Budapest

I wouldn't normally find myself consulting a tourist guidebook before visiting a city because let's face it, it just spoils all the surprises when you get there. As far as Hungary is concerned though, I'm about as familiar with it as an Frenchman is with a bath. Pretty much all I know is that they had a ridiculously good football team in the 1950s and have the highest number of moustaches per capita of any country in Europe, but these facts aren't much help to me now.

I've arrived in the country with 24,600 Hungarian forint. By my calculations, that's enough to buy 61 pints of Budvar, 82 kebabs, 7 nights accomodation at the hostel, 49 bottles of Hungarian dessert wine, 14 map-of-Hungary t-shirts, 3 vacuum cleaners, 492 apples, 3 full body massages (2 with happy endings), or some combination of the above. I also have with me two university friends, Georgina and Caroline. They devoted a fair slice of their time in Dunedin to the difficult task of keeping me out of harm's way, so I'll be hoping they do the same on our travels.

Too bad they can't be watching over me 24 hours a day. Upon checking into the hostel, my first act is to jam my adapter thumb-first into the wall socket without checking to see if it was live, sending 250 volts of Hungary's finest through my body. My bed appears to have been hastily assembled from old whisky crates and the thinnest mattress they could find, but I haven't slept in a proper bed for six weeks now so I'm well beyond caring.

Meanwhile in the bathroom, I'm confronted by another of those horrendous "viewing platform" toilets that I first encountered in Utrecht, a few pages ago. I still don't understand how this feature could possibly be advantageous to the toilet-going process, unless you happen to be a 12-year-old boy who regularly contributes to ratemypoo.com. Our only other dorm mate is a quiet Swiss engineering student, who does not tell us his name and thus becomes Stefan by default.

The advantage of knowing nothing about a city before you visit it is that you're endlessly surprised by the scenes you encounter upon arrival. For a person who has read up on everything beforehand, each new site is usually greeted with a "oh yep" or "oh, it looks the same as it does in all the photos". Whereas arriving totally unprepared frequently causes one to involuntarily blurt out things like "holy shit! That's awesome", or "Wow! I had no idea the Eiffel Tower was in Paris! Bonus".

So on our first morning in Budapest I walk wide-eyed along the banks of the Danube, gazing in awe at the impressive buildings along the river. Most impressive is the Parliament building, but then there is also St Stephen's Basilica, Mattias Church and the massive Castle Quarter, a fortress sitting atop a hill on the far bank that dominates the landscape. Adoring the near side of the castle are are giant mugshots of a handsome young man and woman, who look like models from an OPSM advertisement but are actually presumably the two heads of state, in whichever guise in which they exist.

After strolling around the hilltop castle and taking in some of Hungary's rich and varied history at the museum, our attention inevitably turns to the subject of lunch. One of the immutable facts of travel in Europe is that wherever large numbers of tourists congregate, so too do the tacky, overpriced cafes with their "menus touristique" that will try to sell you authentic ham and cheese sandwiches for twenty times the price you'd pay at your local dairy. We're a bit too clever for that, though; we've found our way, after much u-turning and ummming-and-ahhhing, to a local Hungarian canteen tucked away on the second floor of some back alley building, well beyond the reaches of even the most adventurous package tourist.

The other diners to a man turn and look at us suspiciously as we walk in. It's one of those places where the music would've abruptly stopped too, had there been any music playing to start with. The server at the canteen is one of those hulking Soviet brutes who looks like he used to compete in those ridiculous World's Strongest Man competitions they sometimes show on ESPN, in which lumberjacks and a couple of roided up Americans called Chuck pick up houses and throw cars around for fun.

"Speak English?", I ask him, a touch optimistically I suspect.
"Uh?" comes the reply. So I point at something that vaguely resembles lasange and he slams it onto my plate with a fish slice. Caroline ends up with something you might loosely term schnitzel, while Georgina gets a bowl of what looks like lurid pink macaroni and cheese, but upon tasting, really isn't.

Even though communism was shown the door in Hungary 20 years ago, its influence can be found just about everywhere you look. Even my "lasange" evokes a Soviet-era simplicity and functionality, with its jaundiced brown hue and perfect cube shape not dissimilar to the many cheap apartment blocks that litter the city. A fly lands on it - always a guarantor that you're eating at a fine establishment, irrespective of the country - and is warded off by my tentatively probing fork. My first few bites indicate little about the composition of the dish, except that it isn't lasange. By the time I've picked apart the cube I've positively identified bits of potato, onion and cauliflower, but am unable to ascertain whether or not there was any meat involved. The large dollop of white stuff on top appears to be a close relative of sour cream, adding a curiously Mexican angle to the dish that you wouldn't necessarily expect in a working man's canteen in Budapest.

