The train ride from Prague to Budapest was an overnight one, so I actually was able to get some sleep for a change. I had a cabin all to myself (thank you, first class eurailpass!), so I was able to sleep without any interruptions except for the border crossing time, which involved an inordinate number of people who needed to look at my passport and train pass.
The only excitement we had was when a gang of thugs got onboard the train during one of its smaller stops, and went through the train stealing whatever they were able to grab. Several people in my car were robbed. One of the guys ripped open my cabin door, and I was half asleep, he looked at the shelves and saw only my large bag up there. My smaller bag was tucked underneath the seats, which I had all folded out so I can sleep. He didn’t see anything else worth taking, so he ran off, and his thug buddies ran on behind him.
They proceeded to hit the subsequent cars as well. Before we left the stop, a chinese girl came over and asked me if I had seen the guys. I told them yes. She then said that they took her suitcase, and reached into her purse while she was asleep. I told her she should tell the conductor so at the very least they can call the police and search the train. She panicked and ran off, and I did notice lots of police milling around the train, but I think they were too late, and the thugs were gone. It was freaky, and lots of people got robbed, but luckily I wasn’t one of them. I felt really bad for the chinese girl, because she really had no idea what she was going to do next. I didn’t see her again, but I don’t think she got her stuff back.
Other than that, we made it to Budapest without any further attempted train robberies. But that didn’t mean I was in the clear just yet.
I hadn’t yet booked a place to stay in Budapest, considering I had just made the choice to go there not even a day before (It was a toss up between there and Ljubljana). So the first thing I wanted to do was book a place and go straight there so I can get situated. I was only going to be in Budapest about 3 days, so I wanted to make them count.
Once I got off the train, I saw a tourist info place that had internet. I figured I’d check online first to see if there was anything available last minute. I had checked online in Prague before leaving, but didn’t have much luck in finding anything good and cheap. So I got on the terminal to see what I would find. There were only two terminals in this place, and both were taken.
I noticed some people were standing behind us, presumably waiting for one of us to leave. I noticed this one guy standing about 6-8 feet behind me, but everytime I looked to one side, I noticed he was a bit closer each time. My two bags were both on the floor by my chair, and all I needed to do was look down and to my left to see them. Anyway, while I was surfing online, I noticed the guy behind me was now crouched down on the floor, looking for something in his backpack. I didn’t think too much about it, though I did notice that he was alot closer to me than he was before.
Right about the time I was going to look down at my bags again, the girl sitting next to me yelled out to me that the guy behind me was holding my bag. I turned around, and he dropped my backpack and started walking out of the room. I said to the girl to keep an eye on my bag, jumped out of my chair and ran after him. He was just stepping out the front door of the place when I yelled at him “Hey, stop right there!”.
I was fully expecting for him to run, but he didn’t. He took a few more steps, looked each way to see which way he should go if he did run, and then turned around to me. By this time, I was right up to him, and I asked him “Did you just try to rob me?”, hanging on to his arm so he wouldn’t run. He was quite nervous and he offered up a wallet, and kept saying “no problem, no problem” over and over again. I looked at the wallet, and assuming it was someone else’s wallet that he had stolen, I asked around to the now rather growing crowd if this was anyone’s wallet. He started to kinda walk back away from me, and I grabbed the lapel of his jacket and told him he wasn’t going anywhere, and to stay still.
He kept pointing at the wallet, saying “no problem, ok, no problem”, which was confusing as hell, because when I looked in the wallet, I saw it was his ID in it. He was trying to give me his own wallet. At this point, I asked him if he thought I was stupid, which I’m not sure he understood. Then I told him he was going to jail. I asked the girl at the counter to call the police, which she was already doing. The guy starting talking to me, acting mad and inconvenienced, but in his own language so I couldn’t really understand him. He then asked for the wallet back, which I told him I would give to the police when they arrived. At that point, he got very agitated, and took a swipe at my arm. I was just about to grab him with my other hand and pin him down to the floor, when one of the guys who worked at the tourist office walked up, grabbed him and pushed him about 5 steps back right into a wooden chair. The guy fell over the chair onto the floor. The guy who pushed him down told him in hungarian to sit down and shut up until the police arrived.
