Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

After a relaxing morning in Budapest’s old town and in a nice café, I head out of the city toward the south. The maps I printed at home run out here  because when I had printed them my thought was to travel from Budapest to Debrecen and then to Maramures. Without any map I just have to be sure to stay near the river. Getting out of the city was unpleasant, as it would be leaving any big city. A lot of heavy traffic, industrial areas, bad roads, noise and auto exhaust. After 90 minutes or so I am again in fields and feeling well for it. Budapest was lovely and I was really lucky to find such clean and simple lodging directly in the historical center.

The tourists were annoying, as usual, but what are you going to do? It seems that there are many tourists in Budapest who are making their first visits to the east. I say this because there are still many promotions for “communist tours” or “visit the former communists statues” ecc. It has been a long time since that period in history and anyone who goes to the east knows that all that crap is long forgotten, but perhaps it is still a way to tap the last ignorant tourists.

As many tourists as there were, I had expected many more. Probably, hopefully, the financial farce of this world is starting to have its effect. The majority of shops have adverts for sales and discounts, which one would think would not be the case in the high tourist season, but maybe this is now required. People will only buy their rubbish if it is marked 50% off. A better idea would be to reduce the number of shops by 50%.

About 40 kms out of Budapest I stop in a small village, find a bench in a small park near the railway station and lie down for a sleep. It was a good sleep and the bench was extraordinarily comfortable, but at some point I was awoken by the sound of many kids around me talking and not really caring that this gypsy was trying to get some sleep in their town. I woke and saw that they were interested in my bike and set-up. They were also on bikes. The adult male accompanying them addressed me in Hungarian, which I obviously did not understand and then switched to perfect English. Zoltan and I quickly fell into discussion. He has a fascinating story to tell: is the personal translator for the Hungarian PM, lives in Budapest and as the son of a diplomat spent his youth in Ghana, Indonesia and Belgium. I think we could have talked for hours but he had to return to Budapest. He rang up a colleague who runs a bar near his summer house, about 15 kms down the road and asked him to provide me a place on his grounds to set up my tent. Zoltan and I exchanged contact info and agreed to stay in touch.

This area of Hungary seems to be a weekend destination for Budapest residents and it is lovely. The Danube branches out into various segments and along one of them there are many summer houses, swimming areas, restaurants and bars. Another piece of good news is that the bike path seems to have returned. Suddenly I started seeing signs again and even some information points. Hungary is getting better and better.

The bar I am looking out for is directly after a pension and restaurant called Neptun, which is well known, so as I go down the road I ask directions to it. I am amazed at the fact that the youth I meet don’t speak any foreign languages, no English and no German. Considering the history, the geographic location of the country and the high standard that one associates with Hungary, I expected different. In Romania, in contrast, I am always amazed at the language capability of the people. In any case, passing one garden with two elderly men I ask about Neptune as I roll past and the one responds in German that it is a few kms down the road. I notice their car has a Bern number plate. Schwiezer? I ask. Turns out they fled from Hungary in 1982 and sought asylum in Switzerland. I was invited in for cognac and then beer. We had a good talk for about an hour and since the man in the bar was expecting me, I carried on. In the meantime clouds had accumulated and I rode off in a light rain, which very soon became harder. 

By the time I saw the bar ahead of me it was pissing down and I rode directly under the terrace. I greeted Jöszi and his dog, Boris. Since there was nobody there I thought that perhaps I could sleep under the terrace, which was made of wood and beautifully hand carved. Either he did not understand or did not want that so he walked me across the way to where I could place my tent. Since it was really coming down I had no intention of standing there in the rain and setting up my tent. Ordered a beer in order to buy some time and gauge the situation.

