runnerwallah

I was recently in Mumbai and went sightseeing with a local friend. One thing I noticed was that oftentimes we paid an amount completely different than what was on the meter. My friend said this was fine (he paid for all the rides anyhow!). A lot of the meters were in the process of being eventually transitioned. Were I travelling alone, I would have thought I was getting ripped off.

I asked him what happens if a driver quotes too high of a rate? He said they should have a card lists how much is really owed based on what the meter says.

Out of the many times we took rickshaws or cabs, the only time the driver tried to rip us off was from BOM domestic! He demanded 100 or 200 rupees more than what was fair.

oliver2002

The meter just shows the distance driven in 'Rs.' The card translates the charge on the meter to the actual you need to pay. This was introduced to avoid recalibrating all the meters everytime the rate changes.

hyho61

A similar thing happened to me 2 years ago. I was transferring from domestic to intl (Kingfisher to AF) and KF flt came late from HYD. The lines for the transfer bus was long and hence KF officials told me to take a taxi.

I got into a taxi and it was after midnight, he went into a dark street and immediately two guys got into the taxi and demanded 200. I thought it was 200 rupees but he wanted 200 USD or else (implied threat). Finally I gave him about 50 USD and got out of the taxi and took an autorickshaw to the intl terminal. I had no time to report to the police since I was already late.

davistev

Hey - I love your outlook on travel. I say this with no pun intended. I spent most of my life living in Asia and Africa and it has changed my outlook from being a young kind back-packer to a seasoned tightwad with a smile. Unfortunately, others around me do not have the same outlook and I often get the "Dad - it is only $10 for the cab ride, lets just grab it for the 3 minute ride to the hotel across the road whine". Or the wife's - "stop being so cheap" and the one I here the most: "he was only trying to be friendly" remark I get when I tell an Egyptian man who comes up to me for no reason and starts acting like I am his best friend and tells me about his brother in Australia and that he wants to know if he can show us around line - to go take a hike!


Wary - you bet. I have seen too much death, scams and fraud over the years to know that it is all becoming endemic. The more travel becomes easier, the more naive travellers hop off planes in Luanda, Kigali, or even Kabul looking for adventure with visions of "Survivor man" in their head. When this happens, people will dig deep into their souls to reach the darkness of humanity and some will do what they can to get anything you have on you off you. I am afraid, my faith in humanity is not positive.

People are getting desperate not because one part of the world has more than another, but because, one part of the world flaunts it without even knowing it, while the other half knows of a world they can never get to as they live in corrupt societies.