King & Queen of Hungary

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This morning I was still tired, but I had a much better sleep. In the middle of the night a young guy came into the room at about 2a.m in the morning. I woke up again and warily watched him. He sat on the edge of his bed nodding off every now and again whilst he was sitting up. His phone was glowing in a strange manner as well. I got up and went to the toilet and when I got back he was asleep. Problem solved.
I got up and had a shower early before going to get breakfast from the supermarket. It was a lot busier this morning with everyone rushing off to work. For breakfast I managed to get cherry croissants, as well as Hungarian paprika salami for lunch. Oh yeah, and I sorted out how to get the bananas. Breakfast was good, and then we packed up and checked out.
We caught the train to the bus station as we had decided to go to Visegrad for the day, before getting back to Budapest to catch our train to Zagreb. Once off the train we had trouble finding the bus depot, and no one we asked for help seemed to speak English. This pleased Beck no end. "Smile Beck." "No one else in the *@!&$€# country smiles!", was the response I got. Obviously it was a bit stressful, but we finally got there. We missed the bus we were planning to catch, so we had a bit of time to kill before the next one. First we bought our tickets which proved to be confusing because of the language barrier and the cost of them. All sorted though and the tickets were cheap. To fill in time we went for a walk, ending up in a park where Kate used the swing and we grazed on our packed lunch.
We got back to our bus in plenty of time, and the bus trip to Visegrad was ok, although there was lots of stops in the one and a half hours. We ended up getting off one stop past the town and had to walk back, but it wasn't far. There was an information service working out of a hotel that we called into. We had to make a decision whether we were going to hike up to the Citadella or catch a mini-bus. We didn't have a lot of time, and it only cost 2,000 Forint so we caught the taxi.
From the top there was great views of the Danube and the surrounding area. It's no wonder they built a castle here, it would have proved very difficult to invade and conquer. There were plenty of photos taken, and the posing from the day before continued. A little tree snake had found it's way into a bird box up a tree. It was so still that we weren't sure it was real, but I threw a pebble against the box and it moved. The views were great, but the castle was only small, although it had everything a castle should have except for dungeons which was disappointing.
On the way out of the castle we paid to dress up as Hungarian Royalty while Kate took photos of us. It was good fun. There was also an old hut here with eagles sitting on perches. Bit bizarre.
We didn't have a lot of time so we had to make tracks into Visegrad to catch our bus back. We had to walk about 6 kilometres in an hour. It was going to be tight, but to our relief the taxi driver from earlier pulled over. There was a big language barrier between us, and asking him where to drop us off was proving difficult, although he seemed to understand 'hotel'. So we headed down the mountain and everything appeared to be working out perfectly when all of a sudden our driver took a minor road to the left. The girls automatically looked at each other and then me with raised eyebrows. I shrugged and suggested it might be a quicker way. All the while the driver is smiling deliriously looking into the back seat. Then he started gesturing towards the landscape, where you could see a nice little stream with tiny little waterfalls. Aaahh I thought, he's showing us his country, settling back into my seat and taking in the views.
Soon after though he pulled the steering wheel left again, and we found ourselves bumping up a heavily forested mountain on a dirt road. The girls were really starting to worry now, and I gestured to the driver that we didn't have time for more sightseeing. He just nodded and then kept gesturing to the landscape. The girls weren't happy, but I just shrugged I figured there wasn't a whole lot we could do. At this point I thought he was still showing us the sights. We continued on and on up this mountain, and I kept trying to rationalise what was going on. Maybe there hasn't been anywhere safe to turn around I thought. Also, if he thinks we're paying more he'll stop flashing that crazy grin when we give him the same amount. The further we went though I did have doubts entering my mind. Finally we burst out of the trees, and into a clearing on top of the mountain. I thought yep, you beauty we can head back now. Instead he put the car in park, tooted the horn twice and got out. The girls were starting to get freaked, and Beck even mentioned what if he's got a knife. For some reason I kept my calm, and even joked that I expected Robin Hood to drop down out of a tree at any moment such was the landscape. To try and describe where we were it was like being on top of a mountain out the back of Powelltown before there had been any logging. I think I was also calm because there wasn't any sinister vibe about the driver.
This all changed though when he got back in the car and started reversing back down the other side of the mountain tooting the horn. To be honest though I was still more confused than worried. When I could see down the other side and saw four lumberjacks (my initial thought was that they were photographers, man was I naieve!) the dark thoughts came thick and fast! When the car stopped I told Beck to get in the front with Kate, all the while trying to keep my cool while I tried to figure out what I would do if they attacked us. Some how getting out of the car and throwing rocks threw the windows and at them was all I could think of.
The first two lumberjacks climbed in reeking of booze which I hoped the girls couldn't smell. Then the other two sat in the far back behind me, and I was just waiting for the possibility of being strangled or choked from behind.
The driver continued to grin at us in a manic fashion on the way down, maybe he sensed our uneasiness about the whole situation and found it hilarious. We made it back to town safely and with a bit of time to spare. We said 'szia' to the lumberjacks, thanked our driver and made our way to the bus stop. We were lucky really, the driver was obviously on his way to pick up his lumberjack mates when he stopped and picked us up. How were we to know? We would have struggled to make the bus if we walked, and the taxi trip makes for a much better story.
Once out of the mini-bus we all talked a million miles an hour about what had happened. Kate said the only reason she didn't lose it was because I remained so calm. Our driver just didn't seem sinister though, maybe it was the striking resemblance to Gerry Donovan that did it! Also, I think I stupidly thought I could handle the four lumberjacks and the driver. Kate assured me that I couldn't of. Beck was adamant we were about to feature in a horror movie. She had a point, no one would have known where we were! Scary, huh?
Back in Visegrad we took photos of the church, and when we got on the bus it was full so we had to stand up. The girls managed to doze off when they got seats. After getting off the bus we each got some donuts before getting on the train.
We had successfully reached the train station in plenty of time so we found a little place where we had an early dinner of gyros. Prior to being in Hungary I didn't think their food got much attention, but I think it's excellent.
Back over at the busy station we couldn't work out where to catch our train. While we were trying to work it out I thought I would change the rest of our Hungarian Forints in to Croatian Kuna. I waited in line at the first exchange I got to, and a bloke asked me what currency I was dealing in and produced a calculator. At first I thought he was working with the exchange, but then he offered me a better rate. By now I knew he was dodgy, but I was still waiting in line so I couldn't go anywhere. Then his mate came over who stunk of booze wanting to know why I wouldn't do business with them. At this point Kate was really good and said right we're going to another exchange. There was another one further down the station, and these blokes followed us! Kate kept telling them we didn't want their business.
As I was in the middle of the transaction with the legitimate exchange, one of the dodgy blokes pretended to return a pen to the bewildered teller who was serving me. Kate insisted that she could hand the pen over for them, and once the pen had been delivered they left us alone.
By now it was just about time to get on the train and we were still unsure of which terminal, but we eventually found it and got on with a couple of minutes to spare.
There was plenty of room on the train, and we took advantage of it. It was quite hot though. We passed the time snoozing, writing, or taking in the sights before it got dark. There was a wealthy lake resort which we went along side for a while. We grabbed some snacks, Bounty Chocolate and Spring Onion chips, which reminded me of French Onion CC's. Does anyone remember them? Yum!
We had our passports checked twice during the journey, and at the border Beck produced a famous quote. "I think we're at the border". Beck - "We must be, they've got guns!"
There were some other backpackers on the train who were sharing a bottle of absinthe during the journey, but we didn't join them.
At the train station in Zagreb it was bucketing down. We made a run for the tram stop shelter, and it wasn't long until our tram came along. Unfortunately at the end of the line we found that we had caught it the wrong way. So we caught it all the way back, and the driver let us know when it was our stop. Kate copped a bit of attention from a couple of guys on the tram with one of them giving her a Pokemon toy! The other bloke just stared.
Luckily it had stopped raining when we got off the tram. We couldn't find the hostel for ages. We weren't really lost it was just the naming of the streets was unfamiliar.
Eventually we found it, and it was a relief after such an action packed day to crawl into our bunks and get some sleep at one in the morning.

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