A Taxi or Two

Monday started early in the City of Eternal Spring (Kunming) with a taxi driver who didn’t know the way to the new South Bus Station and ended with in Thailand with one who didn’t know he’d reached my destination.  I wasn’t really in Thailand, the closest borders are with Burma and Laos, but the profusion of Thai architecture, script and elephant motifs means I could be forgiven for imagining I’d left China.  The dominant population is related to the thai people.

The morning’s taxi driver started off well, but soon had second thoughts about the location written on the paper.    Eventually after he’d driven on yet again and I’d dug the map from the bottom of my bag, because I wasn’t going to need it for a while, and  showed him the destination off the map did he decide he was happy and continued in a more purposeful manner.  He was quiet and patient and lasted until the destination before he lit up a cigarette.

The evening’s driver again read the address and decided he knew the location so off we went.   We reached a busy street and he stopped.  He didn’t know where to take me.  The location didn’t coincide with the description on the hostel website so I didn’t look for signs.  He phoned the hostel and told me to wait.  I thought he was waiting for traffic to slow so he could do a U turn when a strange man appeared and told me to go with him.  After I established that the strange man really was from the hostel about 50 metres away I paid the driver and left.  It eventuated that he had taken me to the correct address as the hostel was in a laneway and he had not noticed the signage.

I’ve had drivers have tantrums because they have been forced by a taxi controller to take me places they didn’t know.  One man only stopped complaining in order to start turning a receipt into origami, while driving.  After I became more familiar with Beijing I realised that the location I needed that time was a very well known and easily accessed area.

Another driver was most upset to have his card game interrupted that he refused to drive and walked away from the cab.   I’ve had driver’s refuse to take me when I’ve shown them the location on a map written in Chinese when the distance was not great.  Yet I had one delightful woman happy to take me somewhere and back, based only on sign language and then have a laugh with me when we realised I hadn’t given her the most direct route for the forward journey.

The photos relate to Monday’s bus trip.

These are some of the buses at the Kunming South Bus station  with the station building at the rear.

Lunch which was included in the ticket price. This was provided at a restaurant at one of the stops. The tofu & the zucchini are common.  The college canteen often cooks them.

The bus stopped after several hours driving.  It was   in the middle of nowhere similar to the rest stops on Australian roads.  After the toilets at a previous stop in a town I was glad I didn’t need to visit this one.

We stopped on the outskirts of a city  and the bus attendant, in national dress, attended to some business.

On another occasion we were stopped and a policeman entered and scanned everyone’s identity cards.  He was uninterested in a foreign passport.