And this is about taxis. We arrived in Irkutsk in the morning of Monday, 8th. Left the big suitcases at the station, since it would have been unpractical to lug them to lake Baikal, we tried to find the best way to get to the bus station. As usual a flock of taxi drivers approached us offering their service. Nothing strange till here. And also nothing strange when the one we chose asked us an impossible price (350 Rub). Now, maybe because of my Italian origin, I was expecting that we could have negotiated and settled for some less indecent form of rip off (we are tourists after all and no surprise if we have to pay the tourist tax). So Susanne goes “200”. And the guy? Well, you would have expected him to go like “impossible” or “300”. After all it’s money, isn’t it? and no, there were twenty more taxis and no people around. And what does he say? “Take the tram”. Seriously. “Take the tram”. And he goes back to chat with the other drivers spitting on the ground. In case you wonder, yes we took the tram that brought there for 20 Rub (we got fined on that very tram for 200 Rub, but that’s another story).
As usual thanks for all these very interesting news.
Finally some more life signs. I become already a bit nervous that you may have met the bear …
Take care, Stephan.
really a good story, Domenico and a bit unbelievable that the driver not agreed.
Johannes
hilarious story…
so did the driver speak for all other drivers??
Another example of business like this happened to an Austrian aquaintance at the Airport in Moscow. Someone offers to carry his luggage to the minibus. Arrived there, he asks for 50$ (!!). To which the Austrian naturally replies whether he is crazy and offers him 10$ instead (which was still about 10 times too much). This, the luggage carrier does not accept and walks away without any money. One really wonders wha they are thinking…..