The police showed up in about 10 minutes or so, inexplicably long considering that they have a precinct right in the train station. That’s when the real fun began. None of the police can speak english, so one of the guys at the office translated my version of the story to them. The girl who had witnessed the whole thing was standing outside the office with her friend. I was originally under the assumption that she had left, but she was still there, so I walked up to her and asked her to tell the cops what she saw, as I was sure that they were going to want a witness. She obliged, and talked to the police. They then asked me if I wanted to make a report, and I said “Hell, yeah”. I figured at the very least, the cops were going to have a record of him, and this was going to keep this guy from victimizing some other traveler for the foreseeable future. I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him walk scott free, especially since I didn’t get a chance to kick his ass (hey what, I have a macho, “street-fighting man” side, ok, stop laughing… no really, stop it…).
So the police asked us to walk over to their office on the other side of the station, they said the whole thing would take about 30 minutes. The girl who witnessed the whole thing, an Austrian girl named Chiara, was understandably apprehensive, but agreed. I gave her my appreciation and told her that we were doing his next potential victim a real favor.
We got to the station and gave them our details again. They appeared to be taking notes and working rather haphazardly through the whole thing. The guy who they said was their “translator” (it was our first question before we left to go to their office, if they had anyone who spoke english) had about a pre-school level of english comprehension. It was pretty pathetic. The cops were now getting kinda frustrated, and said that we all had to go to main station house to finish up the report. I told them I would go, but that they should get whatever info they need from the witness now because it was not fair for her to be held up any longer. They had me go with them in the same car as the thief, which happened to be one of the cops’ own personal VW Golf. It was kind of strange.
Ok, so we get to the station, and I’m asked to wait in this very dank and uncomfortable waiting room. There was really no one there who can speak english, so they just sort of nudged me into this room and said “wait here”. It was about 11:30 at that time. So there I waited, and waited. About an hour rolls by, and I realized that I was a) thirsty, b) really hungry (I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner in Prague the previous night) and c) growing tired, probably because I had not eaten. So I looked for a water fountain or coke machine, or something where I can at least get a drink. Nothing, nada. I then asked the cop attending the desk by the door, if there was a place I can get a drink. He just looked at me and shrugged that he didn’t understand. I then mimicked me drinking something, asking if there was water anywhere, and he just shrugged, I think conveniently this time. So now I was growing rather frustrated.
Another hour went by, and I started becoming really restless. I didn’t understand why this was taking so long. Nobody said one thing to me since the cop told me to wait in that damn room. It was now lunch time at the station house, and all these cops were rolling in with bags from Mc Donalds, and Subway, and other fast food joints (I know, in Hungary, strange huh?). And here I am starving to death. It was getting to be a little too much for me, and I was just going to walk out the door if someone didn’t say something to me right now. At this point, all I wanted was some food, water and sleep. I was back at the front desk again asking the cop if there was any water, please. Right about that time, one of the detectives from the train station walked in and saw me, and just waved his hand saying “ok, ok,”. As if he thought I knew what he meant. This was starting to get really bizarre.
So more than 2 hours later now, while I was waiting in the room, I noticed a poster on the wall, talking about a tourist victims advocacy group called “The White Ring”. In english, the poster discusses how they are available anytime to assist victims of crimes, particularly foreign tourists. So I walked up to the officer at the desk with the poster in my hand, and started demanding that he call this agency immediately for me. Right when I started talking, this lady walked in, and said “Oh, you must be the american who stopped that thief at the train station”.
I thanked god for her being there, just because she can speak english. She explained that she was a translator for the police victims’ unit, and she was going to help me make a report. I told her I was a bit frustrated as I had been waiting in that very dank waiting room for 2+ hours. She said that they had only called her about 5 minutes ago to come in, as if that was supposed to make me feel better about waiting for so long. It didn’t.
So they walked me up to an office, where she and her associate were typing into a computer. She asked me to start from the beginning and tell her what happened. I did that, it took me about 10 minutes to go through the whole thing. They then started asking me questions about the accuracy of my story, as if I was lying or exaggerating about some parts, I don’t know. I did notice that they were both drinking a nice cold soda, and I had mentioned repeatedly that I was hungry and thirsty but neither offered me anything. I finally asked the lady for a glass of water, and she just looked at me as if she didn’t hear me. It was pretty unbelievable.
So finally, when they thought that they had my story ok, they printed out an official affidavit in Hungarian, which the lady was supposed to read to me. She started reading off everything, and only every other line there was a significant error. So then they had to correct all the errors, and print out a new copy.
