Mr. Cab Driver

As opposed to Europe where one must either show extensive leg or cleavage (in case of a girl) or throw oneself in the middle of the road (for a man) to get a taxi, in South America the Taxi drivers are positively aggressive in getting your custom (if you appear to be a gringo). Walking by a taxi rank is the equivalent of a half naked lady walking by a building site - you get whistled at, shouted at and basically terrorised. If you stop walking curb side, deliberate for a second and look any way confused (which admittedly I do far too often), a taxi will pull up beside you within seconds. If you happen to have a Lonely Planet in your hand at the same time, then they will nearly drag you into the taxi. Yesterday I was standing on a main road at a zebra crossing waiting for the little green man with 30 Brazilians around me and a taxi driver stops in front of us all, rolls down his window and says "Taxi?" expectantly.

Idiots.

I have always harboured a deep dislike for taxi drivers, pratically all around the world they are crooks, conmen or just have no clue...
In Prague I once hailed a cab, got in and told the driver where I wanted to go. He nodded and headed off straight ahead, after a couple of kms, he turned right followed by another right soon after, then straight ahead for a couple of kms and he let me out. Yes, I was basically one block away from where I started and had to pay about 30 Kopecs for the pleasure.
In Malaysia they refuse to turn on the meter and are difficult bastards to bargain with. Once I got the guy down from 5 dollars to 2 dollars for a trip to the bus station, so not knowing where the station was, I thought I had a bargain. The driver nearly just pushed the car there - it was less than 1 km away... Sucker. He even grinned at me when I handed over the money.
In Singapore, one of the smallest cities in the world, I asked the driver to take me to a large (and presumably well known) hotel where I was meeting someone. The driver had never heard of the hotel and proceeded to drive all around the world for sport looking for it. I suggested he ask somebody on the street, so we played a round of "ask the locals" and on the second attempt found a bloody ex-pat (of all people) who directed us to it.
In Vietnam if you ask a taxi driver to take you to a certain hotel, he will invariably tell you it a) is terrible, b) is full of prostitutes, c) is closed, d) has burned down, e) doesnīt exist or f) has been zapped by a WMD. If you insist he will probably take you there, but on the way will stop by his brotherīs hotel which of course is nicer, cleaner, cheaper, friendlier etc. etc. If you still insist on going to your original hotel the driver will pull a face and grumble like a troll for the rest of the journey.
In Munich I once had a meeting and not much time so I jumped in the cab and told him where I wanted to go. The driver growled at me in deepest Bavarian and told me to basically "walk you lazy fuck". It was two blocks away and my custom wasnīt good enough for him.
In Dublin due to licensing laws there was a chronic shortage of taxis up until recently. Of course the taxi drivers were very happy about this and campaigned bitterly against issuing more licences. At night people would wait (due to Dublinīs excellent public transport) for hours at the main taxi ranks. At Christmas there were stories of people waiting 3/4 hours for a taxi. One night I got so pissed off I walked the 8km home.

So as a mini-revenge against taxi drivers I have perfected a new sport which I have entitled "Taxi Baiting". It involves standing on main streets looking confused (easy) and waiting for one to come by. When he stops and rolls down his window you look at him for a while, look at the taxi (getting his hopes up all the time) look in a certain direction, wait a couple of seconds and then finally say "eh, Noo.". They normally harrumph and speed off disgruntedly. Last night I managed to get 6 hits within the short walk home from a bar to my hostel.

Ah, the simple pleasures in life.