Taxing.

I wanted to scoot.

Hanoi, Vietnam – Generally even-keeled, I knew I shouldn’t be annoyed.

And yet, as the taxi driver, crawling at 20 km/h, drew his eyes to the pulsating blue dot on his phone to find where he was, I felt the red rise to my face. This is a city known for taxi scams.

He was lost in the matrix of his Samsung Galaxy, as opposed to the maze of the old quarter. He didn't even offer so much as a single punch of the horn as bicycles pulled alongside. In my experience, that's unheard of.

Being dropped off a block away from my destination in rain that drove harder than he did did nothing to unfurrow my brow, especially when he had no change to offer.

“Oi zoi oi,” as the locals say. Good lord.

Over the past couple weeks, I've obviously become accustomed to the mad rush this city injects into your blood stream. It's not necessarily a good thing.

But I really shouldn’t be annoyed: while nearly double the normal fare, the 100K VND only constituted an extra couple dollars.

And driving a taxi in this city cannot be easy.