20th June: Goodbye Hungary, long train to Poland

Holding the Eurail pass sometimes can give us a headache as it is not applicable to travel to certain countries (even if you just need to pass through) and you have to still pay a certain amount for reservations on some trains. Our next stop supposed to be Poland. But to go to Poland we need to pass through Slovakia, which the Eurail does not entitle us to travel to. For the 3 days in Budapest, we were always going to and from Kelati train station, trying to find a way (which does not cost much) to Poland. In the end, we had to take a route, passing by Vienna, Czech Republik and the to Poland. All the countries and cities that we will need to visit later on. Furthermore, we didn't realized that the train station actually accept euros and their exchange rate was way better than the ones given by money changer. So we incur some losses by changing back and forth of euros. Yeah bad luck!

Anyway sad stories apart, today is the last day we have to explore the beautiful Budapest. So we woke a bit later this morning and head to the Great Market Hall, which claims to have authentic Hungarian food and loads of souvenirs to buy.

Outside Great Market Hall

Well, I really want to get my hands on those little things sold there, but this is just the 3rd day into our trip. Our aim is no extra luggage and try to save whenever and where ever we could. So no souvenir from Budapest.

Paprikash Spice Pack

Penguin meat anyone?

In the market

For lunch, we had stuffed chicken leg and Langos (pronounced as Lan-gosh). The traditional Langos is topped with vegetables, feta cheese and olive. But we opted for the cheese topping instead. Stuffed chicken is really too heavy for me. It is stuffed with some minced-don't-know-what meat.

Typical Langos

Cheese

Stuffed Chicken Leg

But that's typical hungarian food, very carnivorous! Furthermore, we had not digest our breakfast, so the lunch was really too heavy for us. In Great Market Hall, you can just the whole of your lunch time walking from stall to stall to decide what is best to feed your appetite. They really have a lot to offer.

Arrays of meat

To all my Singaporean/Malaysian friends, Langos actually tasted like ham jin peng that you can find in those you tiao stall, just that, they are larger and thinner in Hungary and they have toppings on it!

After lunch, I followed boyfriend around the city, taking last few photos of the bridges, the people. We even hiked up to Castle Hill again to camwhore . Haha. Well there weren't only us there, but loads of people, posing while capturing the beautiful city through their lenses.

Budapest

At about 4 p.m., we went back to the hostel, grabbed our luggage and head to Kelati train station for our 20 plus hours train to Poland. May we don't bump into any luggage robbery!

Goodbye Budapest

19th June: Budapest exploring!

A good day starts with a good breakfast. That's what our hostel owner think so too. The morning was started with not very fancy but filling breakfast. 2 breads, assorted cheese, coffee, tea, or milk and cereal. More than enough to fill us up.

Today is free tour day. Well, as budget travelers, we are always on the look-out for free walking tour. Although the tours are free, the quality is not taken for granted. The tour guides are usually friendly and very informative. Usually, we will look for Sandemann's walking tour. But unfortunately, they don't have it for Budapest, so we have to search for alternative. Lucky for us, 2Night hostel is very informative as well. So we had a brochure to a free walking tour by Free Walking Tour Budapest. Our tour guide was a very friendly girl. She gave us loads of information on the history of the city. I need to admit that I really forgotten most of the history (yes I have gold fish memory!), but I do know that Budapest is a relatively young country, achieving their independence around 1990s. But the growth and development of the city is really much better than where I came from which has almost 50 years of independence but still in the same growing phase as Budapest.

Well tour guide girl ( I really can't recall her name) lead us through the city, pointing out landmarks worth visiting and cafes, bars and restaurant worth spending money in. She introduced us to the lock tree/bridge concept which rumored to have started in Budapest. So, loving couple will buy a lock, engrave their names on it, lock on to the tree, throw the key together somewhere where they can never get it back and voila your love is locked forever. Interesting!

We will not be apart even till death

And half way through the tour, we have an "adventure" with this homeless guy who tried to attract attention buy hitting some pebble against a lamp post. Well, nobody actually gave him the attention that he wants, so he left!

