I don't generally write posts like this. Stuff happens. You get over it.

But we were overcharged so egregiously in a Yerevan taxi today that I thought a little post might help others avoid the same situation.

Background:

The best way to get a taxi in Armenia is to use Yandex (or one of the other ride-hailing apps).

As there's no public transport to the Armenian Genocide Museum, and it's not an epic walk, we ordered a Yandex cab, which delivered us up there for AMD 400 (he was a nice guy, and we rounded it up to AMD 500).

Coming back, we couldn't do the same thing, because we don't have mobile internet. We approached one of the drivers in the carpark, and he quoted us AMD 2,000. A bit of a difference...

Surely too steep, we thought. We queried the price, and received the sniffy reply: "This is not Yandex."

No, indeed...

At this point, we reverted to Plan B, which was to make our way to the mall (admittedly a reasonable walk away), have lunch at a place that had wifi, and organize a Yandex pick-up from there.

So we set off down the road. A taxi coming up the hill stopped to ask if we wanted a ride. "Do you have a meter?" we asked. "Yes," he says.

In we get. We check the meter is set.

So we've ticked the key box I'd read about with regard to Yerevan off-the-street taxis: make sure they have a meter, and are using it.

The meter was situated such that you had to kind of look round the front seats to see it. As we approached the river, I noticed it was already on AMD 1,500, and commented ruefully to Nigel that we were likely going to end up paying what the guy at the museum had asked for...

Even then we didn't realize quite how fast the meter was running.

When it reached AMD 4,000 (MYR 35, or GBP 7 -- 10 times what we'd had to pay on the way up, and twice what we'd been asked for on the way down), we stopped the taxi, and got out. I remarked that it was very expensive. The driver mumbled something.

But, unwilling to have a full-scale argument (where language would also be a problem), we paid.

What we completely failed to do was note the guy's ID and car registration, or get a receipt...

If we hadn't been so gormless, at the very least we could have asked at our hotel whether there was any way to make a complaint.

Hence the post. Try not to get caught in a taxi with a rigged meter (though it's pretty hard to know in advance). And if you are:

1. Be alert, and be prepared to get out sooner than we did.
2. Note the details of the cab.
3. Ask for a receipt.

OK, so this is not a vast quantity of money in the great scheme of things.

But it does leave a bitter taste. Never, in all our years and miles of travelling, have we encountered the rigged-meter scam. So this "first" is definitely likely to linger on in our memories of Yerevan. And it all goes to show why ride-hailing apps have become so popular the world over...

On the other hand, it's really important not to let these irritations colour your impression of an entire city or country. And we're trying hard not to let that happen.

So, in a word: come to Yerevan, which has many fine attributes, but be ultra-careful when you ride a taxi!