March 6, 2008
Written by: Susan

Without or without you, I can’t live…..with or without you……….

Ahhhh, yes most of the time it’s associated with some torrid love affair that you really shouldn’t be a part of in the first place. On the contrary, when you’re traveling around the world, it means your relationship with taxi drivers. We can’t live with them and we can’t live without them. Most of the time they are the bane of our existence and just when you think you cannot handle one more taxi driver, the next one happens to be the nicest person you’ve met in the last week.

In Ethiopia, we had a taxi driver overcharge us for a fare but we were willing to pay because it was late and we wanted to get to our hotel. We had already been to Addis Ababa once on our trip so we knew the range of taxi prices around the city. He was charging us 70 Birr for a taxi ride that should have cost more like 40 Birr. But again, it was late and we were willing to pay. So he drops us off at our hotel and Brian hands him 70 Birr. He looks at the money and says “where’s my tip?” At the beginning of our trip, we would have been totally flustered and not known what to do. We would have probably handed over another 10 Birr just because we wouldn’t want to be rude and didn’t know what the customs were in Ethiopia. This night, he picked on the wrong people. Instead of giving him his “tip”, we gave him an earful. About how wrong it was to tell us one price and then try to get more money out of us. About how he shouldn’t ask for a tip. How he had already overcharged us on a ride that should cost half the amount. Etc. etc. In the end, he sulked away….

In Egypt, you curb the whole arguing with taxis about prices by just paying them what you think the amount is. There are no meters and you don’t negotiate (or they’ll definitely screw you). Instead you ask your hotel how much it should cost to get to X destination, hop into a cab, and when you get out hand the taxi driver the money and walk away. Don’t look back, just keep walking as if you know that’s the amount and you’re not paying a cent more. The first time, we made the mistake of pulling the money out in front of the cab driver and of course he asked for more. All the other times though, we made sure we had our money ready, hopped out, and then handed the driver the money. Always remember to get out of the cab before handing the driver the money. That way you can make a quick sprint or pretend like you can’t hear him if he starts yelling at you.

In Thailand, the taxi drivers were the most arrogant and lazy taxi drivers we’d encountered on our entire trip. Not the most devious though. We’ll leave that for Vietnam. In Thailand, they would just refuse to take you anywhere for less than 200 baht (about $6) which is a lot of money for them and for us, especially considering the distances covered. They would refuse to use the meter and if given the choice, would rather hang around with the 30 other taxi drivers waiting for the perfect prey where the could get their $6 fare for driving you 5 minutes away. The only way to get around this was by going to a hotel where the hotels mandate that they use the meter.

When we first arrived in Bangkok, we were with our friend Marni and a friend we’d met in Nepal. They have taxi stands outside the airport that charge you $30 to get into the city. Most people pay because it looks official and everybody else is doing it. We ask for the meter. Arguing ensues and the taxi stand guy shoves us toward one of the waiting cabs. Of course the driver is pissed that we request the meter and swears at us in Thai the whole 30 minute ride into town. Welcome to Thailand. We think it’s funny because we don’t understand a word he’s saying except we’re pretty sure it’s not nice and he keeps glaring at us. But hey, it ended up being a 200 baht ($6) ride instead of the $30 they wanted to charge us.

On our last night in Bangkok, we had tried to flag down at least 5 cabs, all of whom refused to take us to our hotel (about a 100 baht ride) for less than 300 baht. Totally frustrated and at the end of my nerve, I declared to Brian that I was going to get in the next cab no matter what and just force them to use the meter or raise holy hell outside the cab in front of everybody. I was ready for war! Of course, when you’re ready for war sometimes it never comes. The next cab pulled up and I hopped in ready for a fight. Instead we were engulfed in the sweet smell of gardenia and a nice clean cab with fluffy velour seats. It was like stepping into a spa. The driver was a sweet lady who used the meter without us having to ask and drove us to our destination without giving us a courtesy tour of Bangkok. We, of course, hired her to take us to the airport the next day and gave her a big tip just for being the only decent taxi driver in Bangkok.

Vietnam takes the cake in the whole taxi drama. Actually, we never had problems with taxis in Ho Chi Minh City and got around quite pleasantly. In Hanoi though we would run into a different story……………we’d heard horror stories and were ready to battle when we got off the train. Our hotel even told us that a taxi should only cost $3 from the train station to our hotel. We took a deep breath and entered into the madness of the Hanoi train station. The key is to walk away from the tourist area and pick a cab who doesn’t look like a cheetah who hasn’t eaten in a week. Still hesitant, we got into the cab with our fists ready. Of course, he turned out to be an incredible decent taxi driver and the ride only costs us $2. Our guard was down.

The next day we had to go the Chinese embassy to get our visas for China. None of the cab drivers knew where it was although we had showed them on a map where we wanted to go. One driver comes running up to us saying he knows where it is. We should have been suspicious but we really needed to get there and start the process. So we hopped in. All was well until the last 10 minutes of the drive and I watched the meter as it kept clicking up. The strange thing was that we were at a red stoplight. How weird I thought. Since we didn’t know how far the Chinese Embassy was, we really didn’t have a gauge for how much a ride should cost. So we handed over the 100,000 dong ($6) that was on the meter. When we got out, Brian says to me “I think that meter was rigged”.  Hindsight, as always, is 20/20 (20/15 in Brian’s case after his laser eye surgery!)  

So the next day, my mom comes into town and we take a cab back to the embassy. 5 minutes into the ride, we see the meter clicking up very rapidly. Rigged! We told the cab driver to stop the vehicle and got out. We paid him the amount on the meter (which we really shouldn’t have done) and hailed another cab that “looked” honest. All was well and we got to the embassy with our wallets still intact. On our way back to our hotel, we hailed another cab. This time we were watching the meter like a hawk. Since my mom is with us, Brian is sitting in the front seat. He’s watching the driver. Typically, the passengers can’t see what the driver does because they’re normally in the back. All of a sudden, Brian goes “I know how they do it”. This taxi is rigged! We had already agreed that if we got into another taxi that was rigged that we just wouldn’t pay them. Brian goes “we’ll get out when we know where we are.” Then he says to the guy “What’s that?” and points to the guy’s belt where he has a button that controls the meter on the taxi. Guy plays dumb, smiles and pretends like he doesn’t know what Brian is asking.

So Brian reaches over and starts pushing the button on the guy’s belt and keeps going “what’s that? What’s that? What’s that”. He keeps pushing it and we just keep watching the meter roll up – it was like watching the progessive roll at the slots in Vegas – we were mesmerized.  Bingo – we’d caught him! Brian tells him to pull over and the guy is practically crapping his pants by now because knows he’s been caught. I know you all think Brian is such a nice sweet guy but he can be a totally merciless jerk when he needs to be. It’s one of the “skills” he’s acquired on this round the world trip. So the cabbie stops and we all hop out – me slamming the door as hard as I can (that’s my contribution to all of this!) and the cab speeds away. He didn’t even bother asking us to pay for part of the ride (not that we would).

So Brian is the hero of the day and now that we know how they do it, we want to hop into every cab in Hanoi and bust all those bastards who are overcharging the tourists.

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