Here are some observations on my way to Zagreb, Croatia. At the moment we are passing through Ötvoskónyi, Hungary, if you want to ride along.
It's 5:00 p.m. The train is heading west to Gyékényes, where I will transfer to the Budapest train to Zagreb, Croatia. At the moment, however, we are in the middle of nowhere; farming country, lots of space. The landscape is beautiful, truth be known, but empty. The sun is peeking out after an afternoon of showers. Last night, there was a lightning & thunder show, which hasn't happened very much since I've arrived here in the south, in Kaposvar. Not like N'Awlins.
This is the local; the conductor can't seem to pass any of the small towns without stopping. Beleg, Kutas, Jako, Somogyszog. Never heard of any of them. Quite a few riders disembarked at Kutas. Almost all carrying grocery bags full of stuff. I assume they take an early train to Kaposvár, being the largest town in the area (and the county seat), and consummate their business, returning home in the late afternoon/evening. ["Handle your bidness," popped into my head, writing that…]
Now we are sitting in Somogyszog, most likely because we are ahead of schedule. A few locals boarded and are settling in to their seats. It is an hour to Gyékényes, still plenty of daylight. There is a flock of crows making a commotion off to the side, out of sight. All is green.
Ten minutes waiting, we finally pull out of Somogyszog. After about 5 minutes, we come to a siding, with nary a soul around. The small square 'station' building, I guess you'd call it (the blue sign proclaiming the town is over the door: Bolhás), is boarded up. A young 20-something(?) young man stands up, all in black: shorts, T-shirt & heavy black boots, wearing a 'bebop' hat on his head; smells like teen spirit, no? He departs and stands out the window of the seats opposite to me, waiting for the train to move on. I wonder that he didn't get off on this side of the car, if he's waiting to cross the tracks. Hard to say/tell.
We move for 2 minutes before another stop. In less than a minute or two, another train, heading the way we've just come, pulls up along side our train. It says Dombósvár, which is the town on the other side of Kaposvár, to the east. I can't tell where we are 'cause I no longer have cell service on my phone. A man is standing in the doorway of a building, but the block-house has no title on it and the man is not wearing a MAV uniform, so I don't know what this is all about. Luckily, the train picks up speed and we are back on the move, baby!
Eventually, the conductor comes by; I show her the QR code on the phone, but she isn't interested in it, says something to me, in a gruff manner, as if I was doing something wrong, so I simply hand her the phone and she scrolls through the email/digital ticket. Satisfied, she hands the phone back to me and smiles. "Köszönöm." Thank you.
Arriving in the border town of Gyékényes, there is an hour wait for the connecting train from Budapest. This was a stressful situation, almost chaotic. Reading the 'Arrivals/Departures' board in the small station, my train is due on platform 4. But when I walk over to the cars as a train pulls in on that track, the conductor tells me that the Zagreb train, the one I want, was not here yet, and would be on track 5, that his train was going to Budapest, not arriving. Making matters worse, the train seemed to me to be going in the opposite direction, of what I thought it should. Obviously, I was turned around. I checked with another officious looking person, who confirmed what the first conductor had said.
The train was late getting into Zagreb's main rail station. Luckily, the owner of the hostel, Dots, it's called, was helpful, and manned the desk after-hours to accommodate me. While out on a walk today, there were a bunch of old women selling fresh strawberries in the middle platform between the tram lines(!), a basket for the equivalent of $2.37, so I picked one up for the owner, as a thank you. He seemed genuinely touched, as much as I appreciated his willingness to work with me last night.
And so it goes. (There's more, but it's after 6 p.m. and I need to run to the market.)
