Taxi driver vol.1

I don't like a taxi. I got some reasons. Maybe because I was refused to pick up by taxi drivers just because I was a short distance customer. (You may not make sense but it's always happen at late night in Tokyo in Japan's economic bubble era) Maybe because I was turned off by taxis which occupied station square when I picked up somebody by car. Meanwhile the taxi drivers pulled over their car narrow road side for taking a nap. The fare was extremely high here. Once low-fare taxi came out but the government regulated it later. So after all, I have no good impression for Japan's taxi and taxi driver.
Furthermore, I also had bad experience about taxi abroad. I was cooped up in the over loaded share taxi. An illegal taxi driver who tried to hustle me. I met hundred of bad driver beside never met the kind one.

However I didn't learn from it. Then I take a same mistake. At the airport of Almaty in Kazakhstan. It's around 10:00pm. When I came out from arrival exit, I was surrounded by non-licensed taxi drivers (Although they hung some ID card from the neck). The public bus must be finished at this time. Could not find any ticket taxi around. "Hey, Mr. Taxi? Taxi?" As I moved, the drivers who stuck around me moved together. Well, it's not so late at night. I should have thought carefully. But I was exhausted after the long flight. So I trusted a driver's words "My taxi runs on the meter. No prob"

The Russian driver drove old Toyota. Never smiled, although we made a quite usual conversation between tourist and local people in the beginning.
However his small talk was getting weird. "Consumers price is really high here Kazakhstan. It's hard to make a living. My kids always ask me a money"
A decent person must not talk he is broke to the first met customer. From my experience, it's a bad sign.

The taxi was pulled over at the hotel and he took out a chart of Russian and number from seat side. He glanced it and said "60 Dollars"
"HaHa, Hey no kidding" I said. "60 Bucks for 10km? in Kazakhstan? Come on. Where is the meter, uh?" He pointed an odometer in the speedo. "Hey Mr. Driver. That's a same one to my car. According to travel tips, it must be around 15"

We argued for a while. Suddenly his eyes turned into really serious, the one of Russian mafia. "You got really big problem. If you don't like it. Let's go back to the airport, uh?" Well, it's OK if he would just bring me back to the airport and say Good Bye. But I didn't think so. Maybe he would ask me 120 Dollars for round trip. I tried not to make him exited and ask him discounting to 30. What a humiliation!
I'd better to use a UBER even if it's little bit expensive. Definitely, better than this disgusting experience.

The taxi driver left two negative images in my mind. He made my first impression for Kazakhstan to the worst one. Secondly, my negative image to the taxi driver got worse.
Then I swore that I would not use a taxi any more in this travel.