Onto the equally-perplexing question of the dessert I've ordered: little pastry parcels with a brown mystery filling. It could be chocolate, it could be hazelnut paste, it could be that horrid mince stuff that people put in their pies at Christmas for some reason; or it could be anything else. It turns out to be none of the above. I think I can detect traces of blueberry in there somewhere, but it's hard to tell. I stow one of the little parcels away in my bag in case the taste becomes easier to identify later after a few beers.

Things are no less mystifying at dinnertime. Caroline has led us to a little-known local eatery that her guidebook has recommended for the more economically-challenged diners. From the outside it doesn't look quite as exotic as our canteen, but just about. So you can imagine our surprise and relief when we enter the restaurant only to be overwhelmed by New Zealand, Australian, British and American accents. Everything on the menu is accompanied by a picture too, so even if you don't know what you're eating, eat least you have an idea of what it's gonna look like.

Wary from my lunchtime experience, I take the soft option of the schnitzel. Caroline's roast turkey arrives shredded rather than whole, and with a side "salad" of assorted pickled vegetables. I am especially proud of Georgina though, who has opted for a dish purporting to be "fried cheese with boiled rice"; and true to their word, the restaurant produces a plate of rice decorated by three rectangular chunks of deep-fried cheddar with a healthy side serving of tartare sauce. It's a pretty steep culinary learning curve in this corner of Europe, but when you're paying less than four pounds per head it pays not to get your hopes up too high I suppose.

I now know a little bit about Hungary. Believe it or not, it was occupied by the Celts over 2500 years ago. It is bordered by seven other countries - Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia - which is seven more than New Zealand is bordered by. The inventor of the ball point pen, one Laszlo Biro, was a Hungarian. Their language, Magyar, is Finno-Ugric rather than Indo-European and therefore is virtually impossible for an outsider to come to terms with. Luckily the Hungarians are a friendly bunch and do their best to converse in English, or at least don't seem to get to upset when I point at items I wish to purchase instead of asking politely in the local tongue.

It's fair to say that the Hungarians had a pretty shit time of things in the 20th century. Things got off to a bad start when their empire collapsed after World War I and two-thirds of their lands were divvied up amongst the victorious Allied powers. They spent the inter-war years looking nervously over both shoulders as the two imperalistic monoliths either side of them - Russia and Germany - flexed their growing military muscle. When war broke out again, Budapest was bravely defended and did not fall to the Nazis until 1944. When it did, the consequences were depressingly similar to those in other major Central European cities. 437,000 Jews were deported between May and July of that year, never to return, and millions more Hungarians from all walks of life found themselves displaced.

By this time it was clear the Nazis were losing the war and it wasn't long before - hip hip hooray - along came the Soviets to sweep those nasty Germans out of the city. But the locals were soon to discover that life under the commies was no walk in the park either, as the Soviets brought with them all those unfortunate aspects of their modus operandi - repression, terror, hideous uniforms - that were to become bywords for communism throughout much of Europe. For forty years the Hungarian people lived in fear - fear of being different, of expressing opinion, of accumulating wealth, of displaying their cultural or religious beliefs too overtly. Thousands were incarcerated for no good reason other than they were suspected to be a threat to the state; many were tortured and killed. Show trials were common and men as young as 17 were executed, often on the scantest of evidence.

I know all this because this morning, I've come along to the Terror House. The old HQ of the Hungarian secret police - considered for a long time to be the most fearsome in Europe - that has since been converted into an historic site. It would be easy to be put off by its name - which puts me in mind of a crappy Gold Coast amusement park ride - but once inside, it is without doubt one of the most moving and informative museums I've ever visited. An eerie pall hangs over the building and its many rooms, augmented by the dim lighting, stark decoration and foreboding looped guitar music, that sounds almost like the Doom II theme tune if it hadn't been written for PC speakers. The harrowing tale of terror and oppression unwinds through the labrynthine corridors as we read about the oppressors and watch documentary footage of the oppressed. "They say you must forgive, but how can you forgive this?", asks an elderly man, weeping uncontrollably despite the camera's presence. "They were just boys, so young...", then his voice tails off and the footage fades to black.

