Fact: I have the worst sense of direction a human could possibly have. I’m more than capable of getting lost in my hometown, where I have lived my entire life, and getting anywhere is impossible without google maps. In such circumstances, the question of whether to take public transport or a taxi in a foreign country that I’ve never stepped foot in before should be an easy decision. Taxi, hands down.
And yet, I still take public transport every single time. Why? I couldn’t tell you.
Maybe its for the hilarious stories I get to tell later. For example, in London, en route to the place where they shot Sherlock BBC, I ended up leading me and my entire family to a random street nowhere near Camden, where we were supposed to be. Actually, that was all on me. I had the wrong address. The tube was fine.
Better example: in Paris I spent an hour trying to find the RER blue line from the airport station. The fact that I couldn’t understand anything beyond middle school French didn’t really help. After I finally managed to get on the right train, sitting in the sweltering 40 degree weather (the Paris metro doesn’t have AC) I reached my stop, stood up, and waited for the doors to open so I could finally find my hotel and rest. Only, the doors didn’t open. Confused, I looked around. What was going on? Why couldn’t I get out?
Suddenly, the subway started moving again and all I could do was watch as my stop disappeared from view, my frantic protests unheard. It was only a stop later that I realized that I had to push the button on the door for it to open. Embarrassed, tired, and angry that none of the Parisians on the metro had bothered to point that out to me the first time, I got off at the next stop and had to take the opposite metro a stop back.
These are just some of my many public transport horror stories. I haven’t even talked about that time in Japan that I forgot to look up the metro stop that my hotel was closest to and ended up wandering around the Tokyo subway stop for hours on end, searching for someone who spoke English. And despite all of these terrible experiences, I still opt to take public transport instead of a taxi cab. I sometimes imagine how nice it would be to just plop into the back of a cab, tell the driver exactly where I want to go, and sit back and relax while I get taken there, effortlessly.
The reason I do it, I suppose, is for the experience itself. There’s something incredibly humbling about being on the other side of the world, relying on someone else’s directions in a different language to get where you need to go. The kindness of random strangers, the stimulation of a completely different language, and the feeling of being totally, terrifyingly lost, is all a significant part of traveling. I don’t travel to sit at a resort and lounge in comfort – I could do that at home. Well, no I couldn’t, but if I did, it would be cheaper. No, the reason I travel is for experiences such as those that you’ll only find on a foreign subway as a directionally-challenged person. And although I have had my fair share of exhausting, harrowing, frustrating, and idiotic experiences, I have yet to regret turning down a taxi.
Which do you prefer? Public transport or taxi?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
