Going out till 4am with four people I barely knew, meeting two people who sold their car to a drug dealer in Paraguay in order to buy an air ticket to Europe, almost getting arrested by Vladimir Putin’s security and getting to drive a complete stranger’s twenty-plus year old car, not to mention meeting someone who had a “kohlapuri” sandal with him at a greek restaurant… I guess you could say that it was an exciting two days in Budapest.

I did not have any hotel reservations. However, as the train made its way into the station, a young man representing a hostel came on the train and sold me a bed in a hostel for around $10 a night. I was under no obligations, all I had to do was take the free shuttle provided by them to the hostel, check it out, and I did not have to pay anything upfront. I decided to take a chance, as the setup seemed legit, and made it to the hostel without getting abducted on the way.

The Mellow Mood Hostel well exceeded my expectations. The location was fabulous, right by the river, and next to the Kempinski and Le Meridian Hotels. It was an old office building converted to a hostel so had large rooms with high ceilings, very clean, and all amenities. We were eight to a room, and each had their own locker. Additionally, they conveniently had the laundry room right next to the bar, which was where I found myself, and about ten other fellow-travelers while waiting for my clothes to dry. Over the course of the next four to five beers, I got to know two australian former construction workers who were traveling around the world and had some of the craziest experiences. These guys bought a car in Canada and made their way down to South America, picking up hitch-hikers in Mexico who along the way helped themselves to their iPods and clothes and money leaving them stranded. They then sold their car in Paraguay to someone they claim was a drug-dealer, and then after working in Denmark and France, finally made their way to Budapest where they were merrily getting drunk in the company of complete strangers such as myself.

And then there was a Bosnian girl from Croatia who had actually visited Darjeeling in India purely because she saw it on a teabag, or the American kid who showed up in the middle of the night after visiting villages in the Ukraine, or a charming girl from Denmark who was in Budapest interviewing people for a radio show, and coincidentally was on the same flight as me on the way out of Budapest.

Budapest is really a beautiful city. You can see both its glorious past and the influences of various cultures have had over the years. You also see a new, emerging country that is genuinely excited about joining the EU, and is embracing the modern world with enthusiasm. I was surprised to learn, from a guy I met at a greek restaurant, that India’s TCS has about 800 software engineers in Budapest, about 100-200 of whom are from India! Its still very reasonably priced, and even the new fancy shopping malls have quality merchandise at significantly lower prices than the West.

I was also very pleasantly surprised by how friendly and helpful people were. Almost everywhere I went I managed to engage in conversation with complete strangers, and in the rare moments that I got lost or needed help (finding an internet cafe, for example), even if someone couldn’t communicate in English, they would try their best or ask around until they found someone who spoke English.

My most unexpected experience happened, well, quite unexpectedly. I was walking toward Buda Castle on the hill, and even made my way in until a kind Russian or Hungarian security guard with a not-so-kind automatic rifle politely asked me to turn around. He did not speak any English and I did not know any Hungarian, so I was quite perplexed until a German tourist couple standing outside the castle told me that Vladimir Putin was expected there any minute and no one was allowed to go where I had inadvertantly gone in order to take pictures of the breath-taking views that the castle’s elevation offers!

Anyway, so I turn around and head toward a quieter part of town and see these two old east-european cars that look a lot like the old Indian “Fiats”, and I start photographing them, just as the owner of one comes out. Through halting English and gestures, he asks me if I’d like to take the car for a spin. Now, this is an old car, filled with lunch-boxes as the man delivers food to old folks, so there is room only for one, the driver. Yet this guy trusts me enough to walk along the street while I slowly edge the car out of its parking spot and take it along the road for a spin! It might have been only 200 meters, but it was an amazing feeling. Later I was told that in Hungary cars are expensive, and people have a special attachment to their cars, and for this guy to let a complete stranger ride his was a really big gesture!

Other than that, I spent a lot of time walking around various neighborhoods, exploring areas, tourist attractions (the terror museum and Andrassy Boulevard), and of course cafes. I went to see some of the famous Baths, but unfortunately I got to the Hotel Gellerd too late and the baths were closed.

Check out some of the pictures here as words don’t to justice to this really beautiful and culturally rich city. I really want to come back here again sometime.

Lets compare the room I stayed in Amsterdam to the one in Berlin. Note, this picture was taken from the entrance to the room, no zoom. However, the accomodations were extremely comfortable, the staff friendly and welcoming…

Ok, so admittedly its taken me a little while to get my Jamaica post up and running. Now to a few of you this might be a little disconcerting, given that Jamaica was in fact my first port of call. Except for a random two line email post sent on a weak stolen Wi-Fi signal from the beach, which for some reason that I can’t fathom has the largest number of comments to date, I’ve only managed to talk about Pelican Bar and the villa experience. What, you might ask, was I doing for the rest of the five days? And what about details from the rest of my trip? Am I going to be as tardy all the way through? Do you, the few readers who come by and check this space regularly, have to wait until 2007 and the culmination of the cricket world cup before you get to read my posts from June 2006?

