The Cab Rides!

And while I am on strange things... cannot not talk about my experience with the cabbies. Firstly, they drive like complete man-i-aa-cs! And this coming from someone who braves Delhi drivers is saying a lot! But getting back to these cab drivers, all of them would have probably qualified for formula one racing... and probably have held the record for the most number of crashes!

The background to the points ahead: how I've been 'communicating' with the cabbies so far is through this paper which has the address of the hotel and the office printed in Chinese. So I just sit in the cab and point to the address.

• This was on my second day here. I did the whole routine of get in and point and we had a smooth ride to the office. Just as we were pulling in, the guy started to say something in Mandarin to me. He was waving his arms and talking extremely passionately about whatever he was saying. I kept shaking my head and saying "No Chinese, only English", but he would just not stop! Five minutes of doing this, he gives me this angelic smile and then drives off!

• The second one took craziness to new levels! This was on a Friday evening when it was pouring like crazy, and there was a huge demand for cabs. Normally, all cabs in China are metered but this guy that I got after a lot of waiting demanded a pre-fixed price which was almost double of what I normally pay. Just wanting to get back to the hotel, I agreed and got in. Little did i know, I forgot to add 'in one piece' to my wish of getting back to the hotel! The guy took off in a direction opposite to where I had to go. I tried to tell him but he happily ignored me and then moved on. He spent the next half an hour in the same area, stopping everytime he saw a pedestrian asking them where they wanted to go...completely ignoring the passenger on the back seat. Then, when they would tell him, he would break into a rant, yell at them for something... and drive off to the next one. Two people did get in to the cab at some point, but barely had we moved 10 feet when one of them got into a huge fight with the driver, and they got off. He in turn, started spewing some, what I imagine, very very bad words. It's a pity I couldn't catch anything he said - there went my chance of learning some local swear words!! Annyway, after a lot of yelling and shouting at the universe, we went ahead. We did pick up a couple of other passengers along the way, but even after that the guy kept stopping to ask people where they wanted to go. God alone knows where he would have made them sit! Anyway, after a looooong ride, i finally reached the hotel!

• I got into the cab from outside my office and showed the driver the piece of paper with my hotel's address on it. After going a short distance, he asked me something which I obviously couldn't understand, and some minutes of trying later, he let out this really menacing laugh and took off again in some other direction. Before I knew it, he had gone into this area that looked like the back of beyond - it had no roads, was dark, and had lots of warehouse looking places. The only saving grace was that there were cars coming from the other direction. Some many turns and even more prayers later, we hit some road and I made it to the hotel... with the guy laughing menacingly all through!

Sigh! And it's going to be time for another taxi ride soon...