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Day tripped out to Szentendre (St Andrews) forty minutes outside Budapest which the Lonely Planet bills as ‘pretty little town’. In reality there is quite a Nice church but every other establishment in town is either a tourist nick-nack shop or an over-priced tourist restaurant. To make matters worse the place is rammed with German coffin dodgers. Avoid at all costs.

Open air pub again. This time I went home first. Runty built a fire on one of the tables which he is referring to as ‘The Great Bon-Fire of 2004′. Amazingly he was not thrown out.

Took the walking tour of the city for most of the day. Well worth it.

For this evenings spa we went Szeylotoni Spa which is hotter, more beautiful, open air and above all mixed sex. Watched old men with, seventies style glasses, white hair and perfect tans play endless rounds chess. Pretty sure I could have taken them.

I left Runty’s phone under my bed while we went out for the day. When we got back it was gone. To his enormous credit he is not upset at me but I feel like shit all the same. There doesn’t seem much hope of getting it back. For the first time in ages we are in a dorm so it could be a roomate or the staff.

Had another go at the cool bar from the previous evening. Fully rested we lasted much longer until ‘Man Down’ did a runner at 2am. I didn’t last much longer.

Up at five for flight to Budapest. We are heading back to central Europe time so it’s our body clocks think we got up at 3am. Bugger.

Did the boat cruise up and down the Danube between Buda and Pest, the two cities that were combined in 1873 to make Budapest. The boat cruise was excellent fun and the crew were cute as. They took a shine to Team Kiwi and we ‘won’ the raffel for some free caving and a cd.

Budapest is loaded with thermal spas. We went to Gellert Spa which has been used in loads of movies. Just don’t ask me to name one. The pools were segregated and Team Kiwi caught too many lingering stares in the boys spa to feel entirely comfortable.

In the evening we went to an excellent open air bar called Mumus built into the disused space between two buildings. It had excellent atmosphere but we only lasted two beers cos of early start to the day.

Caught the space museum which was much more pants than we had been led to believe.

We have to leave Russia tomorrow and we need to fly because the Belarus and Ukrainian visa situation is impossible. We booked the cheapest flight to the first place we could think of without thinking of whether we needed visas or where we were really going. Our lack of thought and planning was highlighted after we paid for the nonrefundable tickets and Runty looked at the Lonely planet and said ‘Hey Budapest is in Hungary’. As usual blind luck carried us through and Budapest is in the perfect location to begin the next leg of the trip.

FINAL THOUGHT ON RUSSIA

Russia is an amazing country and I would highly recommend it to anyone who travels. However the Ruskies could do a little more to encourage tourism and thus tourusm dollars. My recommendations are as follows:

1. Scrap the pain in the arse to get visa. The cold war is over, it was in all the papers.
2. Have a torist information office in every city that tourists frequent.
3. Put up a few more English signs around the place. Especially in the Metro.

FINAL THOUGHT ON THE SOVIETS

Our Russian guide told us that In the Eighties her huband got up at 6am to queue for a shop that opened at 9am so that their baby could eat. She said there were documented cases of Russians passing out when they arrived in the West and they saw the shops packed with food. Everbody had a job even if that job was sitting in an office all day drinking tea with nothing to do. The KGB would roam the streets looking for people who weren’t at their ‘jobs’ and arrest them, This was soviet Russia.
Apart from the death and suffering of tens of millions of people world wide and some really big really ugly buildings name one thing that communism has given us. My personal feeling is that the soviets were as evil as the Nazis.

Had a look at Lenin’s tomb where you can see his well preserved body still in pretty good shape decades after his death. I am dubious that it is the real Lenin as it looks like something from Madame Tusauds.

Visited the biggest market I have ever been to. I walked as far as I could in one direction and still didn’t get to the other side. This place made Camden Markets look like a garage sale. Typical Russian bigness.

Got even more culture this evening with a return trip to the ballet which was also at the Bolshoi Theatre. The ballet was Sleeping Beauty (not the one with the dwarves). The ballet believe it or not is frequented by a type of ballet hooligan. The hooligans have their favourites and when ever their favourite dancer does a big twirl of stands on their toes for ages they start screaming bravo bravo. It gets quite competitive.

Instead of the ballet Runty went to the pub.

Another walking tour. This time inside the Kremlin. Big canons, big bells, big buildings, big everything.

Topped up my cultural quotient with a visit to the Mockba Fine Art Gallery and an opera at the famous Bolshoi Theatre. The theate is spectacular and still uses the old soviet red and gold curtain decorated with CCCP and images of hammers and sickles. The opera was Boris Godonov a four hour long Russian epic that followed the usual opera theme of lots of fat people screaming their tits off. Stiring suff. Interestingly the last person to sing was a skinny lady.

Instead of the opera Runty went to the pub.

Moscow or Mockba as it’s spelt here is a city of fifteen million people, In typical Russian syle it’s BIG. Everything is BIG.

Did the walking tour and saw the Kremlin, another funny shaped Russian church and the Armoury which has some of the famous Fabergie Eggs.

In the evenning we went to the Mockba Circus. If you ever wondered what happened to all of those Russian gymnasts when they got to big for the olympic team I think it’s safe to say a few ended up in the Mockba Circus. The highlighight had to be the Russian version of Sigfreidski and Royski who made a large number of drugged up tigres and lions do simple tricks. Was badly diapointed when the big cats failed to rip their heads off. Also dissappionted that there were no dwarves.

Drove to Lake Mets for a lot of the day. Once at the lake did some rowing and fishing (no fish but) and an authentic Russian sauna. This involves baking yourself in a steamy sauna then thrashing each other with birch branches before jumping in an icy cold lake. This process is repeated three times for some unexplained reason. Runty managed to draw blood when he birched me.

In the evening we drank wodka shots, bbq and nekked swimming. Excellent Ruskie stuff.

Unhappiness target looks likely as we have massive hangovers.

Tour of town. Quite nice.

Met an American living in Novgorod who speaks Russian. I asked her why the Ruskies never smile. She said that the Ruskies don’t like doing things that are false (fair enough) and that when she first moved here her Russian friends told her to stop smiling so much because it made her look like an idiot.

One of the guys on our bus is the cousin of a guy who lived two houses away from me growing up. Talk about only getting two degrees of separation if you’re a Kiwi.

Fantastic dinner with tour buddies. Saw some locals singing, laughing and dancing. So they do know how to have a good time :)

Slept through alarm again. A mixture of long days walking and long nights drinking have made me a bad tourist. Was late for van and got in trouble. Unbelievably our first stop was the fort museum which we went out of our way to see on our first day in St Petersburg. It was okay the first time.

Another classic example of Soviet style bureaucracytoday when I was given a ticket as I paid to take a piss in a portaloo.

Pop quiz on our tour driver. Did he learn to drive:

a) in a two for one special with his anger management classes.

b) from watching Speed.

c) from playing Colin McRae rally on his play station.

d) in Cairo.

Saw the magnificent St Catherine’s Palace. The highlight was the beautiful Amber Room. Interestingly the Amber Room is a fake made in the 70s by the Soviets. The original was nicked by the Nazi’s in 1941. Only one panel has ever been recovered when a German pensioner who’s dad had fought in Russia tried to sell it in 1996.

Fantastic dinner with tour group. Had to tip big-time after we exceeded the maximum Russian quota for happiness whist eating with a group. Will try to be unhappier tomorrow.