Rail tales

I might have been pushing it with the “I could do this for weeks” bit. When I wrote my last post from the Eurostar I was still very much within my comfort zone, but from Paris onwards everything became increasingly blurry. From Cambridge I travelled through three time zones using four currencies in five countries. Sometimes the train would split into two part-way, so I had to be careful not to end up who knows where. On the Munich to Budapest leg I shared a cabin with three Germans, one of whom lives in Auckland. Small world. Knowing even a little German beyond ordering two beers would have been useful for me, even though they all spoke good English and of course I had something in common with one of them.

At Budapest station there was a lot of faff, and although I’d slept reasonably well I was tired, so I didn’t spend as long exploring the city as I’d hoped. I needed a locker so I could offload my suitcase, but the one I tried decided to eat my money (800 forint or about £2.50). When I mentioned this at the information desk, I was told quite aggressively that the storage company had nothing to do with the rail company, and I shouldn’t even be asking. In other words, tough shit. I thought, I’m not in Romania just yet, but this is what I’m likely to get week in, week out when I get there. I did see some of Budapest by taking the red metro line from the train station across to the Buda side (I’m writing this just in case I visit again which hopefully I will). I saw Parliament, the Synagogue, some other very impressive unidentified buildings that I took photos of, and of course the vast Danube. My ticket to Timișoara cost me nearly 30 euros when I’d hoped it would be 15. For some reason I was unable to buy that ticket online back in July. I’ve emailed the man in Seat 61 to hopefully find out what the trick is. (Update: I already have. I needed to have booked it using a Hungarian site. That man is good.)

I remember saying I dreamt about train trips to places I can’t pronounce. The final leg of my journey took me to the Hungarian cities of Szolnok and Békéscsaba, and right on the border with Romania where we stopped for a good half-hour while our passports were checked, the small town of Lőkösháza. Can’t pronounce? Check. I’m so glad I didn’t even think of learning Hungarian. When I look at that language, even on a shop front sign, there’s just nothing to go on at all. I arrived in Timișoara at about 9:30pm on Friday. The hotel staff are extremely pleasant and seem reasonably impressed that I know a few words of Romanian.

If I do a massive train trip again, there are three things I’ll make sure I bring. One, a captivating book. The book I had didn’t grab me. Two, a map that shows the train route. Békéscsaba sounds a lot less daunting when I locate it on a map. Three, and most importantly, a greater supply of food and drink.

I’ll write about Timișoara in my next post. On today’s evidence I think I could just about live here.