Lost in transit

taxi adventures

Mongolian taxis are one of my dangerous indulgences. I don’t often take taxis, especially now that it’s warmer, and the city is so small anyway, but I do almost get run down by them at least once a day. It isn’t much safer on the inside...but always excellent fun.

Ulaanbaatar taxis only cost about twenty cents a kilometre and are worth every togrog. There are green taxis, yellow taxis, red taxis, and then there are the cars that stop for anyone who puts their hand out or even walks slowly by the curb. Late at night if you even look slightly indecisive (or western) you’ll get cars slowing down beside you.

When I first got here, I assumed that all the cars with tatty red flags on their bonnets were for politicians or VIPs, but now I know they’re just all-purpose transport. If you get in one of these at night the driver usually has his girlfriend in the front seat, along for the ride.

Politicians and VIPs have policemen hold up the traffic for twenty minutes before and after they’ve passed through the intersection in their black mercs.

At Christmas all the taxis had tinsel wrapped around their aerials, fairy lights on the dashboards. Unfortunately they also had that god-awful George Michael Christmas song on high rotation.

The first, and often the only, Mongolian expatriates in Ulaanbaatar learn is how to give directions to the taxi driver – chigeeree (straight ahead), zuun tiish (turn left) and baruun tiish (turn right). Occasionally problems arise, because in Mongolian zuun also means east and baruun west.

Ulaanbaatar taxi drivers are some of the most interesting people around, and I usually have amusing conversations with them, using bits of whatever languages we both know. They are also some of the kindest people in town – if I get a taxi home late at night, the driver almost always watches to see I get into my building safely. If you find a reliable driver, you can get his mobile number and have him take you to the train station at 6am on a Sunday, for no extra charge.

But they are total maniacs on the roads, no doubt about it. The roads themselves are horrific; obstacle courses of open manholes, potholes that grow while you watch, and random pieces of metal sticking up out of the ground (all of which were covered over by snow in winter). And then there are the pedestrians. I honestly can’t tell who are more kamikaze, the drivers or the pedestrians. People here just saunter out into the middle of the street – little old ladies link arms, hold up their hands and step into the vortex – and they don’t wait until there’s a gap in the traffic, they just stand in the middle of lanes and dodge between cars. Traffic lights, lane markings, one-way streets – these ideas seem not to fit into the Mongol way of thinking. Having lived in Europe, I was used to looking left instead of right when stepping off the curb, but here you have to look in every direction, including down and behind you. Inherent trust in traffic lights takes a long time to overcome, believe me.

I am now an expert in that potentially gruesome 3D dodgem game of crossing the street, although I’m trying to maintain a certain level of fear. The other day I watched a guy on a dusty brown horse weave through four lanes of screaming metal, his horse more chilled out than I could ever be. Old ladies and brown horses, they’ve got guts here in UB.

My favourite thing about taxis here is the amazing mechanical skills of the drivers. At least four times, I've been in a taxi when a strange noise was heard coming from the engine. The driver gets out, walks around to the front of the car, and kicks the front right tyre a couple of times, gets back in and voila. No more strange noises, problem solved. No kidding - it's always been the front right-hand tyre and the kicking approach always works.

But the only time I’ve really been scared in a taxi here was last week, after I got in and for the first time in history, the driver put on his seatbelt.

Posted by christiane at May 6, 2003 06:19 AM