The Ruin Pubs of Budapest

One unique feature of Budapest is the ruin pub.  In recent decades, some entrepreneurs have taken old abandoned buildings (some since the time of WW2) and turned them into bars and nightclubs, all while maintaining a degree of cool dilapidation.  One of the most popular Budapest ruin pubs is Szimpla Kert, and it was a few blocks from our hotel and far from the more modern parts of the city.  After receiving a highly enthusiastic recommendation from our hotel concierge, we arrived after 8 PM on a Monday night and it was bustling.  It appeared to be 2 buildings and the roof was missing in parts.  Inside was a warren of little rooms where you could relax on a sofa, sit at a table of your choosing, or even in the back of an old Hungarian car.  Everywhere you looked, there was graffiti or art of one sort or another.  I'm not sure this place would pass an American health code, but the food was good.

I was concerned that it would be a little touristy -- and it probably is -- but I didn't hear a lot of English being spoken.  There were clearly locals there and the average patron's age was probably 25 (it was dark, so I still fit in).  Anyway, we had a good meal and I wanted to try the palinka -- Hungarian fruit brandy.  I walked up to a decidedly unimpressed female bartender and looked at the chalkboard with about 10 kinds of palinka.  I confidently ordered the first plum version on the menu, trying to pronounce it correctly in Hungarian.  She looked blankly at me and the following conversation ensued:

"What did you want?" she asked.
I said it again.
She asked me again.
And I said it again.
And then she asked, "Why do you want that?"
"Uh, I like plums?" (My confidence was waning at this point.)
"That's the worst.  You should try this [other kind of plum palinka]."

I wasn't thinking quickly enough to ask why they would serve something that she thought was so terrible, but in any event, the prices were the same, so I went with her selection.  Maybe she was angling for a tip because she was "saving" me from my terrible selection.  Anyway, the palinka was 100 proof and I don't really feel the need to try it again, though you should try it once.  And in case you get the same bartender, order the second plum palinka on the menu, not the first.

Here's the upstairs terrace connecting 2 buildings at Szimpla Kert.  You can see the various rooms along the sides.

Trigger Warning!

OK, if you're skittish about skeletons, mummies, and the like, you should stop reading now.





Still with us?  Of course you are.  On two occasions on this trip, we came in relatively close contact with some things you just don't see on this side of the Atlantic.

At St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, you will see a lovely church, but if you go into the little room to the left of the altar, you can also see a mummified hand.  And not just anyone's mummified hand, but St. Stephen's himself.  The hand looked, well, a little small, but I'm sure that just has something to do with the mummification process.  Meanwhile, I was jostled by enough people who were trying to get up close for a photo with the hand (which is behind glass, of course) that I wasn't sure what was more grotesque: the hand or the tourists!

Later, while in Prague, we took a half-day trip to Kutna Hora.  It's an hour's train-ride to the east.  It was good to get out of the big city and see a Czech town.  But we were really there for the bones.  In the 1300s, Kutna Hora was a rival to Prague, made rich off of its silver mine.  An enterprising monk returned to Kutna Hora with soil from Jerusalem and spread it at the local cemetery.  As a result, tens of thousands of people wanted to be buried there.  Years later, someone decided it would be a good idea to arrange the bones of some 40,000 people in the Sedlec ossuary.  Personally, I don't know whether it was a good idea, but it does bring the tourists.

If you go to Kutna Hora, I recommend getting a round-trip ticket from Prague to Kutna Hora-mesto.  You will switch trains at Kutna Hora's main train station (which is outside of town) and board the little train into town.  Get off at the Sedlec station for the ossuary (you really only need about 10 minutes there) and the "mesto" station for the main town, where you can go down into the silver mine (beware, tickets sold out by 1:30 PM on our visit) and St. Barbara's Cathedral.

Scroll down, if you want to see the photos ...

St. Stephen's hand in Budapest.

Some of the bones on display in Kutna Hora.

The Language Barrier

I don't want to be the stereotypical ugly American tourist.  I cringe whenever a team on The Amazing Race bitterly complains about a 3rd World taxi driver who can't speak English.  Therefore, I've always tried to learn a handful of basic words and phrases when I visit a country.  It's just the polite thing to do.  Sometimes, it's led to some funny stories.

When I was 24 and coming back from a vacation in Iceland, I ordered a specific Icelandic beer from the Icelandair flight attendant, said please, and thank you, and did it all in Icelandic.  She then started speaking to me in Icelandic, even though I look decidedly un-Icelandic.  It was one of the proudest moments of my life.

In Florence a few years later, I checked into a 2-star hotel and engaged in some very simple small talk with the desk clerk.  30 minutes later, the phone in my room rang.  It turns out the desk clerk really thought I could speak Italian and was calling to ask me to translate an incoming call from England for him.

