Beijing to Budapest

The last day yawned on and on … but finally we reached Moscow, iconic centre of communism, late one afternoon. Jon, Janine and Colin were in the same hotel as us (though poor old Jon was stranded across the road) and we took our first tentative steps on stable terrain with somewhat wobbly train legs. It was brilliant to have made it the Moscow, finally. 

Moscow is full of surprises. If you expect a stern city, a testament to communism or a somewhat grey stalag, you will be mighty surprised. It’s an attractive, lively low-rise city absolutely steeped in history but by no means stuck in the past. It has architecture to make you gape and a riverside to rival Budapest or Prague. We only had a couple of nights in the capital, but we crammed in all we could. We walked and walked in the intense heat, taking in all the major sites – obviously the Kremlin, Red Square, Gorky Park, St Basils, St Christ the Saviour and the Bolshoi – but also the fabulously named (and fabulous smelling) Red October Chocolate Factory, GUM the state department store/arcade with amazing architecture, the magnificent Metro stations and Statue Park where Lenin and Marx’s major statues now rest, having been taken down from around the city in the early 90s. The sun shone for the whole of our stay, it was blazing hot and Moscow looked resplendent. I am sure that the mafia is there and pickpocketing is doubtless rife, but we had no problems. It certainly is not as dangerous or deadly for the tourist as the Western press would have you believe. 

All too soon we were disbanding our brotherhood of travellers as we each headed off to different parts of Europe. We, oh gluttons for punishment, were off on the longest direct train possible from Moscow: to Budapest. You can get pretty much anywhere quicker that the Tisza Express journey to Budapest, a mere 37 hours through Russia, right across the Ukraine (Europe’s largest country) and then through Hungary. We had an interesting couple of hours at Moscow’s Kievski station which has no information whatsoever on which trains there may or may not be arriving and departing. All the boards were blank, announcements all in Russian only, and no staff to be found. On one of my wanders however I spotted a train with Tisza Express in Russian on it sitting happily at the furthest platform from the station. Thankfully, it was the right one and we left Moscow in a glorious sunset at half nine at night. 

Here we found out how great our female provodnitsas had been. On the Tisza Express we had two large Russian chaps who stripped out of their uniforms the minute we left the station and proceeded to stay in their cabin, touting beer bellies and beer, and never raising a finger to clean, empty bins or go near the toilet – which degenerated fast. They were very nice (and appreciated the chocolates!) but not exactly the busy bees of efficiency or cleanliness that their female counterparts had been. And what IS it with Russian train timetabling? We had two major border crossing to do in two nights, and guess what – they both take place between 2.30am and 5.00am. In these dead hours we had the inevitable bogey changes and scrutiny by Russian, Ukranian and finally Hungarian customs, immigration officials and various other officials with no clear role or purpose. At least they all let the kids sleep, but Joe and I had some very long nights of form filling, smiling sweetly and admin. 

It’s also worth a somewhat squeamish paragraph on toilet arrangements at this point. The toilets close for the duration of each stop, each border crossing, plus an extra hour at each end for good measure. This has to be simply because whatever you put down the toilet goes straight onto the track. Not so nice for those immigration officials who inspect every centimetre of the undercarriage for illegal booty and stowaways. Now, with three kids and a rude awakening in the middle of the night, this can be somewhat inconvenient. It is amazing how inventive you can be in a small carriage with bags and wine bottles however, plus my precious bottle of perfume to cover up noxiousness afterwards! Some of the incidents were hilarious, some disastrous, and most pretty gross. 

Budapest’s magnificent Keleti station was finally in sight in the morning after just an hour or two’s sleep … we felt we were almost home. We were also in the Euro zone, a rude awakening! As soon as we got in our taxi we knew it: we were all dutifully strapped in for the first time in many, many months and the kids put in darned booster seats that are now law. Bah humbug. 

However, despite the bureaucracy, it was amazing to be ‘home’, and best of all, we knew we had Alex and Hilary and our CAR to look forward to that very first afternoon in Hungary!