Where The Hell Are We Going?!?!

Was it stupid of me to assume that a taxi driver, born and raised in this VERY city, would know the whereabouts of different places in said city? Well, yes. It was. Because nine times out of ten, I get dropped off at the wrong place...and more often than not, it's the same guy, mis-taking me around. I can't escape him!

I feel like this is something that would never happen in New York - you could stumble inside any yellow cab at 4 in the morning and drunkenly mumble your address in slurred speech to your driver whose first language probably isn't even English...and yet, he'd get you where you needed to be. Millions will testify to that statement. But in Can Tho, it is quite a different story...

Christine and I have utterly given up on trying to verbally communicate addresses/place names to our drivers. We just show them business cards. Or we type the address/destination name in our cell phone and have them read it. Or we call our friend An. But the part that irks me the MOST is when they nod in agreement, fooling us into believing that they know where we intend on heading...and never follow through with getting us there. We drive around in circles; we full out stop in traffic; and we both look like lost puppies. Well, I look like a mad one...and my driver just looks like an idiot.

Sandwiched in between two massive trucks, seated on the back of the smallest motorbike in Can Tho and being suffocated by my helmet strap, I was furious today. I got the idiot driver again. This man has fooled me twice before into thinking he has some sense of direction and I reluctantly gave him a third shot. He got me to where I wanted to be, but not without first making three wrong turns, circling the same roundabout twice and looking back once at me for validation. And he also made me ten minutes late for class.

I suppose it's mean to act this way - it's a known fact that most of the drivers are illiterate. Not necessarily something that's their fault. But it's still frustrating. And since I have to depend on them as my cheapest/easiest source of transportation, I may have no other choice but to continue my English lessons outside of class and teach them a thing or two...ha.