Bucharest is a wonderful City. The Taxies however not so much.
After a bone breaking ride from Sofia to Bucharest by minibus with no shock absorbers trough the night, I arrived in a ploughed field outside Bucharest in the middle of the morning. My options where limited. Two taxi drivers where waiting. You just know this is not going to be good. I did get him to use the meter. But of cause with a tax of 17 Lei instead of 1,39. This is just an example.
As I figured out it is the tariff on the metre that is the real deal breaker.
Above is seen a meter. This meter is completely legal. There is two tariff. One for driving and one for waiting in queue. (It happens :o)) This means that there is no Sunday afternoon tariff and no other kind of extras. If the driving tariff is not 1,39 Lei or there about. Something is fishy. Do not take anything for granted. Everything can be faked. I was told by a local, that an indications could be found on the side of the taxi as shown. If the data of the orange plate is outdated, it is definitely a pirate. The above picture is of cause of a legal one. It seems to me just a little bit to easy to falsified. And I know that when you see the meter, it is to late.
This leads me to the wonderful world of mobile data. You can of cause use your mobile phone to access a maps and here it is easy to see how many kilometres there are to your destination. Gives a rough estimate of how much the faire will be. Gives a bit of leverage.
Bucharest is a wonderful city to get lost in. And when you want to go home taxies are very cheap and available. It is possible to get taxi with apps. or just phone them to avoid the hassle.
I kind of like the rascal’s. It is just like putting your wit up against theirs and loosing. It is only a question how much.
When succeeding in getting a 1.39 Lei Taxi, I think it is important to tip. It is really not a question of survival. It is in the end of the day it is only money.