No, my dear friends, I assure you that order and regularity shall make their way onto these blogs. We shall start by catching up on my first day here in Berlin, and then shall fill in Amsterdam and Jamaica in a few days. I am currently sitting at a desk in my room on the 21st floor of the Park Inn, a four star business hotel in Alexanderplatz. The room is about as big as my studio in New York, and has the sleek ergonomic european design that I quite enjoy. True, I am not really “roughing it” as a backpacker should, but then again, I never said I was backpacking, and more importantly, there was a great deal on Expedia, and this place cost about half of its normal price! Long live the Internet!

Berlin

Berlin is a really interesting place, and I will do more justice to it in my next post as I have another day here. However, a few initial observations after my first day here:
1) Berliners love public transport: You have the U-bahn (underground subway), the S-bahn (overground train), the H-bahn (tram, which threatens to kill you everytime you attempt to cross the street) and buses

2) There are helluva lot of monuments and government buildings- almost two at every corner

3) Hugo Boss suits are cheaper here than anywhere else, including Toronto and Vancouver. Now why would someone who is not going to wear a suit for another six months buy one? Just put it down to craziness, and we should be fine.

4) Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan:
Friendly competitors to the venerable House of Morgan, Deutsche Bank have gone one step ahead in the world of corporate sponsorships by actually naming a museum the “Deutsche Guggenheim”, and putting a massive poster just outside the building. At first you might say that it is fine, after all, Deutsche could also just mean “German Guggenheim”. True, except then the marketing geniuses at my friendly competitor decided to add their logo of the square with the slash on it, and on every other reference to the Deutsche Guggenheim. To add insult to injury, this massive sign was on a massive building right opposite a tiny building with a tiny sign that announced the offices of JPMorgan

4) Einstein Kaffe: This chain of well appointed coffee shops will give Starbucks a run for their Euros any day. Can’t wait for them to make an entry into the New York market

Confession: I can’t escape my past. Here I am, on my way around the world, “away from it all”, and yet I try and read the FT when I can, I find humor in investment bank sponsorships, I try and think about business strategies of coffee shops. Maybe it isn’t my past. Maybe its the present and these six months are just one long commercial break!

We saw the sunset approaching. Not because time was passing, but because our two small boats were heading towards it. A boat ride can be fun, even romantic at times. However, as a group of fifteen young men, romance was really not on top of our minds. We were putting our lives in the hands of two Jamaican fisherman and their rickety old boats in order to find what we had heard was the perfect bar.

The trip started with a negotiation. The fishermen demanded what was probably a month’s wages to take each of us across. He cited international maritime rules, his many unborn children, and the treacherous seas that he would have to navigate through in order to justify the price. However, as a result of some clever negotiation on our part, which basically involved having a pleasant Aussie currently living in Phoenix by way of Chicago and San Francisco as chief negotiator, we managed to bring it down to just about half a month’s wages. It is always a good negotiation tactic to have two undecipherable accents communicate in order to reach agreement.

With a price finally decided, we carefully lumbered onto two tiny fishing vessels, making sure that we evenly distributed our weight to prevent any chance of someone falling overboard and delaying us from reaching our destination.

After almost twenty minutes of riding the less-than-calm waters, as we moved further away from land and were convinced that something got lost in translation from Australian to Jamaican English and we had ended up purchasing a one-way ticket to Cuba, we finally sighted what the internet calls one of the coolest bars in the world.

On a standalone basis, at first impression, the ramshackle collection of driftwood that is supposed to be Floyd’s Pelican Bar is quite unimpressive. The space is tiny and without any electricity, and probably would fail any building inspection, assuming the building inspector had any inclination of coming this way for an inspection. Located on a sandbank, twelve miles from the nearest beach, this collection of driftwood stands on stilts on emerald-green water. The interiors would probably make your closest look like the Shangri-la, and if you don’t like sitting on tree stumps then you’d better know how to swim and sip a beer at the same time. Any calls of nature can be answered by walking out in the open and into mother-nature’s very own rest room- the sea. But you then look around you, and you see the beautiful still water stretching for as far as the eyes can see, and a sun casting a deep orange net across the horizon, capturing gray clouds, and hear nothing but complete silence, and you know it was worth it.

Here are pictures of the Pelican Bar. For pictures of Jamaica, click here

As requested by my work colleagues, here’s the first of the series: