On Thursday when I went to school I noticed that there was a lot of traffic, so when we got in the taxi the driver asked me if he should take an alternative route because the traffic might better. I said that he could choose since he probably knew better than me, and we managed to understand each other even if we didn't speak each others language.
As we were driving it was clear that traffic was bad everywhere, but it didn't bother me, especially since it was a beautiful spring day and we were driving along the Bosphorus. The fact that this was one of the first really nice spring days might have been the reason for the heavy traffic, but living in Istanbul you cannot let the traffic issue bother you.
The unexpected part of this story happened when we finally arrived at our home. The taximeter showed almost 14 Turkish Lira, and there is nothing outrageous about that. To me it seems as if the taximeters here only run on distance, not time, so if you are stuck in traffic it is the driver who suffers the most.
As I was taking out my money to pay the driver, he told me that I only had to pay him 11 TL because the traffic had been so bad. "Do you really mean that?" I said, and he answered "Absolutely!" Again this was spoken in gestures and syllables. "OK", I thought and gave him 12 TL so he at least got a little tip, but "No, no, 11 lira!", he insisted. I didn't have a chance, so I paid what he asked and left the taxi in astonishment.
Of course there are taxi drivers in Istanbul who do the opposite, and try to scam a foreigner, but would you find a young taxi driver charge less because of bad traffic, other places than Istanbul?
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