A woman confronted by traffic as she made her way to the airport in Bali, Indonesia, told a little white lie to her cab driver about the departure time, leaving her shocked at what happened next.
Lola Bridger, 24, posted about her experience to TikTok, amassing over 2.6 million views when she showed her driver speeding down the road in what felt like “the next film of Fast and Furious.” She was wrapping up two months in Bali and on her way to Australia, where she was moving for work, she told Newsweek.
Her viral video shows the driver speeding down the road, as recorded by Bridger in the backseat. She shared the footage with the text overlay: “I lied to my driver about my flight time only to avoid having to stop and [get] cash out and he started doing this.”
Flying out of Indonesia involves paying a departure tax that Bridger was hoping the cab driver would pay to save her stopping to take out cash from an ATM. She lied about her departure time to help persuade him to pay the cash tax, which she could then include in her card payment, but while he was fine about paying the tax his reaction also included putting his foot hard on the gas and traffic dodging.
A driver speeds down the road in Bali. A TikTok user went viral after showing what her driver did to get her to the airport faster.
@lolavalentine_/TikTok
“The driver didn’t speak English and told me on google translate that there is an airport fee of 10,000 Indonesian Rupiah which is literally 50p British Pounds,” she explained. “I was cutting it short with time as traffic always adds to your journey especially if you’re in a car. Mopeds are so much easier but I had all my luggage. I had literally no cash on me and thought it would be easier to just get the driver to pay (I asked if he had cash, which he did) and I said I’d give him a tip on top.”
The car can be seen zooming past a long line of traffic in the video to get to the airport faster.
As Bridger’s time in the popular tourist and beach destination wrapped up, she told her cab driver that her flight was at 10 p.m., when it was actually at 11.05 p.m.
“Told him I’d give him 100,000idr ($6) to get me there on time and he turned round and was like ‘yeah?’,” she told Newsweek. “I just smiled and then all of a sudden were in the next film of Fast and Furious.”
She managed to get to the airport at 9.15 p.m. even though she left at 7.30 p.m.
“The drive should only take an hour, but with Saturday traffic it’s hard to get anywhere,” she said. “I actually loved him for it! Where it was complete silence in the car I just was thinking ‘Do your thing’! He really did put his foot down for me and I appreciated him so much.”
Viewers took to the comments section of Bridger’s video to share their thoughts. “I lied once too… horrible mistake! That man was doing 70 in a 30, then gets onto the highway and says, ‘okay, now we can really go fast!’,” said Ashton.
Others were confused by the airport entry fee. One person, @yvette77777 wrote: “What is stop and cash out ? I’ve never heard of that.” To which Bridger replied: “Basically there was a 10,000 idr [Indonesian Rupiah] airport entry fee and I had no cash and it was so busy on the roads I didn’t want to [get] cash out.”
Others, such as Mika and Destiny, simply commented with laughing face emojis.
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