Working for 6 months in France in 2008, I learned to read French fairly well, but conversations were always a problem.  The words just flow together so quickly in French, I had a very hard time keeping up.  And when I spoke French, at first, people would respond in English.  Later though, when people responded to me in French, I knew I was getting somewhere.  And then there was the time American tourists tried speaking to me in broken French.  I was really blending in at that point.

On this trip, we had 3 languages in 3 cities.  Of course, most people a tourist deals with speaks some English, but we wanted to make a good impression.  Fortunately, Kathleen speaks some German and did a great job with it.  But there was one museum cafe employee in Budapest we could not charm.  We were looking for the cloakroom and Kathleen asked her if she spoke English.  "Do you speak Hungarian?" was the rather coarse reply.  Well, wouldn't we have started in Hungarian if the answer was "yes?"  Anyway, we found the reaction more funny than off-putting, no matter how it was intended.

Miscellaneous Travel Tips for Bhutan

1.  There are stray dogs everywhere, but they’re all friendly.  During the daytime, they laze about and don't bother anyone.  I was warned in advance that their barking could be a nuisance at night, but my hotel in Thimphu was a little bit outside downtown and I could barely hear them.  In Paro, though, they woke me up at 3:30.  I don’t know if the Bhutanese people are the happiest in the world, but their dogs may well be.

2.  I was surprised by how warm it was in October.  In Thimphu (elev. 7,000 feet), the day may start out in the upper 30s, but before long, it would get into the mid-70s.  In Punakha (which is at a lower elevation), it was well into the mid-80s Fahrenheit.  On a side note, despite Thimphu’s elevation, I was told it rarely snows there anymore, and when it does, it melts within a day.  My guide and driver both said this has been a big change over the last 20 years.

It's downright tropical in the Punakha Valley in October.

3.  Your tour operator will take care of getting your visa.  Mine was obtained in about 3 days, which helped because I only planned this trip on 17 days’ notice.  One remarkable thing: my visa restricted my travel to the specific places that were on my tour itinerary (which I chose in advance).  I was never given a satisfactory explanation for why this was necessary.  We were even stopped between Thimphu and Punakha and had to show my papers to demonstrate that I was allowed in that particular part of the country.

Thimphu's traffic policeman (there are no traffic lights) did not ask to see my visa -- even though it looks like he's pointing at me.

4.  If I have to report one drawback about a visit to Bhutan, I’m sorry to say that it is the cuisine.  Every lunch and dinner, I would be served roughly the same set of items, which got old pretty quickly.  In general, the vegetarian dishes are better than the meat options.  The Bhutanese love chili peppers, and they’re everywhere, so the food is pretty spicy.  Restaurants designed for tourists specialize in less hot versions of Bhutanese dishes.

5.  Flying into the country on the national carrier Drukair (or its new private competitor, Bhutan Airways), ask for a seat on the left-hand side for the best view of the Himalayas.  Obviously the reverse is true on your flight out.  Only a handful of pilots are qualified to land at Paro Airport and this video of the serpentine landing approach has over 5 million views.  While certainly dramatic, it felt completely safe.

In the Pursuit of Happiness

As I mentioned earlier, the Bhutanese government promotes the concept of Gross National Happiness (“GNH”).  I loved the idea, but I was a bit skeptical.  Were the people really happy?  How do you measure it?  Is this just something for the travel brochures?

Women working in a rice field near Punakha.

There are several pillars of GNH, such as preservation of culture, the environment, good government.  There is free education and free health care.  Bhutan is relatively prosperous for the region it’s in.  The rivers rushing out of the Himalayas create a lot of hydroelectric power that is sold to India.  And while there certainly is poverty here (though no one begs), the country is seemingly doing fairly well.

From the reactions I received, people had nothing but very positive things to say about America.  (As an aside, one local said she thought I was Argentinian - which was definitely a first.)  I asked my guide and my driver about what the Bhutanese think of America.  They said that many want to live in America – that it is seen as a place where one can earn a lot of money, while for the same amount of work in Bhutan, you earn little money.

And, in that moment, the irony was obvious.  Americans come to Bhutan looking for happiness – finding seclusion (and maybe, for some, enlightenment) and immersing oneself in a culture renowned for friendliness and the promotion of the values that really matter in life.  On the other hand, the Bhutanese look to America for happiness, which is equated with money.  In truth, as any half-way decent Buddhist should tell you, happiness can only be found within ourselves.

Bhutanese Lore

Every day on my trip, there has been another dzong (fortress), another monastery, another temple.  And at many of them, there are tales of various miracles and supernatural happenings.  Here are a few of my favorites:

1.  The Guru Rinpoche.  The # 1 tourist attraction in Bhutan is the Tiger’s Nest Monastery, built about 800 meters above the Paro Valley.  It commemorates the site where Guru Rinpoche supposedly flew on the back of a flying tiger to subdue a local demon in the 8th Century.  He then meditated in a cave there for 3 months and subsequently introduced Buddhism to Bhutan.  Unfortunately on the day of my hike, there were no flying tigers available.  The hike took me 1:45.  If you visit the Tiger’s Nest, you are said to be guaranteed to see the Guru in the afterlife, where he will help relieve you from suffering.  In another room at the Tiger’s Nest is the statue of a “talking” Buddha that supposedly spoke on a few occasions a few centuries ago.  And, by visiting the statue, your wishes will be granted.

The Tiger's Nest.  No pictures allowed inside.

The Tiger’s Nest was destroyed by fire about 20 years ago (as many historic buildings in Bhutan were at one time or another), so what you see is a new structure.  But, supposedly, the building was re-built with the help and supervision of a young boy who proved himself to be the reincarnation of the original architect.  Yes, that happened in the 21st Century.

And now, looking up at the Tiger's Nest from the start of the hike.

2.  The Divine Madman.  Near Punakha, there’s a temple and monastery dedicated to the Divine Madman, who in the 16^th Century, shot an arrow into the sky in Tibet and supposedly followed it to its landing place in a house in Bhutan, where he became a travelling mystic.  Most famously, he subdued a demon with the power of his fiery thunderbolt (I’m giving you the G-rated version).  Many homes in the region have phalluses painted on the outside in his honor.  The Divine Madman challenged the conventions of the time & also appreciated a good drink.  At his temple, I was blessed by the monk and noticed that, at the altar, someone had left a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red as an offering.

3.  The Shabdrung.  This story is real, but it’s still a good one.  The Shabdrung was the founder of the modern Bhutanese state in the 17^th century.  While in his 50s, he went into “retreat” inside a room in the Punakha Dzong.  Every day, in case someone was watching, an attendant brought the Shabdrung his 3 meals.  In fact, though, the Shabdrung was dead.  The leadership feared there would be chaos if people knew he had passed away, so they kept this story up for 54 years and issued edicts in his name.  It was the ultimate Weekend at Bernie’s.  Finally, when the Shabdrung would have been 111 years old, they either figured the gig was up or that the country could survive without him.  Today, the room in which he died (and where his embalmed remains are in a coffin) can only be visited by 3 people: the king, the chief abbot, and the room’s attendant.

The building inside the Punakha Dzong where people were led to believe the Shabdrung "lived" until he was 111.  The entire building is off-limits.

My terrific guide through the country would tell me all of these stories and many more.  He is a devout Buddhist and gave every impression of believing that these things all actually happened, but he never asked me what I thought about all of this.  Finally, at the National Museum in Paro near the end of the trip, he showed me one of the exhibits: an egg that was supposedly laid by a horse several centuries ago.  For the first and only time during our travels, he asked me if I believed that had happened.  I smiled & replied, “A horse laid an egg?  That I cannot believe.”

Inconvenience Regretted

One of the hardest working people in Bhutan has to be the individual responsible for the pithy public service announcement billboards on the highway between Paro and Thimphu.  Most are in couplet form and most attempt to rhyme (but don’t always succeed).  I noticed the following:

Eager to Last / Then Why Fast

Let’s Go Green / To Get Our Globe Clean

Enemies of the Road / Liquor, Speed and Load

Some don’t really work:

Don’t Litter / It Will Make Your Life Better

Pleasure Only / If You Drive with Leisure

Some don’t even attempt to rhyme:

If You Are Married / Divorce Speed

Driving and Drinking / A Fatal Cocktail

And one didn’t even make sense:

Self Trust / Is the Essence of Heroism

There was a different sign that I enjoyed most of all.  In areas of road construction, there was a simple sign saying “Inconvenience Regretted.”  I don’t why, but I loved it.  I want to make a replica and hang it in my office.

A sincere message from the Bhutanese Transportation Authority, and from me as well.

And driving around Bhutan, there are some inconveniences.  From Thimphu to Punakha on Bhutan’s National Highway is about 50 miles.  The drive takes 3 hours.  It’s through breathtaking mountain scenery, so I seriously did not mind, but they are in the midst of a multi-year project to widen the road from its current 1/1.5 lanes to 2.  And forget shoulders.  There are rarely guardrails, even though you could be looking down at a 250 foot drop.  Because there are no highways that can serve as detour routes, they’re widening the road as you drive along, and you frequently have to wait for the heavy equipment to get out of the way.  In some places there’s no heavy equipment, just people (men and occasionally women) using pickaxes.  In other places, the road is a muddy mess.  I’m no expert, but I can’t recommend driving on this road during the summer monsoon season or inclement weather.

Pausing while they work to widen the road between Thimphu and Punakha.