The moderate yet unmistakable state of heightened anxiety of a lone female foreigner riding in a Dili taxi

It often begins before you even get inside. You start by examining the vehicle as it approaches: black or dark green taxis tend to look dodgier than yellow ones. I am unsure of the reality. Decorative paraphernalia on the windscreen and dashboard can have adverse effects on safety, passenger dignity, or both. If you can hear the music thumping before the car has even stopped, you know you’re in for a wild ride. Spotting even a trace of another human being in the taxi as it approaches warrants complete abandonment of Plan A, due to safety concerns. Them’s the Rules.

Deciding where to sit. The Rules say to never sit in the front. Some Rules dictate that females sit behind the driver, so he can’t see you. This has been tried, but resulted in total paranoia of being within arm’s reach of the driver should he wrap his arm around the back of his seat and grab onto a knee or ankle. Besides, any taxi which has half a dozen decorative paraphernalia of small, convex rear-view mirrors suction-capped to the windscreen can see in fish-eyed detail the upper-torso of whoever is sitting in that seat. I usually go with the back seat on the passenger side.

Next, you check out the driver. I usually start with a “bondia” (good morning) or a “botardi” (good afternoon) as I get in, just to gauge what I’m dealing with and to start on a positive note. I have always found this to be a good strategy; more often than not it has turned a disinterested, tough-guy face into a slightly less disinterested one. It’s important to note that this can also be too successful, especially if the taxi driver thinks you’re hitting on him and the entire trip ends up becoming a massive one-way sleaze fest. This has happened before.

Once you’re settled in your seat, and you’ve given the driver your destination, you sit back, knowing that the following questions are almost certainly going to arise, in this particular order, along with a slightly elevated pulse rate:

Did he understand me when I told him where I was going? (My Tetun can be a bit hit and miss.)

Does he know where he is going? (Many young drivers come to Dili from out of town to work.)

Is he going to demand extra money at the end of the trip? (The Rules say to work out the cost beforehand. I have learnt that doing it “Timorese style” and just getting in and planting $2 in their hand at the end is just as successful... but you never know.)

Why is he going so slowly? (Dili taxis are said to be the slowest taxi drivers in the world. Thankfully, this has the effect of reducing anxiety levels.)

Where the f**k is he going?? (This question arises quite often. Once, in my first few months, it popped up after the driver took a sudden turn down a dirt track and proceeded into a maze of unsealed roads (really just a whole lot of potholes joined together), turning his head and mumbling something vague to me in Tetun. We continued through this labyrinth, and just as I was about to jump out of the slowly moving vehicle and run into the closest house shouting “THIS TAXI DRIVER IS TRYING TO KIDKNAP ME!!!”, I spotted a familiar landmark up ahead. I gave the driver one last chance. We continued to the end of the track, where we turned onto a sealed but traffic-laden road and within a block I was at my destination.)

Can’t he turn that f**king music down? (In some cases I have been totally transformed in a Dili taxi, cruisin’ the streets with all the windows down, my sunnies on and the whole car vibrating to the rumbling bass– I’ve been a biatch-in-da-hood and even a funky reggaton gangsta. And I don’t like it.)

Touch wood, nothing has ever gone seriously wrong for me in a taxi in Dili. Most of the drivers are really very sweet and all they want is to make their money and get on with the next job. Most of them know exactly where they’re going and will take whatever money you give them at the end of the journey without argument. Some of them ask you if it’s ok if they stop off on the way to collect a dollar from an old security guard who didn’t have enough money to pay his fare earlier in the day. Some of them will pick you up late at night and take you home, even though they have already finished work and have picked up their wife and baby, who are sitting in the front seat, at which times it’s ok to break the Rules. Most of them love to have a chat, but are just as happy not to. Most of them have no interest whatsoever in lone female foreigners like me.