Finally they were done, and I signed everything. They thanked me for my patience, and said I was free to go. I told them that I was told by the police back at the train station that someone would bring me back after I was done. They kind of looked at each other, as if they didn’t know what to do, and then the guy picked up a phone. He muttered something into the phone, hung up, and said that if I can wait a few minutes, one of the officers would bring me back to the station once the “car” was back. I asked them what they meant by “the car”, and the lady explained that the whole precinct only had one car assigned to it. That explained why the cops had to bring me and the thief guy back to the station house in his own personal car I guess. This was all pretty strange stuff.
So they walked me downstairs and said goodbye, the lady said I was lucky because 99% of the time that this happens in Budapest, the criminal gets away clean, so I should feel good about that. Oh joy, I thought.
I stood there about another 20 minutes, when two officers walked out and told me to get in to their car, parked right in front of me. I got in, they took me to the station, and gratefully, that whole episode was over.
So back at the train station, I went to the same tourist info office, and told them that I just wanted a room, and make it reasonable. The best she can do was one for 60 Euros. I said “deal”, and she told me where to go to get the shuttle bus that would take me there for no charge. In 30 minutes, I was in my room close to Blaha Lusja Square, and I walked over to BK, got a Chicken Whopper, ate it in 20 seconds, walked back to the room, and slept for 6 hours. My time in Budapest was off to a roaring start.
When I finally woke up, it was past 9:00 PM, I got dressed, and tried to figure out where I wanted to go, or if I wanted to go anywhere at all. I found an internet cafe, where I was able to get caught up on some online stuff. Then I walked around, but there really wasn’t that much to see. It was a Tuesday, so I guess things were a bit on the quiet side. I did find a metro bus that headed to a place called Deak Square, which was supposed to be a good little hub, close to the Danube, and lots of nice places around it. I hopped the bus, and went over there. There were some people roving around, but there still wasn’t much going on. I was afraid that I was not going to enjoy Budapest at all, considering that things had such an exhaustingly rocky start. About 11:30 or so, I decided to call it a night, and start fresh tomorrow. So back to the room I went. I watched CNN for a couple of hours and dozed off.
The next day, the weather was perfect. Warm and sunny, could not ask for a better day. I slept in so I missed my comp breakfast, which is nothing new these days to me. I hopped the bus back to Deak Square and walked around a bit and took some pics. I came up with the idea to rent a bike and do a nice ride around town and along the river. So I found a bike rental place, and in matter of minutes, I was mobile. I asked the rental guy to point me to the river from there, and that was all she wrote. I got out to the Danube River, and alas, it was like the curtains raising. There was this absolutely wonderful view of the river, the several historic bridges like the Chain Bridge, the Liberty Bridge, and the Erszebet (or Elizabeth) that connect Buda to Pest and vice versa laid out in front of me. See, Budapest is actually two cities on each side of the Danube, but everyone just calls the whole place “Budapest”.
So along the river I rode, with my MP3 player jamming, and the sun and wind in my face. I crossed pretty much every bridge, to get a look at the scenery that is unique from each one. I rode up to where Statue Park is, which is a park on a large bluff overlooking the Danube River, there is a statue of St. Gellert, presumably the patron saint of Budapest. The view is pretty awesome. But I couldn’t get any pictures, because my batteries died while I was up there.
I rode up the Buda side, up to where the Sziget festival was just going into full swing. This is an annual world concert festival that runs for a week. It’s surely one of the biggest festivals in Europe. I didn’t even HEAR about it until some hungarian girls on the train from Prague asked me if I was going. There were some bands that I wouldn’t have minded seeing, but none enough to want to pay $25 a day to see. So no Sziget for me. But I did ride by where it was happening, and let me just say that there was a shitload of people going to it.
The bike ride lasted several hours, I had probably done a good 30 miles of riding. It was a great ride, and now I had a really clear idea of how the city was laid out. I got to see the parliament building, St. Matthias church, and Castle Hill, which is a tall hill that is capped by a 14th century castle. By the time I was done riding I was a bit tired, but had a sensational day.
Back at the bike rental place, I saw that they did a “Pub Crawl” tour, and there was one that night. Now, I’m not one to do organized tours, only never ever. But a pub crawl tour sounded interesting to me because I was only in town for a couple more nights, and I really wanted to see what Budapest’s nightlife was like without all the trial and error time. The tour met at Deak Square at 8pm, and I was going to be there.
