Taxed By Taxi's

Calling a taxi, easy right? Should be. Let me take you to Montevideo. We would dial 141, a computer voice would repeat your address and ask if you wanted a cab dispatched to that address, if so, press one. It would then tell you what taxi was dispatched and how soon it would arrive, usually within three minutes. By two minutes I could look out the window and see the taxi pull up. Get in the taxi, tell the driver where you want to go and the meter starts.

Taxi service Colombo style. There are many taxi companies in Colombo, all with easy phone numbers as well. It pretty much ends there. We call any of the taxi companies and the dispatchers speak English but they don't understand us and we don't understand them. After repeating our address at least five times they will say that a taxi will arrive in about thirty minutes. This really means fourty-five minutes to an hour. So the taxi arrives, usually not where we wanted them to park but arrived nonetheless. They may or may not have a meter. You tell them where you want to go. They'll say they know where it is, but they don't know how to get there so all along the way they will pull over and ask random people how to get to your destination. All the while adding more kilometers to the meter.

Now don't get me wrong. We have had some rare instances of taxi's showing up on time and friendly drivers that take us where we want to go with no problem. But there are rare instances.

The worst part by all means is just trying to get the dispatcher to understand our address.

Book Corner - Finished Reading

The Second Tour by Terry P Rizutti
Paperback
212 pages
War fiction

I stumbled upon this book on Amazon and the reviews seemed good enough so I bought a copy.
I didn't catch the fact that the book was fiction, but the stories are gleaned from the authors own experiences as a Marine during the Vietnam war.

The authors writing style was rather eclectic. The stories were just plain raw. I'd like to say the I enjoyed the book but it was hard to keep up with. Guess you would have to read it to understand.

Book Corner - Finished Reading

Sail by James Patterson and Howard Roughan
Paperback
400 pages
Mystery thriller

Well go figure, another Patterson. The Amazon reviews were right on course for what I would have given it. It was not one of Patterson's better books. You could pretty much figure out the entire book in the first couple of chapters.

Not a good read.