Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Budapest, Hungary to The Orient Express
No hurry this morning, our first and only obligation is at 7:10pm. So a late and leisurely breakfast, followed by a couple of hours resting in the room, then our luggage down to the hotel storage area, then we are out on the town. We walked down to the hop-on-hop-off bus stop and, guess what, we hopped on as the bus arrived just as we did. We rode the same path as yesterday, over the Elizabeth Bridge, to the Funicular, to the Palace, to the Citadel, back across the Elizabeth to the tourist quarter where we caught the river cruise last night. Then, not getting off this time, we stayed aboard and over to the Parliament Buildings, then to the Elizabeth Square (she was much loved the the Hungarian People, who called her 'Sissy') and then along our well travelled path of last night, Andrassy Street, which the tour guide referred to as 'the Champs Elyssey of Budapest'. At the far end was 'Hero's Square', which we visited and then had a late lunch at a sidewalk cafe nearby, in decor and menu a Turkish cafe. There, patrons were smoking from water pipes, huge hookahs with cubes of smoking material, brought to them by the servers. A smokey place, but luckily the wind wasn't blowing toward us. I asked our server what they were smoking and she said flavored tobacco, she pointed over her shoulder to a smoker and said, 'Strawberry Flavor'.
Then, after, we walked back down Andrassy street, back along the way we had come on the tour bus, back to our sidewalk cafe street of last night and the night before, and stopped for a beer and a glass of wine. Jan read the Budapest tour book, and I watched the patrons including the couple in front of us. What a delightful way to spend an hour. This particular three block long stretch of cafes were the trendiest, and attracted the best-turned-out patrons that we saw, and the most fun to watch.
Then to the nearby 'Spar' store for some food for this evening in case the train pickings are slim, then to the hotel to wait a half hour for the time to pass, then off to the train station to catch the modern equivalent of 'The Orient Express'.
The walk to the station was uneventful, we found our train number posted on the 'departures' board, and we waited. There were endless, loud, announcements in Hungarian about something, we never bothered to try to figure it out since our train was listed (no gate yet) and the clock was ticking. We watched time move slowly from 6:20pm through to 6:35 before they announced the track number, and had a chance to view the very sad collection of locals that hang around train stations. Clearly, some had serious mental issues but that is common everywhere. But here, exposed and way off the common haunts for the likes of Jan and I, we were much more aware.
Finally, the announcement on the departures screen that our train would be loading on track six. Off we went, found our carriage just behind the engine, got on board, found our sleeping compartment, and settled in. I kept expecting something to go wrong, but it didn't. The conductor came along, inspected our tickets and said in elaborately accented English, OK, Is OK. OK, Is OK. In a middle compartment in our coach, in the open door, stood a tall, 50ish man, in a suit and tie, very tall and slim and distinguished looking with an official air about him. I mistook him for the conductor before the gentleman pointed out the real one to me (similar in dress and appearance, they could have been brothers) but no offence was taken. The man's english was excellent and he came by our compartment to chat. He knew of Vancouver, had visited Toronto, and had a cousin in Calgary, and knew much more about our country than we did about his. He told us which tourist spots to go to, what to avoid, that it is dangerous in the city at night, and a bit about Nicolai Caucescu (Chow Chess Cu), the former dictator who was murdered on Christmas day in 1989. Interesting guy.
Jan and I sat in our compartment as the train started out, on time, and had a rum and coke and a dinner of pistachio nuts and Pringles. Hey, its just good simple back-packers fare. And that's what we are, sixty-ish pack-packers. Around 9:00pm it was fully dark and we were tired from our day, so we turned in. Jan was in the lower bunk, reading, and I was in the upper bunk and had just finished lashing up some support ropes in case I fell out of bed in the night. The train slowed, stopped, and stayed stopped for ten minutes or so. Vaguely I thought, busted down? Then it started, and very soon after some commotion in the corridor. Then, banging on the door, "FONTIER SECURITY, PASSPORT CONTROL, OPEN THE DOOR PLEASE!!". Clothes on, the door opened by Jan, I'm still up top in the bunk, and there's a very official looking cop at the door, green fluorescent vest saying 'Police', and he wants our passports. Jan gives them to him, he scans them in this electronic box slung from his shoulder and I notice from my vantage point in the top bunk that my passport picture and a bunch of info showed up on his screen. He writes some stuff in a book, stamps our passports, and leaves. Jan and I look at the passports, and it was the Bulgarian border patrol, so we passed somehow from Hungary to Bulgaria before entering Romania.
Interesting, we thought the Shengen Treaty, to which Hungary and Romania and Bulgaria all belong together with the rest of western Europe, made border crossings between member states uneventful in terms of inspections. Evidently not so. Jan starts reading again, I stay in the top bunk, the train is rolling, about a half hour or so goes by, the train slows, slows, stops, about ten minutes, goes again, and once again banging on the door 'PASSPORT CONTROL'. We open, hand over our passports, old hands at this now, another cop and another stamp and he moves on. Jan and I look, Romania this time is our stamp in the passport, and both the Romanian and the Bulgarian have a little train symbol in the top right corner of the passport stamp. Makes sense. The documents away again, Jan and I settle in, and there is no more banging at the door, just the rocking and rattling motion of the train, on and on into the night.
All night, we pressed on, the car rocking from side to side. Often we seemed to pass through small towns, based on the glipses of lights through the window, and then with our speed slowed considerably and the train passing among the changing tracks, the sounds were for all the world like what you would hear if you threw a full drawer of cutlery down on the table. We had heard that the Romanian train system was suspect, better only than the Bulgarian trains that will complete our journey to Istanbul. We just hoped that the train gods would smile on things a little longer and we could finish safely. A long sleep spell was half an hour, the beds narrow and hard and, for me, about six inches short. I couldn't stretch my legs fully without my feet going through the window blinds. I had faith in my bunk webbing, not thinking that I could fall out accidently, and Jan was only about six inches off the floor so quite safe. Lurch, bang, clatter clatter clatter. Clicketty-clack, clicketty-clack, lurch, bang, on it went. Why do this? Because we can, and we are happy to do it at this late time in our life. Sometimes these situations are when you really know that you are alive. Our culture of warmth and contentment removes the immediacy from our lives, and now we have it back. On into the night, cat naps, wake, turn, cat nap again. With the dawn, knowing we were still alive, we slept for about two hours without waking before getting up for breakfast.
