This post is a photo essay of moments captured in Budapest, Hungary.
Contrasting moods
(Full of exploding joy)
(Seems to be sad)
(Old lady walking down the street one hand holding stick to support her and another supporting the bag & pulling it along)
More photos can be viewed here.
Thru couchsurfing, I met this nice & wonderful person who took me around and to the nice places to eat. Near Mammot there is this nice cafe bar called “Fore Play”. The interiors look very pleasing with a good color combination. Espresso is somehow my favorite coffee drunk in typical Italian style.
Yesterday night there was also a group of student who did some acrobatic stunts. Wow, they could bend their body like a piece of elastic.
Also, in the center you got lot of choices for eating. One can choose from McDonalds, Burger King, Turkish restaurants, Hungarian restaurants. The best part is all of them in these places speak English, more so because of the tourist crowd.
Today to avoid ticketless travel I walked upto the nest station Arpad Hid. One never knows when ticket checker could chance upon you. And the colour of skin being very different from others here you always stand a chance to be caught. And the biggest problem then is understanding the language I speak, most of them here do not speak English. The only words they manage is “Sorry, I dont speak English”.
Evening I found the place to get the ticket for returning. The cost of single ticket is 230ft. Quite cheap compared to the price in Germany if one sees the money in Euro’s.
(Lush green on trees after initial rain, would have come better with SLR)
(Cloduy skies & slight rain)
After returning to the apartment, left my bag and walked with camera to Margret Island. It was a long walk towards the island and on the island but I loved every momnet of it. The best moment was to see so many runners practising along the river in the island. On the island, the another thing to note is the running track is laid in turf! This prevents whatever injury can happen to the leg as compared to running on road. The turf provides a good cushion to the feet.
I couldnt do much, I left my shoes back in India and here I am watching others running while this could have been the best way of practising for next months marathon. How stupid and dumb of me.
Morning from the station close to the apartment where I stay I take the train to reach office. I enquired with two people got the direction right but not the part on ticket. There was no conductor inside the train so travelled one station without ticket. I got down at Arpad Hid and finally got a ticket for the next two stations. Not sure what would have happened if I had travelled the entire distance without a ticket since there were no ticket checkers.
After getting down I troubled a shop guy who took the pain of asking a taxi driver on how to reach the Park where the office is located. After that it was pretty easy I had to just walk down.
Later in the evening after office hours with colleagues of mine we went to the Castle a walk up and walk down. Castle is not quite as big as Palace’s in India. Then we went to restaurant Mexicanos in the shopping mall Mammots. Food was very nice. Its not difficult to eat everything after having been to Germany so many times before. After all one eats to survive so anything that doesnt go out of the plate eat it to survive and if it goes out of plate catch it cook it & put it back!!
As planned I got up by 6:00am and went down to the river 30mins later. There wasnt space to take a long walk on this side of the river so sat down on the steps and watched the river flow as it touched the steps and passed up. Sometime later quite strange the water level increased and the flow was heavy. I had a feeling that there was some discharge into the river at this point. Otherwise I could see no reason how the water level suddenly rose.
Afte spending about an hr I walked to the same shop bought some stuff for my breakfast and went off to sleep. I wanted to get up by 10:00 to make a phone call but then sleep took over with the tiredness and I finally managed to get up by 12:00pm. It was pretty sunny tho not hot and sultry. I made the phone calls and after bath went for having my lunch with the usual customaries. Bus No.6 from here goes to West End City Center, the stop name is Nyugati Palyaudvar. This is funny,, I got into the bus but here unlike in Germany the driver does not issue ticket. There were no ticket booths either inside the bus nor in the stop. So, I travelled without a ticket!!
(Reminds of Chennai)
West End City Center is a huge shopping area but should be less than Spencer Plaza in Chennai. There are also shops in the subway much akin to what one sees in Pondy Bazar of Burma Bazar in Chennai. Depending on your budget you can get goods from either place!! After about 3hrs of window shopping I finally decided that it was time to head back and took the bus no. 6. This time I took a ticket and it costs 230ft (Hungarian Currency). Getting slightly familiar with the locality I was able to identify where to get down. After getting down I again went back to the river to spend the next 1hr. I finished my dinner and back to apartment and now time to get some sleep. Morrow I hope there would be a conductor in the train and hopefully no ticketless travel.
