Caporegime
I thought it would be both fun and useful to share travel tips we have learned in our travels. I will start with Morocco since I’ve recently been going there quite often. Feel free to share your tips with any particular places you have recently visited.
Things I’ve learned.
Tipping – Tipping is welcomed but there are ways to do it.
At restaurants, a waiter will serve you and when you ask for the bill, he will bring it over. You pay him what it is on the bill, when you get the change, then only after that you give him the tip directly. You don’t take the bill up to the till inside to pay. If you do, the waiter, for some reason, need to also be there. I think it’s all to do with commission.
Saw an American lady asking the lady at the till to add 10% to the total and they were so confused.
In average, £2 is normally more than enough. £2 there is a paper note and most people tip in coins so that is max a £1 value or so.
Tip the waiter directly with cash, even if you pay by card or contactless at the til.
Taxi – I am not sure if this is in the capital or other cities but there are lots of different kind of cabs. In Casablanca there are 2 colours, one for inner city, one for outer city journeys. So need to know which one for your journey before getting in. In Rabat, if the taxi isn’t full, the driver will let in other people on the street if he get flagged down by another passenger and then will negotiate if they are going to the same direction in order to pick up extra fare. It’s like Uber share feature in action. Very confusing at first.
No tipping usually required but the meter do run to more decimal points than I normally have the cash to so they always round it up to the next 10p equivalent.
Watch out for people ripping you off. Try not catch taxi from the taxi rank next to the main stations. Walk a street or so over. Especially if they smell a foreigner. I’ve paid £8 for a 15min taxi, which in the UK seems cheap but over there, it’s £2 max. I guess it is hard to know unless you’ve done it a few times with this one.
Crossing the roads…
Need to watch out for drivers, they should stop but they don’t seem to have driving codes. People cut in everywhere and anywhere. As a pedestrian, if you are crossing the road, you really need to watch the traffic, some crossings have no lights at all and expect you to play real-life Frogger. Not as intense as Vietnam but still a lot more chaotic than Europe.
The cafes are their pubs, where you can watch football.
Back to not getting ripped off, it seems bribes are like an unwritten rule. Went to the largest mosque and saw there were barriers and was closed for visitors until next prayer time. There was a security guard trying to get us to pay him to let us in until it is officially open. £5 for my friends who are local and £7 for me. When we know it is free anyway, we can see other people walking around on the grounds 30 meters away.
Things I’ve learned.
Tipping – Tipping is welcomed but there are ways to do it.
At restaurants, a waiter will serve you and when you ask for the bill, he will bring it over. You pay him what it is on the bill, when you get the change, then only after that you give him the tip directly. You don’t take the bill up to the till inside to pay. If you do, the waiter, for some reason, need to also be there. I think it’s all to do with commission.
Saw an American lady asking the lady at the till to add 10% to the total and they were so confused.
In average, £2 is normally more than enough. £2 there is a paper note and most people tip in coins so that is max a £1 value or so.
Tip the waiter directly with cash, even if you pay by card or contactless at the til.
Taxi – I am not sure if this is in the capital or other cities but there are lots of different kind of cabs. In Casablanca there are 2 colours, one for inner city, one for outer city journeys. So need to know which one for your journey before getting in. In Rabat, if the taxi isn’t full, the driver will let in other people on the street if he get flagged down by another passenger and then will negotiate if they are going to the same direction in order to pick up extra fare. It’s like Uber share feature in action. Very confusing at first.
No tipping usually required but the meter do run to more decimal points than I normally have the cash to so they always round it up to the next 10p equivalent.
Watch out for people ripping you off. Try not catch taxi from the taxi rank next to the main stations. Walk a street or so over. Especially if they smell a foreigner. I’ve paid £8 for a 15min taxi, which in the UK seems cheap but over there, it’s £2 max. I guess it is hard to know unless you’ve done it a few times with this one.
Crossing the roads…
Need to watch out for drivers, they should stop but they don’t seem to have driving codes. People cut in everywhere and anywhere. As a pedestrian, if you are crossing the road, you really need to watch the traffic, some crossings have no lights at all and expect you to play real-life Frogger. Not as intense as Vietnam but still a lot more chaotic than Europe.
The cafes are their pubs, where you can watch football.
Back to not getting ripped off, it seems bribes are like an unwritten rule. Went to the largest mosque and saw there were barriers and was closed for visitors until next prayer time. There was a security guard trying to get us to pay him to let us in until it is officially open. £5 for my friends who are local and £7 for me. When we know it is free anyway, we can see other people walking around on the grounds 30 meters away.
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