Taking up an entire wall in the final room is is "The Victimisers", a kind of wall-of-shame displaying the names and mugshots of all the men and women known to have taken part in the torture and oppression of their fellow Hungarians on behalf of the state. Each wear those unrepentent, vaguely-disturbed expressions that immediately mark them as enemies of freedom, just like George W. Bush describes. The museum guard, a gruff looking old man in a dapper uniform, notices that I've taken great interest in the display and comes over to join me.
"See this man?", he says, drawing my attention to mugshot of a young man in military uniform, "Who is this?". He allows me a moment to consider, but not long enough to answer, then says triumphantly, "James Dean!" The man in question, with his thick crop of blond hair and smouldering eyes, is indeed a dead ringer for the iconic Hollywood heartthrob.
"And see here" - he points to another photo - "and who is this?" The man featured in this photo has dark hair combed tightly back over his scalp and innocent features that bear a startling resemblance to a young Leonardo Decaprio.
"Titanic!", says the guard, letting forth a satisfied chuckle. Then he wanders off again. Whatever gets you through your day, I suppose. Bemused, I join the girls in the gift shop, though not before discovering that Humphrey Bogart, John Belushi and Sally Field were also one-time members of the Hungarian State Police.

Europe loves its wacky conspiracy theories, but this one seems like a pretty open and shut case, I think to myself whilst consuming a "cheesy tomato you-are-a-turkey cheesy sandwich" at a neighbouring cafe. According to the display, the James Dean lookalike (one Laszlo Kiss) was born in 1931, the same year as Dean, and is still alive and in hiding today. This pretty much settles it for me. It's him. The only question that troubles me is, what was it that lured so many of Hollywood's best and brightest to communist Hungary to join the fight against the forces of enlightenment and intellect? Was it indeed the uniforms? It certainly wasn't the "cheesy tomato you-are-a-turkey cheesy sandwiches", this much I know.

"The best thing that ever happened to this city was getting invaded by the Turks", says a tongue-in-cheek backpacking brochure I've picked up. I assume it isn't referring to the sandwiches of the type I just ate. It had cheese, tomato, ham but no turkey in it. I suppose that makes me the turkey, for thinking it would contain turkey. Oh well, life goes on. "I wish no disrespect to any people who suffered this bloody time", it continues, " but it could've been worse. It could've been the bloody Brits that invaded and I can say with absolute certainty that they wouldn't have left behind them those wonderful baths..."

In light of this glowing appraisal of Budapest's bath scene, the girls and I are visiting one this afternoon to see what all the fuss is about. Certainly from the outside it appears grander and more exotic than anything the British could come up with, and the atrium is equally spacious and impressive. A board on the far wall outlines the various pools and services the baths provide - which is just about everything. Outdoor swimming pools, private spas, Turkish massages, relaxation therapy, manicures, pedicures, all those other things that you don't really need but pay for anyway. They even have "safe sex spas", although it's unclear whether this means the water is treated with some disinfecting agent or the pool boy has to watch you put the condom on before you get busy.

Unfortunately the general rule of thumb where public spas are concerned is that if two people want to have sex in one, they're generally going to. In part this observation comes from my experience in the hotel industry, and my worringly-regular barroom conversations with the night porter regarding the sordid liaisons he'd gatecrashed.

"So I'm just out on the deck cleaning up some rubbish, and I hear this rhythmic slapping noise coming from round the corner. So I walk over towards the spa pool and holy shit, there's this bloke taking his missus from behind in the pool! He doesn't even hear me so he just goes on slapping her on the arse. Hadn't they heard about the three-year-old girl in Brisbane who caught gonorrhoea in a hotel spa?"

I arrive at the public pool to discover, to my relief, that there's none of that going on today. On the other hand, the pool is well-stocked with young lovers sucking each other's faces off in desperate primeval mating dances. They're all keeping a safe distance apart from each other and twisting and twirling around in the pool like actors in Busby Berkeley film. Surely this is taking the European tolerance for shameless public displays of affection a bit too far. For the unattached bathers such as myself, it's a matter of picking our way through the fornicating masses whilst pretending not to see or notice them, like when your boss (or other social superior) farts in a confined space and you're expected not to pass comment, much less grimace or flinch. Instead I just swim a couple of laps in the lap pool then retire to a poolside chair to dry off, painfully aware that I'm the only bather out of thousands here today who has forgotten to bring a towel.

Back at the hostel, we're not feeling brave enough to try on any more Hungarian haute cuisine, so Georgina cooks us pasta instead. When we're done with dinner she takes a seat on the public computer in the lobby where she has an important online exam to sit, and I park up with a book on the couch behind her to provide moral support. About five minutes into her exam, The young female receptionist begins watching a film on her personal laptop with the volume turned to 11. I can't see what it is but judging by the sound affects and music, we can safely assume it's some sort of Hungarian version of the Lord of the Rings. It's filled with terse dialogue and sweeping orchestral arrangements that periodically make the walls shudder; still Georgina stoically works on. Every ten minutes or so, the soundtrack builds to a crescendo, indicating that another battle scene is imminent. Then come the unmistakable sound effects of horses galloping, men yelling, swords clanging and soldiers being brutally dismembered. I'd go over and ask the receptionist to turn it down but I'd have to be screaming into her ear before she'd ever hear me.

After half an hour or so, her movie watching is interrupted by a newly-arrived guest. She pauses it with a sigh and greets him with the barely-disguised annoyance of an employee who's just been forced to actually do some work while on the job. He is a strangle little man, German I think, with grey hair and safari clothes on. When he's finished checking in, he goes and stands right over Georgina's shoulder and watches her doing the exam, waiting for her to turn and look at him so that he can pretend he wasn't looking and go and irritate someone else. Eventually she does turn around, and that's exactly what he does. Now he comes over and stand behind me, watching me read and waiting for me to turn around and look at him so that he can pretend he wasn't looking and bugger off. I ignore him for a good few minutes, before finally running out of patience and turning around to look at him. He pretends he wasn't looking at me, and leaves the room. Meanwhile the Lord of the Hungarian Rings has started up again in a violent cacophany of explosions and tense violin music. I need a drink.

I take my book into our dorm room, lie down on my whisky crates and reach into my bag for the bottle of Hungarian dessert wine I purchased for 500 forints this afternoon. In the other corner of the room, Stefan sits up and looks like he's going to say something, but then he doesn't. I offer him a glass of dessert wine and he accepts.
"I don't blame you for finding England a bit miserable", he says. "The weather is so depressing. I go to university in Bath, and most of the year I go to class when it's dark and come home from class when it's dark".
"What do you study, then?", I ask.
"Mechanical engineering". A conversation stopper if ever I heard one.
"Cool. Want another glass of wine?"
"No thanks", he says with a grimace. "I'm used to drinking quality wines".
"Your loss buddy", I think to myself. I'll just drink the rest of it myself then. And I do.

Backpacking really does have its ups and downs.

I didn't intent to be eating a piece of chicken schnitzel at 8am. Really I didn't. I walked into the local bakery with the honest intention of purchasing maybe a croissant or a piece of fruit. It's just that when the four policemen at the front table all turned and eyed me suspiciously, I couldn't help but notice they were all eating schnitzel, so you see I really had no choice in the matter because it pays to try and fit in when visiting strange countries. Yeah, that's it.

Still, I could be eating worse things for breakfast. Just needs a blob of mayo on it I reckon, maybe some shredded lettuce and a tomato, a toasted bun, maybe a nice side of fries, oh and a decent block of that quasi-lasange stuff I had the other day... there, you can see what Hungarian cuisine will do to a person. I can scarcely remember what a vegetable looks like. Even in my darkest Dunedin days when mince on toast and $7 burger-fries-jug deals at the Cook were my main form of sustenance, I was never this in danger of contracting scurvy.

The unexplained national fixation with meat and carbs aside, I can't find much fault in Budapest and its people. It's a cheerful, bustling, compact city that exhibits none of the stereotypes that unfairly tarnish some Eastern European cities. There's very little sleaze, smut, or gangsters waiting around every corner to nick your wallet and your kidneys. Considering they've spend much of the last century getting shat on by all and sundry, the locals are a happy and pleasant lot. Most speak good English and seem genuinely pleased to have you in their city, no doubt aware of the shot in the arm to the economy that the tourists provide with their willingness to pay way over the odds for plates of goulash and bottles of dessert wine.

As we take one last stroll along the picturesque Danube, Caroline makes an interesting observation that I previously hadn't considered. "They've done pretty well from being invaded so often", she says. "The Turks invade, they leave behind the baths. The Austrians invade, they leave behind all this gorgeous architecture".

Good point, well made and well worth making. All they need now is for New Zealand to invade. Then they'd be blessed with Turkish baths, gorgeous architecture, Blue Powerade and a rugby team that implodes every four years.