Day 0:
Reached Budapest quite late in the evening around 2:30pm. After passport check and check-in baggage collection, the taxi driver was waiting for me, reached the apartment by around 4:00pm. Inbetween the taxi had to go to office in GraphiSoft park for collecting the keys. The key I used to the door of the apaprtment didnt work. It just didnt fit. Luckily a couple came and opened the main door for me. Then when I went up to the apartment the key wouldnt work. After trying for half hour I came back downstairs in search of some person. Luckily a lady just walked in. After enquiring she saw the number on the key and identified that I was on the wrong side. Went thru the garage to the right building and the key worked.
Then I went in search of phone booth or internet cafe finding neither of them I returned to the apartment to brush my teeth & take a refreshing bath. Initial plan was to take rest in the bath tub but since I wasnt able to call home to convey the news that I arrived safely, I shortened my bath to usual types.
(Castle view from apartment balcony)
When I went down there were few people playing with their kids, we exchanged pleasantaries and then I enquired about internet cafe. This is located in Florina Square and they asked me to take Bus No.6. Then they wen on to explain the oldness of the city. The place am in currently is called by name Obuda. Long back there were three cities, Obuda, Buda & Pest. quite some decades back Buda & Pest were merged by the goverment to become one city Budapest.
There is a 24hr shop few meters down the road and in the shop they told me Florina Square is just about 500mts from there. So I decide to walk down and find no internet cafe’s. There is a DVD shop where I enquire about internet and they do provide the same but the minimum is 1hr. Since I have to some way convey the news back home I take it. And in the end found that I had used about 45mins of the time since I had to browse and respond to certain stuff.
(Traffic jams follows with me)
(So do accidents)
I walk after that back to the apartment and in another sometime am back on the road in the opposite direction to check out other places, anyway the time is now 9:00pm. So, cant do much I find a place to eat my dinner. I finish it and back to the apartment now. And its time to goto sleep.
Morrow I plan to wake up by 6:00am and take a walk along river Danube which is just a stones throw away from the apaprtment.
Landing in Budapest few hours back am looking forward to how the night looks like. I have a big spacious apartment all for myself.
Quite surprising, during travel lot of Indians did not know Budapest is capital of Hungary nor that Hungary is in Europe” So muc for knowledge.
Few hours from now I embark on my first trip to Budapest. Hope rains in Bangalore would give me way. With hope that all problems back here get sorted out by the time am back.
Listen to these two amazing orchestra by Ian Anderson. Budapest1 and Budapest2.
Tags: Budapest, Hungary, Ian Anderson, JethroTull
Ganesh and I are planning to take part in this year’s Indian Autorickshaw Challenge Classic Rally, which is taking place this December. During the race, every team is supposed to do charity work worth $1,500 (Almost Rs.70k approx.).
So we have come up with this crazy campaign, which helps you take part in this charity work by scribbling your website url, slogan, autograph on our auto for just 100 bucks (yes yes, Indian bucks).
Why?
1) Well you probably will never go thro’ those villages ever in your life, to do those charity work.
2) You can’t bring much change with just Rs. 100. But we guys can collect all the money and make a permanent change in the lives of the needy, for the good.
3) Good publicity for your website.
4) How often do you get to do a graffiti on an auto and get away with it?
5) Just for the heck of it. A lot of people are doing it so go ahead and do it. It is the in thing 😛
If you are interested head on to http://autographme.eventbrite.com/. You can also pay the cash in person to either of us (Sathish and me). You can fax your autograph/slogan/url if you can’t come here in person to scribble it on the auto.
Please do spread the word and if you can’t support us monetarily, you can always join us in spirit by being a part of this facebook community.
Tags: Autorickshaw, Tuk Tuk, Rally, Charity
Unfortunately for once due to work I was unable to post about this earlier. Today being the last day of the exhibition jointly held by Anita Bora, Venkatesh, Nishant and Shanker at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad. They named it wideangle a perfect name for the same.
Some of the photos were really amazing shots and hopefully someday I would also ge a chance to display my photos when take them of similar quality!!
Click here for few photos of the xhibition.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen 