All hail the taxi

In rural Vietnam, I take a creeping taxi that stops at a wayside store so the driver can buy cigarettes. In the Cook Islands, a driver trundles to a halt by his sister's garden fence, where we slurp mangoes off her tree before idling onwards.

On the whole, though, I anticipate white-knuckle rides. Taxi drivers from Rome to Santiago drive as if I'm about to give birth on the back seat. Except in Singapore, of course, where a warning beep lets passengers know the driver has surreptitiously edged over the speed limit and subverted the social order.

Climbing into a taxi is an unpredictable experience but, on the whole, I like taxis. It gives me an insight into local habits and the chance to make contact with locals. I've discussed politics, goat's head soup and tango dancing in taxis, and was once scolded in Amman for not being married.

The taxi experience in Tokyo is a marvel. There are taxis that specialise in transporting pets, others with wide doors for brides in wedding gowns. Tokyo taxis forgo lights on their roofs and make do with red and green paddles that pop up on their dashboard; a red paddle confusingly means the cab is available. There are so many different companies that you're practically paid to climb aboard. The back door flies open on a lever, something that never fails to startle me, and occasionally bruises my shins as I advance unwittingly towards the handle.

Immaculate drivers in white gloves seldom speak English but keep tidy interiors, drive cautiously, and are apologetic in traffic jams. I was once refunded part of the fare because of the delay. Tips are declined.

In New York, on the other hand, I've almost been punched by irate drivers who consider their tip too stingy. Fifteen per cent of the fare is expected, even though the New York taxi experience is among the worst in the uncivilised world. For a start, I can't climb into the front seat for fear the driver will pull a gun on the assumption I'm about to mug him. I have to hunker in the rear behind bars, like an unruly gibbon in a cage. New York's cabs are generally hot, shabby and dirty. Armenian and Afghani drivers, who might be interesting, can scarcely speak English. Brooklyn and Bronx drivers can speak English of sorts but have no desire to do so, except to bawl abuse out their windows at the homeless.

I'll give New York cabs this: from the outside, they're terrific. Those daffodil-jaunty Crown Victorias make me feel like I'm in a movie set. I expect Bruce Willis or Jamie Foxx to be behind the wheel. Sadly, Ford stopped production of this model in 2011, so this distinctive vehicle, also widely used by American police forces, will only fade away.

That other distinctive taxi, the black London hackney cab, is still going strong, and there's now a Chinese-made version, too. I like them for the luggage space beside the driver and their high roofs, originally designed to accommodate one's top hat. They have roomy back seats, where I feel I ought to be romping with a stockinged flapper draped in beads. And I like watching them turn in the street. No three-point turns for these workhorses. They can practically turn on a shilling, supposedly in order to accommodate the tight entranceway to the Savoy Hotel.

Best of all, London cabbies always get you to your destination. They memorise 3000 routes to pass the infamous Knowledge and thus get their licence. Few cities have any such requirement, and I've lost count of the number of times I've used my own maps to direct taxi drivers.

In Beijing, taxi drivers are peasants from some of China's poorest provinces and have no idea where they're going. Still, they often make a polite slab at English, a leftover from government lessons prior to the Olympics - then hoot with laughter at the improbability of ever communicating. They have such thick accents even Beijingers can't understand them in their native tongue. But they're down-to-earth folk, and I like them. Beijing taxi drivers are dishevelled, friendly and always grimacing through nicotine-yellow teeth. I also like the old-fashioned clatter of the meter on arrival, as it spews out a roll of paper covered in blue-inked Chinese characters.

In many places, getting a taxi driver to use a meter is difficult. A "broken" meter is the most basic of scams for the innocent abroad, along with the time-worn "no change" ploy. Not that a meter is any guarantee of accuracy. In Delhi, meter calibration is never up-to-date with the actual fare structure, and drivers use a printed table - which looks as complex as a temple astrologer's chart - to calculate the difference.

Never mind. I'd pay anything for a ride in a grand old Ambassador (basically a 1950s Morris), where I feel like an ambassador myself as I glide through the streets. There are antimacassars on the seatbacks, little blue curtains on the windows. The drive will chat to you about how he's battling bureaucracy at the Public Grievance and Assistance Office, or relay the latest cricket scores. At traffic lights, I can buy boiled sweets and The Times of India from hawkers. And enjoy the road signs. "Horn please!""Always alert, accident avert!"

Averting accidents isn't necessarily a taxi driver's main preoccupation. In Hong Kong, cantankerous Cantonese drivers take your instruction to stop quite literally, even in the middle of the busiest Causeway Bay intersection. In Naples, taxi drivers ignore red lights. In Malta, drivers joke that the Maltese highway code is the world's shortest book. Taxi windscreens dangle with plastic saints and prayer cards that ask for the divine protection. "Holy Face of Jesus Save this Taxi!" isn't the most reassuring of slogans. I'd rather rely on the brakes, but Maltese taxis appear to lack such a pedal.

This isn't the problem with my Lima taxi driver. "No hurry, no worry!" he says to me in his only English as we lurch through the night towards the city centre. Then he tells me that a charango, a type of 10-stringed lute, is made from an armadillo's shell. Such useless information is the chief delight of taxi-riding. Music strums in the night, making me smile.

TAXI RANK

In an online taxi survey by booking website hotels.com, nearly 5000 travellers were asked their views on world taxis, judged by value, cleanliness, safety and availability, as well as the skill, knowledge and friendliness of drivers.

London cabs far outstripped the runners-up as the best in the world, failing only for being expensive. New York taxis followed in second place, commended for availability and driver knowledge, but condemned for lack of driver skill and friendliness.

1. London

2. New York

3. Hong Kong

4. Tokyo

5. Singapore

6. Bangkok

7. Berlin

8. Helsinki

9. Dublin

10. Madrid