Very soon a bloke named Laszlô turned up and sat down at the table with me. In the 80s he had worked in Vienna and could still speak German quite well, even with an Austrian accent. It also seemed that he was quite happy to do so, which was fine by me. He invited me for a shot of palinca. Another Laszlô then turned up with Alex and before I knew it we were all fast friends. The first Laszlò, I will call him ‘tattoo-Laszlò’ because his entire upper body is covered in tattoos, interpreted with pleasure. We were laughing a lot, which considering that Laszlo 2 and Alex don’t speak anything but Hungarian, is quite a feat. The rain continued and the tent was really no longer an option. Laszlo 2 and Alex were visiting the area on holiday and were staying in a house down the road with some people from a sport club or something – really I did not understand too much – and they invited me to sleep there. Tattoo-Laszlo came along also, which was great because there was really no possibility of communication otherwise. We sat down in the front room of a strange wooden house directly on the lake. It was a strange house but this front room was all in wood and also very beautifully done. They pulled out a bottle of home-made palinca. Bloody hell, I think they had made it in their bathtub and I thought of those stories of people going blind from drinking alcohol from home distilleries. It also had a completely different taste from the palinca I know. They then laid out a spread on the table and said ‘haam, haam’…eat, eat. The problem of vegetarianism raised its head again. They were really going out of their way for me and I did not want to be rude in rejecting the food they offered, especially because they prepared the sausages themselves and were telling me in full body language about how they slaughtered the pigs, mixed the meat with spices, and made the sausages. Either it was their super hospitality or the extreme amounts of palinca, but that night I broke 14 years of vegetarianism.

When I woke in the morning I had to actually put my hands to my head and force concentration to understand where I was and what had happened. I stumbled outside to my bike to dig around for aspirin. In my stupor the night before I had actually had the wherewithal to cover all the bags with their rain covers, which for some reason really made me proud of myself. Digging around for the aspirin I removed the rain covers and was in too much pain to put them on again. Laszlô 2 was up and putting the front room back in order. I thought about just forcing myself onto the bike, riding for a while, then sleeping and recovering in a park somewhere further south. Instead Laszlo said we should go for coffee. Another two guys had shown up, one also called Laszlo (so now there are three) and another guy, whose name I did not catch. He was a Roma, so I’ll call him gypsy-guy.

We piled in the car and drove a few kilometers to a café. Tattoo-Laszlo was there, having a few drinks before going to work. The clock in the bar read 7.05. Laszlo 2 ordered café and wine…..the coffee was needed, about the wine I was not so sure. Nonetheless, three rounds of wine later I was feeling quite fine indeed. All evening and all morning these guys had not let me pay for anything so I insisted on paying next round. Walked inside the bar to order another round of wine, the fourth already, and saw the clock – 8.45 in the morning. Bloody hell. The weather was awful, the rain coming down in torrents and gusting so that at times it was coming from the side, which meant that I could not go anywhere anyway. We then drove to another bar for beer, then back to their house for haam haam and palinca, of course. While we were eating the rain had stopped and the clouds had opened and the sun was shining wonderfully strong. When one is on a bike and so weather-dependent, this is such a wonderful feeling that it is hard to explain. In my hangover I had not re-covered the bike and everything was soaked.

It was time to leave and I was preparing to go but they insisted on taking me on their boat. On the one hand it was time to hit the road, but on the other hand how often would I have an invitation to go on a small boat on the Danube with Hungarians? With this reasoning I chose the boat. Laszlo 2, young Laszlo and gypsy-guy and I pile into the small boat that was already half-full of water and set out up-steam. It was a beautiful day and it was a beautiful experience, something very simple obviously, just sitting in a small boat on a river, but the whole experience of making new friends, sitting with them in the bar and meeting their friends, being somewhere in Hungary and not really sure about where, the whole experience had a profound effect on me. Sometimes I think that these unusual and special moments that I experience – and there are many – is the universe’s way of making up for the rest of my life that just does not seem to work.

We visited a house that apparently was also a sort of unofficial bar because the old woman running the place brought us all more wine, for which one of the lads paid. An old German man turned up who was from the Donauschwaben community and he could still speak some German. The sun was wonderful and it had turned into a beautiful day. I guess we sat there in the garden for about 2 hours and drank a lot of wine. When it was my turn to order – 7 glasses of wine for the whole group – I gave the women 2’000 Forint and she returned with my change of 1’600 Forint. That means I paid 400 Forint, or the equivalent of CHF 1.80, for 7 glasses of wine. Then back to their house for lunch, after which I passed out for a while on the couch. I woke at 15.00 and the boys really wanted me to stay, but I had to go and I set out on the bike to the south. It had been a crazy experience and I am glad for it. We had a good time and maybe one day I can return the hospitality.