I showed up at the church steps where the tour started, and alas it was going to be a small group. The guide, a guy named Chris, who was originally from Kentucky, but had been living in Budapest for several years seemed like the right kind of guy for this tour. The rest of the group consisted of two nurses from Singapore, Sheila and Berina, who now live in London. So the four of us headed out on the tour. Chris actually seemed a bit happy that the tour group was just us, because he said we can cover a lot more places in less time with such a small group. The cost was about 20 bucks, and it included a free beer or free shot of a local favorite liquor at most of the places we were going to hit. The first place we went, gave us free beer for the first hour. It was an authentic hungarian pub owned by a former champion olympic rower. It was a nice first spot. It was fairly quiet, and gave us all a chance to get acquainted.
After a good hour there, we went to the next place, which was more of an “abandoned building” club. In a trend across Europe that actually started in Budapest, according to Chris, some very cool clubs are opening in long-abandoned buildings throughout the city. The buzz is created strictly by word of mouth and the net. There is nary a sign or anything else giving its presence from the street. We hit 2 or 3 places like this and they were all very very cool. We hit a couple of clubs that were supposed to be good, but no crowd, so we just moved on. We then went to the campus of University of Budapest, where supposedly one of the best clubs in town resides. It’s in an open courtyard nestled by dorm buildings. The beer was cheap, and there was food, which was good, because we were all getting pretty hungry.
This kind of thing went on until we ended up a large outdoor summer club, called “Jardon” I think. This place overlooked the Danube on the Buda side, and was huge. It was only open during the summer, but it looked like it did pretty well. After we were there for more than an hour, doing lots of dancing (Sheila and Berina are insane dancers, btw). The Singapore girls decided that they were going to call it a night. Chris still had some life in him, as did I. So I told him I can carry on if he can. Though the pub crawl was officially over, Chris said he knew a few places we can hit before the sun came up.
We tried to go to another outdoor club called Cafe Rio, which was right on the other side of the bridge from Jardon. But they wouldn’t let us in because Chris had a backpack. That was ridiculous. So we grabbed a cab, and headed over to an after-hours bar called “Piaf”, named after Edith Piaf of course. It was a funky looking lounge, very dark, and red upstairs. Downstairs, it was basically a cellar with arched ceilings. There was a DJ playing some cool lounge, and a small but mixed crowd. Chris explained that this place served as a “last resort” pick up spot for some people, a cooling off place for some of the local working girls who get together here and tell their best and worst “john” stories for the night, and it’s also a place for people who just aren’t ready to go home yet. He said it’s different every night, but always interesting. We had a couple of beers there and Chris talked to some people he knew. It was definitely a colorful bunch.
When 6 AM rolled around, they threw us out into the daylight. We were both pretty hungry, so we walked around to find a place that was open, to no avail. We kept walking, and before long, I really needed to go to the bathroom. Things started getting pretty urgent when Chris remembered a place we can go. It was a non-stop gambling and sports bar, so he knew it would be open. I beelined right to the mens room when we got there. When I came out, relieved and feeling good, Chris handed me a beer. I told him I didn’t think I can drink it all, considering it was now, oh, breakfast time! He told me no problem, drink what I want. I had a few good sips and that was about all for me, really.
We ventured back out, and were walking a few blocks towards the square where my hotel is. When we got out into this one street, I realized that I knew where I was now, and my hotel was only a couple of blocks down that street. I bid goodbye to Chris and ventured back to the hotel, where it was now BREAKFAST TIME! So for once, I made it for breakfast. Nevermind that I didn’t get any sleep leading up to it. I loaded up my plate with goodies, with a smile. I just kept telling myself how good life was as I munched away on my cocoa krispies, and ham and cheese on toast. Ahhhh….
I got up to the room, and within minutes, I was out like a light. I didn’t wake up until after 1 pm. I sent the Singapore girls a text message when I got back to the hotel, and got a text message back from Sheila and Berina about the time I woke up asking if I had any plans for dinner. I told them I’d meet them at Deak Square at 8, so we got that plan going. I now had to see about getting some laundry done, because the situation was getting urgent, and I didn’t want to go down to my next stop in Croatia with a bag full of dirty laundry. My hotel didn’t have a laundry, but their sister hotel down the street did. So I went there and spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry. Only problem was that there was only one washer and dryer, and the washer was oh-so-slow. I didn’t actually get done with the laundry until almost 8, so I had to message Berina that I’d be a little late. They were nice enough to wait and we met up about 40 minutes later.
