Taxis tend to be the best way to travel around Hanoi. Firstly, they are very cheap. If I ever take a taxi to school, the 10-15 minute drive usually costs around 60,000VND (equivalent to about US$3). And this price has increased massively since I first came when it would cost 30,000VND (about US$1.50). Yet this is way less than a taxi would cost in places like New York City or Washington, D.C. In addition to being cheap, they are also everywhere! All you have to do is go onto a main road and lift up your hand when you see a car with a taxi sign on top. There are so many that, usually, 2 out of 3 times there will be a empty taxi stopping for you in the first two minutes of waiting. They are usually quite open to taking people around, excluding the drivers asleep in their car that shake their heads when you ask them for a ride. Finally, being in a taxi is one of the safest places you can be on the streets of Vietnam, aside from trucks and busses.
As you can see in this table, when a car is in an accident, the number of people injured or killed compared to the number of people who are unscathed is much lower than the number of people who are killed in motorbike, bicycle, and pedestrian accidents.
At this point, Taxis may seem like heaven. However, there are some factors you need to consider in order to continue being safe-- and not cheated-- in a taxi. The first thing that is important to know is the "legit" taxi companies and the "cheating" taxi companies. The most reliable taxi companies are Hanoi Taxi, Mai Linh Taxi, Van Xuan Taxi, Hanoitourist Taxi, and Hanoi CP Taxi. Noi Bai and Airport Taxi is good as well, as they take you to the airport and there is usually a fixed price (2).
Some of these taxi drivers can be very tricky, especially when they are not legit taxis. One example is recently, when a taxi driver cheated two Japanese people out of more than US$360, and around the same time, two singaporeans were charged US$285 for only 10km (3).
A friend of my mom was visiting us and she had to catch a bus downtown for a trip to Sa Pa. She was running late, and the taxi driver could obviously see her rush, and he made the meter run very fast, causing her to pay about 4 times as much as what she would have to pay normally. He locked her in and said that she couldn’t go until she gave him the money. Since she was in a hurry, she had no choice but to pay.
Another way taxis attempt to get more of your loot is by taking you on a long, unwanted detour when going to your destination. Hanoi has many streets and many alleyways, and there are often multiple ways of arriving to a destination. Taxi drivers will deliberately go a way that could take 10-20 minutes longer, resulting in a farther distance and more money on the meter. If you know the city well, you can direct them yourself and not allow them to go a longer way, however sometimes they refuse, saying that there is traffic on the shorter way or that it is actually longer (1).
Another thing to consider in taxis is that a majority of them (at least the ones I've been in) either have no seatbelt or they keep the belt stuck behind the seat so that it cannot be used. Some taxi drivers act just as many of the other vehicle drivers in Vietnam act: going the wrong way, swerving, speeding, etc. Not wearing a seatbelt in these situations could be potentially very dangerous because of this. Just the other day, the driver of the taxi I was in attempted to squeeze into a tiny space between a car and a bus as the bus was attempting to turn the other way, and it banged against the side of the taxi. The taxi driver wasn’t so much concerned about me as he ran outside to check the damage done to his car.
Works Cited
1."By Taxi." Wikitravel. N.p., 16 Dec. 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2011.
2."Hanoi Tips." Hanoi Travel Now. N.p., 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2011.
3."Two apprehended for allegedly cheating Japanese in Hanoi ." Thanh Nien News 05 November. 2011. . 17 December. 2011 <http://www.thanhniennews.com/2010/Pages/20111105-Two-apprehended-for-allegedly-cheating-Japanese-in-Hanoi.aspx>.
Great photos!
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