September 5, 2016

Istanbul Taxi Scam

We spent an awesome day in Istanbul last month on the way to the Conrad Maldives.  We walked from the St. Regis down to the Bosphorus, across the Galata bridge, and up to the Grand Bazaar.

On the way back to the hotel, we were tired and hot after all the walking.  We decided to grab a cab from the base of the Galata bridge to the St. Regis.  We hopped in a cab and I showed the driver the address of the hotel and location on a map.  While he didn't speak much English, he nodded and seemed to know where he was going.

The ride started off fine until we made a right instead of a left (Pro tip:  Google Maps in offline mode is a huge help in these situations).  We were headed in the complete wrong direction.  He turned around and we seemed to be back on track.  We crossed the bridge and we were essentially retracing the steps from our walk earlier in the day.  He pulled over and said "this hotel?" as if to insinuate that we had arrived at our destination.  Nope...we were still 2+ miles away.

I showed him our hotel on the map with directions and he sped off in frustration.  Until we arrived at the Ritz Carlton across the park from the St. Regis.  "This hotel?" he said.

Nope.  "This hotel" both Emily and I pointed to on the map.  "Ahhhhh" was the next response from the driver.  We pulled up to the Hilton still a mile away from our hotel.

We had finally had enough and asked him to pull over so we could get out.  But first we had to sit at a red light...all the while, the meter was running.  The light finally turned green.  We paid the driver and  got out of the cab for the mile walk back to our actual hotel.

All in, the cab cost us $7 USD.  While we certainly could have hopped out of the cab earlier, we honestly weren't sure we were being hustled.  We initially thought the driver was just confused as this is a new hotel but started to become concerned once we headed in the wrong direction a couple of times.  I'm not sure we would have realized what was going on without watching our progress on our phones.

It was a memorable return to the hotel and one we've laughed at more than a handful of times.  I'm glad we made it back to the hotel in one piece (especially in Istanbul).  This is why I prefer trains.

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