If you have any money at all, and can afford to do better than a city bus (which costs 27 cents) … eventually, you have two choices of getting around town, in Abu Dhabi.

Because by the time April rolls around, it will be astonishingly hot here, again, and will remain so into October … and walking or even standing outside is an invitation to soaked clothes when you get to work, at best … and sunstroke, at worst.

So. Your options.

1. In your own car. Presumably rented.

2. In a taxi driven by your “own” driver.

We opted for No. 2.

Two kinds of commuters in the newsroom. Those who tell you almost immediately, “you have GOT to have a car.”

And those who balk at the expense (about $500 a month to rent), not to mention the nerve-fraying experience of sharing roads with some of the craziest drivers on the planet … well, they just keep on cabbing it.

Those who are thinking “taxi taxi taxi” are happy to dispense the other bit of wisdom here:

Get your own taxi guy.

That is, make an arrangement with one of the city’s 6,000 taxi drivers to come to where you live and take you to work every day.

You talk them into this by offering some multiple of what the meter reads. In the case of one co-worker who has a long commute, he doubles the meter. You make it worth his while.

In our case, with a short commute to the office, we are more than tripling the meter.

But even with the offer in your mind, you have to pick your spots.

Sometimes, the drivers offer to do quasi-contract work for you. Such as the Pakistani man in one of the town’s beat up taxis, a month ago. He offered to pick us up whenever, and we even took his number. But he seemed a little too keen. Like someone who might abandon you at the thought of a better situation.

Leah then met up with a Bangladeshi driver who was friendly and chatty, and seemed enthusiastic when she asked him if he wanted to pick us up at 1:45 p.m. every day of the week.

And then he didn’t show up for two days, and that was the end of that.

Last week, Leah had a couple of long rides with a Filipino guy, Anthony, and she thought he was pleasant, and she offered the set-up to him. But he declined. Previous engagements, or something. However, he said he knew a guy (lots of stories in this town involve the phrase “I know a guy …”) who might be interested, and he would call us …

And that didn’t happen, either.

So, three days ago, we’re out on the street,  looking for a cab, and they’re  thin on the ground in this part of town, and we saw a taxi on the offramp of Airport Road … and we got in.

His English was decent. His cab was in good shape. He wasn’t rude or playing loud or weird music.

We got to the end of the ride, at the office, and I said, “Want to ask him about picking us up?” And Leah said, “Oh, yeah. Sure.” And she stuck her head back in the cab, and cell numbers were exchanged.

And now we are in business.

Benjamin, from the Philippines,  has picked us up three days running. And it’s grand.

We open the door, and there is our cab. No muss, no fuss. No wondering if this is the day that we’ll stand around half an hour waiting for a cab.

Our ride is about six dirhams (about $1.60) on the meter. We give Benjamin 20 dirhams (about $5.40). It’s worth it, for sure … and it’s still far cheaper than renting a car and worrying about parking it or being killed while driving it.

Now we just hope this arrangement keeps up. Our place at 1:45 every day. And on those rare occasions when neither of us work, we’ll still use him to go someplace else. (Grocery store, whatever.) He says he will call on days he has off or when he has landed some long drive to, say, Dubai. That’s fair.

This could be the start of a beautiful relationship.