Tour guide with homeless guy demanding for attraction

A church in Pest area

View from Castle Hill. All the effort hike up was worth it

Synagogue

After the tour, we just went around the town for a while before heading back to the hostel to get more information about Turkish bath. Turkish bath is a main attraction in Budapest. They have a few around town. But we decided to go to this largest Turkish bath in the Pest area. But before that, it was dinner time. This time round, we decided to give wikitravel a try. Under the budget recommendation, we went to Pozsonyi kisvendéglő which is just few blocks away from our hostel. I really recommend this for people on a budget. Their servings were really huge. I got full by just having a small beef goulash (which is supposed to be a starter for the locals).

Pork stew with potatoes

Beef Goulash - the traditional soup-based

Our dessert - Apple pie with custard. We ended up having it for supper.

Outside of the cafe

We were so full after 1 course that we needed to pack up our dessert as they cannot cancel our order. Yes, Hungarians are big eaters and surprisingly they are still quite fit.

Tour guide looked fit but Mr. Policeman's tummy said otherwise:D

Back to the Turkish Bath. In the Turkish Bath, there is a hot pool and a cold pool. And you can choose between unisex pool or mixed (requires swimsuit). But in some other places, they have alternate days for different sexes, so you can enjoy all the spa facilities comfortably. We went to Széchenyi Spa which is located in a city park. The building was magnificent, with very strong Turkish influence. And not forgetting, it was huge, that we couldn't locate the entrance. Since we were late, we can only have access to the hot pool, which reminds me of the hotspring when I went to Taiwan. The warm water just kicks off all the tiredness after all the walking. We paid 3400 HUF each for a changing room facility and the entrance fee. You'll be given an electronic wrist band which acts as a lock to the changing room and also give you entrance access.

The Bath

Hot pool

After the relaxing bath, it was time to head back to the hostel. Long walk back but we were super recharged so we didn't really mind. In the middle of the night, boyfriend had his crazy crave to take night shots. So we went towards the Danube river, across the bridge to get to the Buda side, just to meet other photographers, trying their best to capture the best of Budapest night. Chain bridge looked gorgeous with all it's lighting, the Parliament building looked as majestic as ever at night and the Castle on the Castle Hill will remind you how hilly the Buda side was. No regrets walking in the cold (strong wind when you approach the river) to catch such beautiful scene.
For night scene photos, please refer to this link : http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150252014371544.344925.626001543&type=1

After one hour or so, it was bed time. Must get some good sleep tonight as tomorrow night we will have the longest train ride ever!

18 June: London to Budapest

First stop of around Europe in 40 days, is Budapest, Hungary. Budapest (pronounced as buda-pescht) is a small little city. It is quite easy to orientate around the city, just remember the three district, the Buda (hilly one), the Pest (flater one), the Castle district (on the Buda side with their Royal Palace in it) and Buda and Pest are separated by the River Danube.

Leaving out of the bag for 6 weeks with boyfriend

We arrived in Budapest Airport around 4 in the afternoon. From the airport there are several ways to reach the city centre, Nyugati. You either take a bus and change on to metro or take a train, straight into the Nyugati Railway station. Since we were lugging a lot of luggage, we decided to take the train, which only costs us 370 huf per person. The train is an interesting one. Remember the train in the Harry Potter movies, whereby the seats were separated into cabins, we got on a train that has that orientation. Cabins and a narrow walkway, it is pretty interesting for me, like from a Wild, Wild West Movie.

The Wild Wild West train in Budapest. Yeap that's me!

So from Nyugati Railway station, we walked to our hostel, 2night Hostel, which is a cosy and comfortable hostel. The owner Matt, is very very friendly and helpful. For 11.34 euros per night, we got a 4-bed dorm, with linen and towel, and breakfast is included, not forgetting the oh-so-important wifi!! It is a really great hostel.

2night Hostel

Dinner was at this Hungarian food restaurant recommended by one of the workers in the hostel. We ended up meeting her there while she was having her dinner with her family. The name of the restaurant is Frici Papa, and we ended up having beef goulash (pronounced as goo-yash) and chicken breast paprikash. I really like the Hungarian food a lot, although they are all meat rather than vege. But the food they served are really very tasty and somewhat, a little bit similar to Asian food. Well, yes, sort of like a comfort food.

First dinner of Eurotrip

Hungarian Beef Goulash

Hungarian Chicken Paparikash

First night was left to explore the town. It is enjoyable to get lost in a new city, see new sights, hear new sounds! And it’s time to rest for tomorrow’s long day!