Budapest - Day Forty Two

I'm glad I picked The Loft Hostel for my stay in Budapest. It's a spacious, chilled out place and its small scale (there are only 18 beds in total) keeps things feeling friendly and homey. I've passed the last few days in classic backpacker style - beery drinking games in the evenings and lots of pavement pounding when I walk the hangover off the next day, and this hostel has been a great base - somewhere to relax amidst the chaos.

I've been feasting on Hungarian classics; goulash, paprika chicken and mixed fruit strudels have given me the energy required to get from one place of interest to another (it's a bigger city than the maps make it seem), and I've been soaking up the palpable Eastern European feel to this region, which is quite striking after my previous destinations. It's a bit of a driftwood city - everything feels a little battered and frayed. There are some beautiful old buildings here, but most of them look as if they've had a few layers of polish worn off them over the years, and could now do with some serious TLC. After all the pomp and splendor of Vienna, Budapest feels a little grubby and tired - most places would though I suppose.

I had a fantastic day today - so good that the city will always have a special place in my heart. I woke up after a mere three hours of sleep (more drinking games at The Loft I'm afraid) and there was a very real possibility that I would have ended up wasting the day. Luckily Chad, a Londoner I'd been drinking with the previous night, managed to kick some life into me when he reminded me I'd agreed to visit the baths with him.

Budapest is renowned as a city of spas, and we headed to it's grandest old bath house in a park behind Heroes Square. I'm not entirely sure how we made it across town, as we were both shuffling about like extras in a zombie film, but somehow we bumbled our way in there, avoided the more horrific big fat hairy naked guys in the changing room (although not before I saw some things that will plague my nightmares for a few sleepless weeks) and made it out into the intermittent sunshine of the outdoor pools.

The next few hours proved to be the best hangover cure I've ever found. We wallowed in the hot pools (38C...) like drunken zombie hippos, we whirled around in a kind of giant spinning whirlpool that made me laugh like a giddy schoolgirl, and we sweated it up in the saunas and steam rooms. If there was one of these back home i would visit every day, without exception, eventually getting thrown out at closing time looking like a giant pink prune. A happy one.

After what could well have been several hours (I lost track of time pretty comprehensively), I was ready to leave, but Chad talked me into getting a thai massage...

I have never had a thai massage before. I've never had any type of professional massage before. Sweet beard of Odin it was good though . I floated out of the place! The woman who gave me the massage was about a third of my size, but she had the vicelike grip of Chuck Norris. The last five minutes or so were finished off with a head massage that left me burbling and just as zombielike as when I arrived at the baths a few hours before. Worth every bloody forint.

I'm probably going to stay here for an extra night now, in the hope that tomorrow will be another sunny day and I can go back to the baths one last time. If you only see one thing in Budapest, make it that place.