And Outside The Rain Fell...

24.10 Rubbing my eyes this morning, I woke up to sound of the train attendant “the seats aren't for sleeping" and that of a door sliding shut. Sigh. I went back to sleep a few minutes later, waking up only much later to the sight of a city suburb that almost reminded me of India.

The station had an old, rustic feel to it. Far from the futuristic, halogen lit stations of Germany, the deserted, almost entirely automated stations in Scandinavia; this one was old, small and quite unclean. We landed to several touts offering taxis and accommodation, and they surprisingly didn't press at all when we said no.

An excellent currency conversion rate brought out our wide smiles, immediately followed with shock- a conversion spread of 20% between the bid and the ask. It was outrageous!

Guided by the tourist information centre to better rates downtown, we headed out, heavy backpacks on us, to find food, money and some history.

A long walk late, we got some fabulous currency rate with a spread of less than .8%. Man, I could survive this country only with arbitrage, buying and selling currency between the station and downtown market. Delicious veggie burgers and coffee at Burger King, we were all set to explore the city on foot.

The beautiful white Elizabeth bridge into Buda, we immediately were greeted by the statue of an old monk set high up in hill, surrounded by a semi-circular archway of Greek pillars. The walk up was rather arduous, our bags not helping us much. And rather dirty. The city could have been much, much cleaner. Yet, the view of the gleaming white bridge from up there, with the monk who supposedly introduced the Christian faith into Hungary behind us, the walk now seemed worthwhile. Yet, our climb further continued to the Citadella, an old fortress that was now a wax WWII museum and a huge statue of the lady holding the palm frond. The view of the city from up there was absolutely mesmerizing. The only dilution of this view was a scam played out on Patwaji, with him losing 50 Euros. There really isn't easy money anywhere, not even in the cheapest city we've visited so far.

Some souvenir shopping later, and hungry, we plodded down slowly to the nearest Subway. A Sub after so long simply tasted delicious. Absolutely perfectly toasted, lots of olives, honey mustard and ketchup with extra capsicum, this Sub couldn't have got better. At all.

Forking off here to pursue our several interests, the two couples with us went off shopping in the rather cheekily named fashion street, while the other 3 proceeding to see the rest of the city on foot. Walking along the bank of the Danube (note to John Strauss II - it's more green than blue, but nevertheless, respect.), we came across the most fabulous, opulent and grand parliamentary building yet. Fantastic spires overlooking the Danube, this enormous building had 700 rooms. Too bad we were too tired for a guided tour of the place. As dusk fell, I also realized I missed the famed spring baths in Budapest. I'll leave it for another trip to this city, for another year. Forking off again, PritS and me quickly passed by the fashion street, finding it thoroughly uninteresting. Burgers again, we walked the god-knows how many kilometres to the station, boarding our train to Vienna, enroute to Prague. Or Praha. Yoo-hoo.

Conspiracy arose in the train as a couple of suspicious men checked our passports. Bansi seemed to thrive off it, throwing up all possible speculations. Joking about it, we had a super meal of bread/jam/cheese/ketchup/garlic paste/chilli sauce. And we were off to bed. Deep sleep for tired souls. Nothing better.