Well I shared with you my crazy Bali taxi story in the comments on my post, so I won't fully repeat here. Suffice to say, I share your distrust of the whole racket. Though it did work out well for me in the end, it is not our accustomed way of having expectations of set prices, drivers who take us where we want to go, etc.

That said, as terrible as this issue is in so many places (India being the worst I've experienced) there is something of great value in having our cultural assumptions challenged. In many ways, if you're lucky, while you're in Bali you'll discover your own presumptions by encountering people who all agree on different ones.

Even after a year living there, it was many years after I got back that I started understanding some encounters that had puzzled me at the time. They just didn't fit my worldview. While it's never fun to be confused, I am so much the richer for getting to see those aspects of my thinking that are normally invisible because they are simply assumed. May the path teach you with great delight!