They knew a good hungarian restaurant that they wanted to go back to, and I was game. So we took a cab to the Buda side. Because they didn’t know exactly where the restaurant was, they struggled a bit with landmarks. Then I suggested that they just ask someone if they knew where the restaurant was. But they said that was impossible because they didn’t remember the name of the restaurant either. So needless to say, it was a miracle that we found the place at all.
The food was great. And though they warned that the service was really slow last time, this time they were right on the money. We all had a great dinner including some good local goulash. I had fried catfish with potatoes, which is apparently a big local delicacy in Hungary. We were the last people out of the restaurant before they shut their doors.
We then decided that we wanted to do a little pub crawl of our own. So we walked back to the Pest side, crossing the Chain Bridge, which was all lit up beautifully. We got some good pics from the bridge with Budapest in lights behind us (don’t worry, I’ll get caught up on pics shortly). We hit a couple of places on the river, enjoyed some cocktails until they’d close up and make us move on. It was past midnight now, and we were finding ourselves hard pressed to find a place that was open. We kinda walked around blind for awhile, until I vaguely heard some music coming from one of the back streets off of Deak Square. We walked along a dark barren street for a few blocks, but I thought that something was up, because there were a lot of cars parked along it. We turned a corner, and voila, lo and behold, we found an Irish Pub called Morrison’s.
It was packed, and they seemed to be playing good music. So we found a home for the rest of the night. We stayed there, and enjoyed cheap draft Amstel for a good couple of hours, and danced like fools. Sheila was in particular pretty hyper on the dance floor. By the time closing time came around, I suggested we grab a cab and head back to the “Piaf” bar that I was at with Chris the night (or morning) before. The girls were up for it, so we hailed a cab, and were there in a matter of minutes. This time, we were charged a cover, and there were more people, but we didn’t care. The DJ was playing much more upbeat stuff, which kept Sheila dancing pretty much the whole time, so they were happy. We stayed there until about 6 AM before heading home. The girls wanted to see if they could make a big market thing that happened in the morning before they were going to leave for London that day. So we said our goodbyes, but I did promise them that we would see each other again when I was in London on my way back to the states, so that’s cool.
I again made it back to my hotel by about 7 AM, just in time for breakfast again. Two days in a row, yeah baby! I savored breakfast, but this time, I was a bit bummed, because today was check out day, and I needed to be out of the room by 11 AM, so no long sleep session for Tony this time. After begging for a late checkout only to be shot down, I decided that I could make it with a couple hours’ sleep, pack, and then head to the train station to catch the 3:30 train to Rijeka. It was going to be an all-night train ride via Zagreb, so I would have plenty of time to sleep on the train.
After I checked out, I went to the train station, only to find out that that train was not running that day for a reason that they didn’t know. So now I had no train and was homeless. I called the hotel, and they said that they had no more rooms now. So I went online and found a hotel room at an Ibis hotel, which seemed reasonable for the money. Only problem was that it was at the west end of the city. But I got good directions and which metro to use, so it wasn’t a problem at all. I checked in without a hitch, and once I got to the room, I found myself wishing I had just stayed at this Ibis all along. This was an extremely clean and well-run hotel with all the amenities, and it was the same price for the room I had by Blaha square. It was an excellent deal. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy it for one night.
I ventured out around the west end a bit, just because I hadn’t been there at all since I’d been in Budapest. There was a lot to do, cafes, pubs, and clubs everywhere. But I was still pretty drained from the night before, and still hadn’t gotten any real sleep, so I was forced to make an early night of it. After my usual Chicken Gyro dinner, I headed back. I was in bed by 1:00 AM or something.
The next day, I was refreshed, relaxed and ready to go. There was a big mall by the train station so I figured I’d go there and pick up some food, water and snacks for the long train ride. My MP3 headphones, which I bought new in Belgium just a few weeks ago, were tripping out on me, so I got me a new pair of those too. So I covered all the essentials. I got to the train station with plenty of time to spare, and within an hour I was on my way to Croatia.
When I get to Croatia, I will have to find my way to an island called Veli Losinj on the Adriatic coast. There, I will be volunteering for the next 2 weeks with a group called the Adriatic Dolphin Project. This project researches the population, migration and preservation of the Adriatic’s unique bottlenose dolphins. It seemed like fascinating stuff when I read about it online back in Amsterdam, so I signed up on the spot. So we’ll see just how interesting it turns out to be.
Stay tuned…
Comment from: Martin Tse [Visitor]
Must be nice to live like your back in High School and ‘Partying’ all the time. Like the “Good ole” days!