Somewhere between hitchiking and Uber

What do you get when you mix hitchhiking with the concept of Uber? You get Central Asian "gypsy cabs."

There are no licensed or official taxi drivers in Central Asia. There are, however gypsy cabs.

The concept is this: you, as a passenger, stand on the side of the street and wave your hand towards the ground. A driver, or rather, any person driving any car, will pull over and ask you where you are going. If they aren't heading in your direction, then you just hail the next one. If they are going in your direction, then you hop in and they ask you how much you wanna pay. You negotiate a price, and then off you go. If you are in Turkmenistan, then maybe you'll just a free ride because they rarely get tourist hailing gypsy cabs and they want to practice their English.

These drivers are usually just fully employed people driving from A to B, and want to make some extra cash. In that way it's like an Uber driver, who chooses when they want to be on duty.

Next time you're driving somewhere and see people waiting at a bus stop or hailing a cab, maybe you can offer a ride and make some extra cash while running your errands.

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