On our way to meet Christian and Helen for the last time (for real this time), pip and I were reminded of how crazy the driving here in Shanghai is. If you've ever watched a Lethal Weapon type movie, where there's a car chase and the cops are weaving through traffic, persuing the bad guys, this is what this taxi ride felt like. Very fast and rather scary.
Driving around in a taxi is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.. Imagine 19 million people ALL driving like 17 year old male P-platers. Total fucking Chaos. Or so it seem to the casual outside observer. It is so the quick or the dead in this place, either get into that small gap in front of me or get fucked. Being in the front seat of the taxi is also quick disconcerting. Your seated in a place usually reserved for controlling the vehicle, but because it's all left hand drive here, you feel strangely in control but not. You know that feeling when you're leaning on a chair and you think it's about to tip but it doesn't or looking over the side of a cliff, knowing full well you are safe, but getting a nasty case of vertigo? Well, that's what riding shotgun in one of these modded VW Santanas is like.
Driving around in a taxi is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.. Imagine 19 million people ALL driving like 17 year old male P-platers. Total fucking Chaos. Or so it seem to the casual outside observer. It is so the quick or the dead in this place, either get into that small gap in front of me or get fucked. Being in the front seat of the taxi is also quick disconcerting. Your seated in a place usually reserved for controlling the vehicle, but because it's all left hand drive here, you feel strangely in control but not. You know that feeling when you're leaning on a chair and you think it's about to tip but it doesn't or looking over the side of a cliff, knowing full well you are safe, but getting a nasty case of vertigo? Well, that's what riding shotgun in one of these modded VW Santanas is like.
1 comment:
i imagine it isn't so different to being on a tuk-tuk in thailand. but the tuk-tuk is pretty damn scary as it's a three-wheeled motorbike with a damn rickety seat and roof tacked on the back. you get all the beutiful CO2 you can handle at no extra cost. but it's all cultural damn it and that's what we were there for.
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