a pink hatted taximan

I thought I should write a block as an ode to the most lovely taxi driver in Kathmandu. On the whole you get into taxis and they smell, are covered in a selection of stickers that usually include Hindu gods, bollywood stars, Britney and Avril Lavine stickers. Then the driver storms off at top speed and proceeds to try and rip you off for the privilege of a near death experience in his bashed up piece of metal - that would never pass for a car in the UK.

Not however my lovely pink hated taxi driver. If I have to get a taxi to work in the mornings he is always around, so whilst my usual ‘drivers’ have been on holiday I have been getting a few taxis and have become more and more amused by this lovely taximan!

Firstly the pink hat is very cute, and I haven’t seen him without it… then there is his spangly new car – still a Suzuki maruti, but it is new… then there is the fact his meter is very accurate… oh and perhaps because the car is new he drives very carefully – this is very unusual in this country… people hooon it around like no ones business.

He is very polite and speaks good English… one time his mobile rang and he actually excused himself before answering it. When he came off the phone he said he had been speaking to his mum who was like his mother, father and best friend all rolled into one!! Another time he started singing a song ‘… lonely I’m so lonely…’ and explained his wife and sons had gone to Darjeeling and he was missing them very much… now this man doesn’t really look 30… but he has 13 and 8 year old sons. He met Anthony whilst he was here and so after the singing of ‘lonely’ he proceeded to commiserate with me that Anthony wasn’t here anymore, and that he wouldn’t be able to be without his wife for such a long period of time…

Other traffic related news is the discovery that here in Nepal if you run someone over and they are injured you are required to pay all of their medical expenses, however if you kill them you just have to pay funeral expenses. Apparently it is a frequent occurrence that drivers who knock someone over but don’t kill them deliberately reverse, or go round and hit them again as funerals are cheaper than medical bills. This almost sounds too horrible to believe, but it really is true.