From the Poles to the Polls!

Walking across the
Slovakian border

Ždiar is the largest village in a group called Belá Tatras, right near the Polish border in Slovakia. Filled with quaint ‘Goral Cottages’, the town is set in a picturesque valley, surrounded by the most-impressive Tatras Mountains, and is home to a small local history museum, a post office, a few small restaurants, a much-raved-about pizza place (which was never open while I was around!), and The Goulash Man – who drunkenly slumbers in the kitchen of his restaurant, and once woken up, makes an amazing goulash at any hour of the day. Of course, he then goes straight back to sleep behind the counter!!!

I spent three nights in Ždiar, staying at ‘The Ginger Monkey’ – an old house-turned-hostel (where unfortunately one of the staff took an immediate dislike to me, and can only be described as a total bitch) – and conquering the ‘Lake Walk’, the ‘River Walk’, and ‘The Goulash’. I spent every available moment relaxing in the sun, teaching fellow travellers the life-changing goodness of ‘Prawo Dzungli’, reliving childhood riddles and games, and buying a canister of dry ice to burn each others warts and other travel-in-India-related growths off of our bodies. Entertaining to say the least!

The walk was worth it - the lake!

After some rather dreary weather over the previous week, my last day in Ždiar was spent covered in sweat, as the full sun and hot weather finally made themselves known, and I was coerced into tackling Spiš Castle, and the large hill on which it now somewhat stands. Once a 4 hectare castle complex, and now an interesting ruin, Spiš Castle dates back to the early 13^th century, and is one of the largest castle sites in Europe, overlooking the town of Spišské Podhradie below. The audio tour of the castle was not the most exciting hour of my trip, however the Monty Python style horse sound effects between stops were definitely an entertaining way to fill in the time!

From Ždiar, I made my way into Hungary, and after a brief overnight stop in Budapest, was on my way to landlocked Hungary’s most popular ‘beach-side’ tourist destination – Lake Balaton. Lake Balaton is a 600km² lake south-west of Budapest, surrounded by numerous small towns and villages, and home to hundreds of sailing boats and yachts moored in the areas many overflowing marinas. Through CouchSurfing, I was fortunate enough to get in touch with a man who owns one of these yachts, and while he wasn’t in town to meet up with, he did leave me details of where his yacht was moored, and how to get on-board without standing out amongst the very well-dressed nautical locals who no doubt have servants to carry their luggage, and would never dream of carrying it on their delicate back as I was. I spent the next two nights living the high life (well, except when the storm came in at 2am!), lounging about on my own personal yacht, devouring countless cappuccinos in the many lakeside café’s, and perusing the expensive boutique stores of Balatonfüred – of course walking around as if I had some intention of buying something, and the financial means.

Home... for two nights!

Unfortunately the 2am storm (and subsequent unfolding drama which saw me drenched in torrential downpour, thrown about in the ridiculous winds, and desperately crawling about the deck trying to work out how to tie a rope in a fashion which would prove stronger than the bow on a typical birthday present), brought with it fairly miserable weather for my second day on the lake, and I gave up my natural affluent look (which with the rocking of the boat overnight, and the proximity of the toilet to my bed, could just have easily been an ‘effluent’ look), and spent the day being a ‘local’, whiling away my time wandering the aisles of Tesco, seeing a movie, and for the first time in my chubby, un-toned life, stepping inside a gym! Of course, I had no intention of using the equipment the gym had to offer, but wanted a hot shower, which unfortunately the moored yacht didn’t offer.

A little worse for wear the morning after the storm!

Leaving behind my life of leisure, I stopped into Budapest yet again (this became quite a common occurrence!) before making my way to southern Hungary, and the beautiful small city of Pécs. The remaining walls and barbican of Pécs date back to the early 15^th century, and the town has seemingly endless beautiful cobblestone streets and gardens, and of course a selection of churches, galleries and museums – what European city doesn’t! Unfortunately the weather gods were still against me at this point, and I spent most of my time in Pécs sheltering from the rain and wind, stuffing myself with the amazing, stodgy, fatty goodness which Eastern European food is, and meeting Arianne, a Welsh entrepreneur in the ‘Dental Tourism’ industry, and one of those people who leads a life I am totally and completely jealous of! If only I had thought of dental tourism first!!!

Pécs Theatre

With the sights of Pécs seen, my ever-expanding appetite and waistline satisfied, and a new understanding of the dental tourism industry, I was once again wasting a couple of hours in Budapest, before my train to the fun, games, and avocado goodness of Hajdúszoboszló.

Hajdúszoboszló (or ‘Do-re-mi-fa-so’ as I resorted to calling it!) is a small town in Hungary’s east, near the Romanian border, and home to Lee – a larger-than-life teacher from the US who somehow managed to find himself in a small Hungarian town best known for thermal baths and overweight budgie-smuggling middle aged men who like to walk the streets in summer. Lee teaches English in a local school, and seems to spend the rest of his time fantasising about creative ways in which to eat avocado, scouting out the best price on local avocados, scientifically ripening the avocados to perfection, and then inviting multiple friends over to help devour his extravagant avocado delights. Needless to say, as a fan of avocado myself, I was in heaven!

Lee... with yet more
avocado!

