Wednesday, September 24, 2008

An Endangered Vehicle - Taxi in KL?


Spoilt with public transport convenience in Hong Kong, I wasn't thrilled when faced with the challenge to find taxis during my recent trip to KL. Even from famous places such as major shopping malls and KL Sentral station, I had to wait for more than 40 minutes to get a taxi.

The queue gets longer and longer, and even when there's one taxi stopping by the stand, which was really rare, the driver generally refused to take you to your destination, due to the jam. Even when there are taxi pools, you'll probably have to bargain and agree on the price in advance, as most drivers won't take you based on the meter charges.

Although I haven't complained about it previously, by no means it is something new. I am from Indonesia, a country with not much less notorious taxi reputation in South East Asia. Stories of violent drivers who might just bring you to the pier and sell your kidneys or rob you blind were not even a surprise. Thank God the taxi experience got better in Indonesia. It is now mostly cases of drivers who pretend to be nice and offering endless polite apologies when caught going round and round, extending your 5 minutes journey to a 3 hours ride ^_^

4 comments:

Sue said...

public transport in Malaysia is sucks! have to depend on private car, i think our government is trying to sell their national cars,if they improve the public transportation,who's going to buy their cars...wahahaha my personal opinion la :)

CECIL said...

Oh, your notes about Indonesian taxi just cracks me up. :D Sad but oh so true. Whenever I visited KL, I tried to stay around the area with monorail, though I've seen that kind of long line for taxi. Scary!

TNS said...

the taxi is for show only

Wibowo Kosasih said...

Taxi in Indonesia is way better now.
Visiting SQ and KL, make me feel that Indonesia is not so bad afterall.

Jakarta seems like outcast brother in SEA. But Jakarta is great with all its magnificent mall (Some even bigger and better than SQ or KL). The price is also lower here, compare to others Brothers (SQ and KL).

One thing that make Jakarta is unbearable is Traffic Jam and Air Pollution.