Siofok

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Friday, June 29

Since we had the bikes for 24 hours, we woke up early and went for a morning bike ride in the woods. After breakfast, we drank from the natural springs in Marianske Lazne, which are said to cure disorders of the kidney and bladder.

Previously in Karlovy Vary, we purchased train tickets to go from Marianske Lazne to Siofok, Hungary, which required three different trains—one from Marianske Lazne to Prague, the night train from Prague to Budapest, and a final train from Budapest to Siofok. We paid-in-full for the two tickets for all three legs of the trip, in addition to two other tickets to reserve two beds in one of the sleeper compartments for the Prague to Budapest portion. The first leg of the trip went smoothly. Once in Prague, we had an hour or so at the train station before the night train departed at around 11 pm. After boarding, we made our way to our 6-person sleeper compartment, which luckily, was empty except for John and me. We met our neighbors who were kids from the US who had recently graduated from undergrad, business school, or were doing a study abroad program. At around 1 am, we locked our compartment and went to bed feeling good and enjoying the peace and space of our empty compartment. A few hours later, metal banging against our cabin door suddenly awaked us. The border patrol was going from cabin to cabin banging on each door and yelling things in Czech. We finally were able to grasp that we needed to get up and unlock the door. We managed to crawl out of our sleeping bags and unlock the door and there stood a very intimidating uniformed guard speaking in Czech. We finally understood that he wanted our passports. After looking at the documents, he handed them back to us and we thought it as safe to go back to bed. Not so. An hour later, the exact same sequence was repeated only this time we got a stamp in the passport. We definitely thought it was safe to go back to bed now. Again, we were wrong. Less than an hour later, a woman train conductor came by saying in Czech or Hungarian that we needed to pay more money, despite having the 2 tickets for the various trains and the 2 tickets for the sleeper car. She told us that the tickets we bought did not go through Budapest. This was the first I heard of this. Being that we had crossed the border sometime in the night, we did not have any Hungarian forint on us. I showed her that I only had Czech crowns and she grabbed the money I had (which wasn’t much) and then gave it back saying it wasn’t enough. She then demanded our passports and began writing something. Turns out, we were getting written up that we owed money (about 2000 forint each = about $10) plus a 6000 forint fine (about $30 fine). After this, they finally left us alone. We were not sure what to do about the fine, so we didn’t do anything. When we arrived in Budapest, we got on the train to Siofok.

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Saturday, June 30

We had taken the night train from Prague to Budapest and had some problems with our tickets. That did not stop us from getting on our next train from Budapest to Siofok, Hungary. We were a bit concerned to see what would happen when the train conductor came around for the tickets. I was still not able to get any Hungarian forint. The train conductor did not speak English and kept asking for something else after we showed him our tickets. Apparently, we also needed an inter-city transfer ticket. Of course, when we bought the original tickets to Siofok, it never dawned on us that we would need additional tickets. The train conductor was very unfriendly and I told him I only have Czech currency. He took what I had and did not give any change back. The whole exchange with the train conductor took what seemed like an eternity, but after paying him, he finally went away.

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Because Siofok was listed on the electronic display at the train station, we thought it was the last stop on the train. What turned out to be two stops after Siofok, the train conductor came back to us asking for our tickets. He obviously knew we were trying to get to Siofok and that we did not have any other tickets. Luckily, a Hungarian guy who spoke English stepped in and helped us. We got off at the next stop and waited an hour and a half for the next local train back to Siofok.

We finally made it to Siofok at around 1 in the afternoon. Siofok is located on Lake Balaton, central Europe’s largest lake. Tons of Hungarians and Germans have summer homes around Lake Balaton or rent one of the many accommodations available to house the vacationers. Despite its size, Lake Balaton is rather shallow and on the south side of the lake, you can walk almost 2 kms out and still be in shallow water.

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We enjoyed the beach and at night we made our way to the MTV/Coke beach party that had a band called the Freestylers there to perform, as well as various DJs.

Sunday, July 1

We rented bikes and rode around part of Lake Balaton. It was very scenic and pleasant ride. Later that afternoon, we took the train back to Budapest. We met some other people staying at our hostel and went out for drinks that night. In Budapest, the nightlife scene is well hid behind large doors and entryways. You kind of have to know where you’re going in order to find a place to hang out. The lady at the hostel told us where to go and you would never know from the street what was going on behind the doors of the city.