Lessons on Taking a Taxi in Mumbai

Monday, September 11, 2006

At Victoria Terminal in Mumbai, after the exciting train ride from Pune, we were trying to bargain for a reasonable taxi rate back to the hotel. After some haggling, the taxi driver offered to use the meter. He said it might be more expensive because of the traffic jam but I didn't care. I trust the meter more than the driver. So we took the taxi. It turns out that the meter price is cheaper than the fare he offered because there was hardly any jam. I think he was unhappy so he asked for the midnight rate.

(In case you don't know, Mumbai taxis use a meter to calculate the fare but because the meter is so updated that it has not kept up with inflation rates, you need to compare the fare on the meter with a card to see the actual fare. This card has 3 columns. The first one shows the meter fare, the second shows the actual fare and the third shows the actual fare but with a midnight surcharge.)

Anyway, we took the taxi at 9pm so we didn't see why he was charging us the midnight rate. We refused to give him and he still asked for 10 rupees more. Of course we were not going to give him any extra, considering he tried to take advantage of us not once, but twice.

Yesterday, at the domestic airport, we took a taxi back to the hotel. We made sure that the driver would use the meter before we got on the taxi. When we reached the hotel, we asked how much was the fare and he said Rs400 without even looking at the fare card. Zhichao asked to see the card and it turns out the fare was only Rs261. We even had the valet at the hotel to double check for us. The valet confronted the driver and the driver kept saying something about the airport in Hindi. I'm guessing he's trying to say that he gave us a higher price because we came from the airport and that there is a surcharge. The valet just threw the card at him. We paid the driver Rs270 and got off.

Lesson #1: Try to use the meter if you can. It would be cheaper. If not, remember to bargain.

Lesson #2: If you use the meter, make sure you compare the meter fare with the farecard yourself. Never trust the driver on it.

Lesson #3: If you are not sure how to talk to the driver, get someone to help.

Lesson #4: If all else fails, get off the car before paying him.