Sunday, January 4, 2009

fijian-taxi

well, i have decided that new york taxi drivers have nothing on the dudes driving taxis in fiji (personal experience precipitates this realization). first of all, there is no unifying color to make the taxis themselves highly visable (so you can't hail them cause it might me a normal car but they do slow down as they pass you if the don't have a passenger to see if you need a ride, but that's not accurate either because normal people in cars do that as well-very friendly), secondly the roads in fiji are TERRIBLE and full of potholes. the cars and car to road position is the same as englands, and the drivers tend to veer out of their designated road sign to miss potholes large enough t o get lost in, look closer at a cool bush across the road, play chicken with an oncoming dumptruck or any number of other possible reasons i could likely come up with. i just took a taxi from outside the airport in votualevu to right near the beach and my driver (in an unmarked car of course) almost hit me when he picked me up and then scratched his nose and almost went into a ditch. it was the height of excitement really...

3 comments:

  1. That slowing down thing doesn't sound friendly so much as creepy. *narrows eyes* I'm not sure about this "Fiji" place. Seems suspicious.

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  2. ha that sounds terrifying. when i was in jamaica the taxi drivers used to smoke pot while driving and then pop open red stripes and when we would say "ummm....what are you doing?" they would just say, "oh i'm sorry, how rude, you want a beer too?" it was pretty surreal. anyways, it sounds like you are off to a magnificent start! you are missed already!

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  3. when we arrived in Crete off the overnight ferry my friend & I found a taxi, and as we climbed in three other people climbed in too, which was protocol, turns out (and very crowded): you share the taxi, and if you get out while others are still there you hand them some random amount of money that should cover your portion of the trip...

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