u/istanbul_tips

Last night I was in Karaköy with some friends and stayed out way too late. Normally I use the metro/ferries everywhere and it’s been completely fine, but it was like 1am, I was exhausted, phone on 12%, and just wanted to get back to my Airbnb near Taksim. Big mistake.

The second I got in the taxi the guy looked at me through the mirror and asked where I’m from. The moment I answered he suddenly starts tapping the meter and going “broken broken”.

At that point I already knew I was probably cooked but I was tired and didn’t feel like standing on the street arguing with taxi drivers at 1 in the morning.

So I ask him roughly how much and he does that classic vague hand gesture like “don’t worry”.

5 minutes into the ride I notice we’re moving insanely slow. No traffic, empty roads, but somehow this guy keeps taking random turns and side streets. I check Google Maps and we’re literally going farther away from my Airbnb 💀

Then he starts pretending not to understand me every time I point at the map.

The weirdest part was the atmosphere in the car. He kept sighing dramatically, talking loudly on the phone, speeding up randomly, then going super slow again. Felt like he was trying to stress me out on purpose so I’d stop questioning anything.

When we finally arrived he turns around and says “2800 lira”.

I actually laughed because I thought he meant 800 at first.

Then he just stared at me completely serious.

I told him there’s no way a 10-15 minute ride costs that much and suddenly his whole attitude changed. Started raising his voice, pointing at the “broken” meter, talking super aggressively in Turkish.

For a second I genuinely thought he was not gonna let me leave until I paid.

Ended up giving him way too much money just because I wanted to get out of the car and be done with it. Walked into my Airbnb pissed off at myself for falling for it.

What’s funny is today I told this story to a guy working at a café and he goes “welcome to Istanbul taxis” without even looking surprised 😭

Another local overheard us and started telling his own taxi horror story.

That’s the crazy part. EVERYONE here seems to hate them. Tourists, expats, locals… doesn’t matter.

Still absolutely love Istanbul though. Food is incredible, people have mostly been super nice, the city feels alive 24/7 and I already know I’ll come back.

But holy shit the taxi mafia reputation is starting to make sense.

Is this just considered normal here now?

Hi, I am 7 weeks pregnant and planning for my first checkup in Istanbul, can anyone guide who has been living here and know a good gynac and hospital who can speaks english and be gentle with patients?