The most unpleasant task in Jerusalem has turned out to be transportation. It is such a headache! We have taken about 8 cab rides during our time here, and only 1 was normal and without hassle. Better still, each has been bizarrely bad in its own way.
Our first driver spent the entire 25 minute ride essentially exhorting us to purchase his services for all day tours. After selling, hard, he would then say "I only give you ideas, I'm not pushing you to do it." Yeah, right! Oh, and he threw in a nice dollop of sexism on top of his running commentary.
Our second driver refused to use the meter, made up a story about the roads needing him to take us out of the way, and essentially charged us double for a very short ride.
By our third driver, we were more hip to the game and requested the meter be used before we got in. He acted very hurt, saying "I love you, I love you, why do you not trust me." He also said that he needed to go in a roundabout fashion and that's why he would give us a "good price" for not using the meter.
Our fourth ride was short, about 20 meters, as he reneged on his promise to use the meter and then kicked us out of the cab.
Our fifth followed shortly thereafter, and was a variation on the third. Asked to use the meter, he whined the whole way to our hotel about us lumping him in with other dishonest cabbies.
After that, I stopped keeping track. The only good experience was a cabbie that didn't talk who took us home from a downtown (read: local) section of town.
Jerusalem could really serve to get its act together on the cab driver front. It was absolutely no fun to go between locales, and even when we tried to make light of it the situation would get bizarrely tense inside the car. Weird, and not good business, either.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment