World Adventure

Hi All,

We continue our rapid country transit by heading from Slovenia to Hungary to Budapest. Now this should have been a straight forward journey catch a bus to Ljubljana then directly into Budapest on the train. Seemed so simple. There was track maintenance on the travel day so we ended up travelling in this sequence of changes: bus,train,bus,train,train,bus,train! The last train broke down Ahhhhh. Another train came along the line and gave us a push. Well it was a relief when we arrived in Budapest and caught the metro to near our hostel after arriving 2 hr late or 11 hrs after we started travelling in the morning. We arrived at the inner city homely hostel Budapest bubble to be greeted at the door by the super helpful and enthusiastic host, Olga, who gave us lots and lots of information.

Found out later that sometimes the train runs through croatia so it would have been 4 extra stamps in the passport so in a way the annoying transport changes was a bit of a blessing as we don´t want any more stamps in our passport.

Next day. We walked and walked and walked. Budapest is so large and beautiful. Our first stop was the Chinese embassy to find out about visas. They told us we needed to apply in Australia. Figured as much as the embassies just don´t have any way of dealing with long term travellers who are not based in their country of origin. Annoys us a lot but we are just going to have to get a visa agent in Australia

We walked out the famous thermal baths then down to the river and walked along beside the old city and across the recently finished bridge over the river and back towards our hostel on the other side. Along the way we found a cruise boat chartered by Australian. Go Aussie. Actually it seems that Australians are the majority traveller at the moment. Recession? What recession. Struggling with a stomache upset again. Didn´t stop me eating a pub meal. Odd. Just ask for the menu. No not that menu the menu of the day. It is basically a set menu with a soup and a basic meal for a cheap price. Well goulash soup and a giant looking chicken leg and mashed potato.  

Olga organised us for a night out to a live blues band. A bit loud but we enjoyed the outing even if we had a puppy dog like irish boy also from the hostel following us around.

Next day. To the thermal baths. Not very tourist friendly. We paid our money then got past the entrace and ... what the hell do we do now? We said we needed a clothes locker and eventually got our own lockable change room. A bit strange as the key to the lock is kept by the attendant and all the customer gets is a metal tag. Certainly relies on the attendant being honest. I didn´t have bathers so black jocks looked about the same. They do don´t they? Ok a little baggy. Vanessa wasn´t so brave but others found bra and panties quite perfect for the pool. We didn´t have shoes to wear between pools and weren´t quite sure about the showering after saunas. No doubt we broke some of the acceptable behaviour rules but hey we are tourists!

There really are a lot of thermal baths in the place. We started outside in the 37 deg C pool and relaxed our way across to the whirlpool on the other side before finding the 80-100 deg C sauna downstair followed by a dip in the 16 deg C pool. Yikes. There was even some ice to rub on our bodies. Yikes. We then went upstairs and tried more pools. There was even a 40 deg C pool which felt too hot and a few more moderate saunas. Lots more thermal baths and even another whirlpool. So the range of thermal pools was 16-40 deg C and the saunas 40-100 deg C. It took us about 2.5hrs to try out just about all the pools and saunas. Very nice and relaxing. Our puppy dog friend found us at the pool and followed us for a while until we gave him the slip.

Met a nice female Australian Radiographer travelling from the UK. She was Australian with malasian parents and very fair dinkum aussie. How you goin mate. Went for dinner out with the irish puppy dog who had difficulty following the conversation, the fair dinkum Aussie Malasian girl with a chinese name and a female french canadian engineer who was also at the hostel. Lots of variety.  

I really like Budapest. It has a good feel about it. The city centre is so big and needs time for exploring. Will have to visit longer one day but for now we are on the move again.

Bye,
David and Vanessa