Buda-Pest
The name Budapest comes from the connection of the two districts where Buda lies on the west of the Danube and Pest to the east of it. As far as I'm concerned Pest is where it's at, and districts VI and VII in particular, that are the eating and drinking hubs of Budapest. And to be even more specific, if you do ever find yourself in Budapest there's only one place to stay and that's Home Made Hostel. The best hostel we've stayed in so far by a country mile.
Turkish Baths
Due to the abundant natural mineral waters available to Budapest and its very strong Ottoman influence, there is a very good Turkish Bath scene in Budapest. We did our research and found Veli Bej that is out of the tourist centre, quite difficult to find and was supposedly very traditional so off we went, nice and early to try and avoid a) other tourists and b) the judging eyes of locals.
Paying for entry and accessing our lockers was easy enough and we got changed and were ready to go. We'd read that you shower before you hit the thermal pools so Nix and I walked into the first shower we saw and started washing ourselves only for a Hungarian man to walk in a couple of minutes later and advise Nix that she was in the men's shower, much to her great embarrassment.
It was fairly smooth sailing from that point on though. Into the main, beautiful thermal pool we went followed by repeated cycles in and out of various saunas and smaller thermal pools of varying temperatures before finishing off with a massage.
However the massage wasn't really up my alley as it was too oily and sensual to come from a man and was only slightly less strange than the one from the lady boy in Krabi.
Thank you #1 Brother in Law for that very good Turkish Bath Christmas treat.
New Year's Eve
We chose to stay in Budapest at this time of the year on the basis that we'd get to have NYE there. The night started off slowly with dominoes, a bottle of cherry pálinka and our salamander friends (another reason to stay at Home Made Hostel).
We then moved out into the street where everyone was going nuts with horns and vuvuzelas and fireworks were being let off left, right and centre. The New Year was brought in with a bottle of the worst sparkling wine (and possibly alcoholic beverage) that either of us had ever tasted, but given I'd bartered with a guy that had a trolley full of them to sell me a bottle for $5 we couldn't really complain.
The night finished with more drinking and Nicola being taught how to dance to Arabic music. "It's all in the hips".
Hungary Part 2
Pug Sightings - 21
