal is $38, you will probably just leave the change from $40. Pizza delivery people don't get paid very well, just the bare minimum, so we usually tip a couple of dollars. We usually do round up taxi fares to the $5 or $10 mark. They are paid very badly as they are never employees but self employed. I have given a big tip at times in Australia when someone really did something special for me, or us.
R always wants to do the right thing about tipping when in a foreign country and was quite happy to press the 15% tip button on the credit card machine in Canada and the US. But we argue about tipping. I will tip when I have to but on my own terms. Ok, I am not doing in Rome what I should, but I don't care. So my tips are lower than R's. I thought I had shot this matter in the foot by doing separate tips for our two different coach drivers and our tour guide. The first coach driver was a bit friendly and a competent driver, although there were things about his driving that I did not like. I think I tipped him $20. The second driver, as I recall, was a first class driver, but not at all friendly. He was with us for half the time and so I tipped him $10. Our tour guide had indicated what level to tip the drivers, and with plenty of self interest, that was how people worked out the tip for him too. I can't remember the figure now, perhaps it was $40 a day. Maybe these figures are wrong as I can't remember now, but our tour guide certainly did not receive a $40 per day tip from me. Perhaps more like $10 per day. I know R would have tipped the full amount and I did not shoot tipping in the foot, as R kept asking me how much I had tipped.
I am afraid to service staff and local guides in South Africa, our tipping was very ad hoc.
Here are a few photos from day ten.
The hotel in George was pretty nice. It had a large fountain with koi.
At our lunch break, buffalo did what they do in the middle of the day.
There were ostrich too but I spied this foreign critter. Why is an Australian emu in a South African animal park? I informed my fellow travellers about this foreign type in our midst and they too were surprised. Seems we export more than just gum trees to the world.
The hotel in Nelspruit was nice, in the public areas.
The grounds were nice too. I saw bunny rabbits and peacocks, but it was a very steep hill walk down to our accommodation. Well the problem was more going up. For the second time we paid porters to carry our luggage.
Our room was rather ordinary, but there was worse to come the next night, where we stayed for three nights.
We must have arrived quite early at the hotel and we were feeling quite relaxed. We had a nice buffet dinner; we had many buffet dinners and breakfasts, and a few drinks while chatting to our travelling companions. I decided I should take out the SA SIM card from phone and put in my Australian SIM to check for messages or missed calls. I was terribly careful with the tiny cards. I will die without the internet and my phone. Job done. I had found a special place in my backpack to store my Aussie SIM with my SA SIM details. Next morning on the coach when I remembered about me checking local Aussie phone stuff, my Aussie SIM was not where it should be in my backpack. I entered a world of pain for the day. I had put on a clean shirt in the morning and R assured me it would be in old shirt pocket. I worked through things in my mind. Well, I still have phone numbers within my phone storage. I still have text messages. Google does some back up thing with my phone. It will be inconvenient once back home to get a new card, but not the end of the world. How could I have been so stupid to get carried away with the niceness of the evening and totally forget about what I had been doing with my SIM card.
When our luggage was available that night, of course the SIM was in my dirty shirt pocket in my case. But it should have been where it belonged in backpack. No one is more critical of me than I am and believe me, I gave myself a good and hard telling off.
When our luggage was available that night, of course the SIM was in my dirty shirt pocket in my case. But it should have been where it belonged in backpack. No one is more critical of me than I am and believe me, I gave myself a good and hard telling off.