Lee lives in a small flat below a local family, with a particularly fetching (I use this word too much, but the best synonym Word had to offer was ‘dishy’, and I just don’t think I can use that word and be taken seriously!) black and purple synthetic fabric sofa, which I called home for two nights. We spent my second day in Do-re-mi-fa-so wandering the streets of the town, admiring the weird yet wonderful sculptures and monuments, before catching a bus into Debrecen, Hungary’s second largest city, and just a short bus ride from the town. With disastrous weather still following my travels, my tour of Debrecen consisted mainly of dodging puddles on the way into a number of bars, in which our drinking began rather early, and advanced rather rapidly! Heading back to Do-re-mi-fa-so, it was time to prepare yet another extra-ordin-avocado dinner, meet up with some of Lee’s fellow teachers, and let the drinking games begin! I’m rather embarrassed to say I think the US beat Australia in the drinking – I’ve let me country down!

Cluj-Napoca

Transylvania was my next stop as I headed east into Romania, to Clug-Napoca, a crowded, traffic-jammed, bustling city at the base of the Apuseni Mountains, and home to Hunor, my host for the next few days. Hunor is a business man, and may as well get his iPhone permanently attached to the side of his face for the number of times it rings each day, and with business as usual while I was in town (it’s unbelievable they didn’t announce a public holiday to celebrate my arrival!), I had a whirlwind couple of days shadowing him around the city. Hunor lives in an apartment block on the outskirts of the city (he needs space to store the 3 Mercedes, 2 BMW’s, 2 trucks and a van!), with his brother and his girlfriend (who treated me like royalty for the duration of my stay – waiting on me and cleaning up after me despite my disputes!), and even though they all work long, demanding hours, and the phone never stops ringing, it would appear sleep is irrelevant in the whole household – why would you sleep at night when you could go out and party???

Hunor took me out on my first night in Cluj, devouring the most amazing Filet Mignon I could ever imagine (so good in fact I am certain the cow appreciated me being in town so much it willingly offered itself up to be my dinner!), before touring some local pubs, and then onto the former Ursus Brewery, where each table has its own ‘tap’, and I washed my delicious cow down with some delicious, yet terribly poured beer.

The 'Australian Flora' greenhouse
at the Cluj Botanic Gardens... not
much like Australia!!!

I spent the next day in the city, rummaging through undoubtedly Europe’s best and cheapest selection of second hand stores, picking up way too many bargains to fit into my already straining backpack, discovering Romania’s rather grotesque medical past in the unique Pharmaceutical Museum, and of course sampling a range of different cappuccinos and lattes across the city. Late in the afternoon, Hunor picked me up in town, and we headed for over an hour into the countryside, dropping in to meet his cousin and family in a small Romanian village, before arriving just in time for a shot of Rachiu and a ‘sensational’ traditional home-grown Romanian dinner at his parents house in a small village ‘in the sticks’. Hunor’s dad has been the Priest of the Hungarian Lutheran Church in the village for the last 25 years, and I had an incredible afternoon exploring the magnificent old church, climbing the inside of the bell tower (Hunor’s childhood cubby-house!), and even came close to performing what would have been a rather horrendous Vanessa Carlton impersonation on the huge church organ – until I realised the whole village was within earshot, and decided not to show off my questionable talents!

After dinner, we headed down the street to the local town hall, where excitement for the upcoming mayoral election was fever pitch, and the whole town was gathered in the small hall for the biggest event on the town’s social calendar – a concert! On only a slightly smaller scale than what you would expect from Obama, one of the local candidates had organised a singer from Cluj to come to the small village for a night of Romanian folk songs and pop cover music, and the crowd was ecstatic at the upcoming entertainment. As the crowd grew, I walked around the town hall and was blown away at the proud history of the community – the walls were adorned with photos of town concerts and musicals from every year since the early 1940’s, and while many of the hairstyles and fashions have since well and truly gone out of date, it was interesting to follow peoples lives through the invaluable photos the village so proudly displays. With the small hall beyond capacity, and with not a single word of Romanian in my vocabulary, I decided not to take up a seat, but rather perched myself atop a clothes drier which happened to be at the back of the building, and watched the show, with absolutely no idea what was being said or sung, but loving every bit nonetheless!

I think the concert was a great success, with the obviously very talented singer pleasing the crowd with a range of songs I could only hum along to, while the whole hall sang at the top of their voices. Conga lines were all the rage, and two young guys got up on stage for some Romanian breakdancing, before a hilarious dance-off over the singers attention, which I could understand even without a word of Romanian! The fun and festivities were interrupted for a while in the middle, while the mayoral candidate address the crowd, and I clapped very politely while nodding my head in agreement with everything he said – what a great, uneducated voter I would be! The event finished with a sing-a-long, before the whole town gathered around CWA style trestle tables in the car-park outside, devouring some of the most amazing baked goods and cakes I have ever tasted, and washing it down with the local brew. An amazing, memorable night – even if I didn’t understand a word!

Driving back into the city around midnight, it was of course not time for bed – the party was just starting! Dressed to the nines in my new op-shop attire, we hit the clubs of Cluj, where it turns out the green wristband Hunor gave me on the way into the club was not just for decoration, but attracted me rather a lot of attention (I did wonder why he insisted I wear a green one, while he and his happily-committed friends were wearing orange or red…), and I had a great night clubbing Romanian style in the most jam-packed clubs I have ever been into in my life!

After a whirlwind couple of weeks, some amazing new friends, a couple of kilos heavier, and still with absolutely no idea how to pronounce most of the places I have visited, it was time to move on. Thanks to all the amazing people who invited me to stay in their homes and yachts, and welcomed me into their lives, parties, election campaigns and drinking games!

Next stop – the home of Dracula!!!

The River Walk, Ždiar