Arrival at Stalin's Paris!

DAY 1 (15/08)

From Budapest Aiport to Hostel

Bah Humbug! Yellow Zebra!!?? Club Rio!!! Red Bull?

1. Take the No.200 Bus 'Repter Bus' to Kobanya - Kispest

2. 3rd Metro (Blue) to Kalvin Ter station

3. Walk towards Danube

4. Turn right at 3rd Corner by Burger

I arrived at Budapest Airport at around half five and had to catch the kobanya - Kispest bus and board the blue metro line to get to Hostel Domino. On first glance, the hostel just looked like a small b & b type place behind the Domino restaurant off the main shopping high street in the pest side of the city. However, I was just pleased to find the damn place after getting lost and walking around a mile or 2 in very hot conditions and.

The hostel is in prime location and is very clean and tidy (apart from the old looking couch in the hallway, where I think a homeless traveller stayed for a few hours). I headed out to see the sights all light up plotted along the Danube and later Rang home. This was my first experience of a hostel and I found it very aurkward at first to see strange people living in the same room as me. I eventually managed to get chatting to some very hot french girls, to my disadvantage, only one spoke decent English.

I headed downstairs to the main common room where I used the internet at quite an expensive rate. There seemed to be a completely private party in the same room, only to greet me with an aurkward silence, purely because of my entering. They were all Irish. I literally can't stop sweating and it took me ages to get to sleep. I thought about where I was and what a huge thing it was to choose to travel alone. I eventually got some shut eye only to be rudely awaken by the Budapest's finest Bin men, Bah Humbug!

DAY 2 (16/08)

Yellow Zebra!

I awoke to the rustling and bustling of the French girls leaving for home. I awoke a smelly, restless man only to find out I couldn't wash as I had forgot my towel, Damn!

I wondered down the same route I had achieved last night, only to discover Budapest is totally different during the daytime. I could see the fantastic castle district to my right, the very busy Vaci Utca to my right and eventually ending up at parliament. I then got the idea of hiring a bike from the Yellow Zebra hire shop. I asked the nearest tourist information stand, one of many dotted along the Danube, She was a very pretty woman who directed me where to go. It was a fair deal to hire a yellow bike for the day, roughly £7/day (2,000 HUF), however, it was pretty hard to find (down a narrow alleyway).

I managed to ride around for hours, visiting all the sights and even cycled on road. I rid to the nearest Tesco (2-3 miles out from the centre), it was massive. I eventually bought a towel from there. I dropped off the bike and maintained a small conversation with, yet again, a pretty hot woman (Budapest is well known for it). I was a bit stuck on what to do in the evening so decided to watch Batman:Dark Knight (English with Hungarian Subtitles). After the film had finished, I arrived back at the hostel for around 11, only to discover I was the last one back in and was being annoying letting light in.

DAY 3 (17/08)

Club Rio!

I woke around 9.15 as the hostel failed to wake me up for 8:30. I decided to hire a bike from yellow zebra for another day, it was too much of an irresistible offer. I rode to Nyugati train station to buy a train ticket return to Szecseny (looked quite cool) for the next day, which cost 4080 HUF! not as cheap as I had thought. Paper and pen seemed the best idea as they could not understand English, although I felt very lazy with the Hungarian language.

I decided to visit the thermal baths near Heroes square which was ace! it cost around 2000 HUF but I got back 500HUF! as I left earlier than the 3 hours limit. There was alot of small hot pools absolutely stacked with people. It was very relaxing sitting in the pools but contained a fragment of London tube tension, where you simply didn't know where to look. They were between 38 degrees c to 45 degrees in temperature. However, the outside pools ruled as you had slightly more room and could glimpse at the grand view at the architecture. I read my Hungary lonely planet book for a while by the poolside.

On my return to the hostel, I met a German guy called chris. He had just arrived and had his laptop laid out on the table. His English was brilliant. We arranged to meet later back at the hostel to sample the best night out Budapest could offer, we chose Club Rio. It took an age to walk to the club as it was in the Buda side of the city. It was absolutely dead inside, apparently not many people go clubbing on a Sunday!

We ended up walking a few yards across the road to a very poor looking shabby club/fun fair area. You had to pay 200 HUF to enter and actually turned out to be alright. By 11.30 it was quite full and a live DJ played brilliant dance music. Two rough looking men came up to us and seemed to want to start a fight, but it turned out to be just merry fun. Chris decided he wanted to dance so I had to reluctantly follow , after a couple of beers I was fine (Dreher's). I soon realized chris was slightly odd though, as he randomly sang high pitched notes whilst doing really slow dancing, although he had been drinking. He told me he usually plays a Harmonica whilst dancing at discos? I just wondered if that is what German people do? Pendulum ended the night on a high and eventually got back to the hostel around 3am.

DAY 4 (18/08)

Red Bull? Lost?

Loud planes tearing across the sky woke me up this morning, it was the official Budapest Red bull air race practicing maneuvers.  I checked out and said bye to chris, hes going to send my some photo's from last night. I went to board the train at Nyagati train station and fell asleep. I studied the map in my Lonely planet book to discover I had boarded the wrong train! I was heading South instead of East. I arrived at Debrecen instead of Szecseny, more than 200km the wrong way, oh well!

I like Debrecen, its almost a miniature brother of Budapest, but clouded over by the last remnants of communism. I used my lonely planet book to find empty student halls and rented a room at little more than sharing price. The halls have no character, but was full of characters! Many people left the halls wearing traditional Hungarian dress! the halls reminded me off a hospital, although seemed lifeless. Distant echoes of people's voices drifted down the halls. This was by far much worse than domino hostel,  it was the first time I felt off the beaten track. I talked to Wilde over msn for a while at a local internet cafe and then headed towards central Debrecen. There was a band playing (very cheesy) on a put up stage. I bought half a pint of beer (180 HUF) Bordosi, and then drifted back to halls with the crowd.