Tim Roxborogh's travel bugs: Awkward room service encounters

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A weekly ode to the joys of moaning about your holiday.

I'm hopeless with room service, mainly because I'm hopeless with tipping. Given room service is traditionally a financial extravagance inconsistent with the health of my bank balance, I always feel guilty when I do it. Then, when the meal arrives I never know how much money to give the hotel staff member who's had the pleasure of wheeling the food into my room. In the States you'll often get a receipt to sign telling you the gratuity has already been calculated for you. So does that mean you don't have to tip? Or you tip less?

And can you ask for change if you only have big bills?

It's a high-stress situation for something you're theoretically doing to de-stress yourself. As in, you've decided that leaving your room in the pursuit of food is just a bridge too far. So an over-priced menu is perused, a phone call is made and for an evening you get to pretend you're rich. If you're like me, you'll also be pretending to feel laidback while you're at it.

Not all my room service experiences have however, been pricey. One in a hotel in Kerala, southern India was for a plate of fried rice and was hardly bank-busting. From memory I was even armed with some appropriate rupees to tip the chappie a gently generous (but not flamboyantly so) amount.

Even though it was only a three-star property, the man who knocked on my door with the fried rice and bonus poppadoms was dressed like some kind of court jester from the Middle Ages. This hotel was certainly enthusiastic with their staff uniforms and good on them. As the jester earnestly went about his business of draping me in napkins and arranging cutlery, I felt awkward at just how much effort he was going to. Finishing his work, he bowed his head and uttered a sentence I've never forgotten: "I hope I enjoy your meal."

"Thank you," I replied with gusto, unsure if his strange pronouncement was due to nerves or language limitations. That said, until writing this column I never considered a third possibility: maybe he did want to dine with me. What if he really did hope to enjoy my meal? I should've invited him. Shame upon me. Not just a lousy tipper.

Stick bins for bush walking

I'm a convert to using sticks when doing any sort of bush walk or hike. Not so much of a convert that I've bought fancy ones from a shop, but enough of a believer that I'll always keep an eye out for an appropriate fallen branch when I'm in the bush.

I've realised that if you're doing a walk where your heart is really going and the joy of being among nature is being tempered by the physical pain you're putting yourself through, sticks help for two reasons: one, they genuinely do improve balance, and two, the simple, rhythmic act of plonking the stick down with each step you take distracts you from the exhaustion.

The problem is finding them. Given I always try to leave my good sticks in an easy to find place for the next walkers after me, what if some handy stick bins were installed?

Sure, it would rob walkers of the jackpot-like feeling you get when you spot the stick God created specifically for your height, weight and hand size lying on the forest floor, but I fear my best stick-spotting days are behind me. Bring on the stick bins!

Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB's The Two and writes the music and travel blog RoxboroghReport.com.