20 September 2007

i was reading an article on the turkish daily news site today and thought you all would be interested. this article was actually about istanbul, but it is similar to ankara. this part is talking about the dolmuş which i ride basically every day.

"For public transport, Istanbul has some unusual options, including cheap and ubiquitous ferries. The "I'm full" Dolmuş taxis are an interesting concept: Faster than the bus and cheaper than the taxi, it is a communal van that does a roughly predefined circuit of the city. You get on by flagging it down and get off by shouting at the driver. To pay, people pass money forwards through the van, which the driver finally receives. He does some quick calculations and counts out change whilst navigating the city traffic (often simultaneously smoking a cigarette and yelling into his phone), which he then passes back to the passenger. Multi-tasking is an important skill for drivers in Istanbul. It's just a great pity that they sometimes suffer “system crashes” that nearly result in real crashes, such as the time a driver took his eyes off the road to light his cigarette and nearly drifted into the back of a stationary car: To calm his shot nerves, he sucked his cigarette down to the butt in one long drag. "
İ pretty much hate the dolmuş.

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