The Inevitable Train Story

I caught the train from Budapest and always an 'event' - I just expect it. So I walk along the train and none of the 2nd class chairs looked to comfy until 3/4 of the way down the platform. So I jumped on and prayed the train was going in the right direction (wasn't really well sign posted and other people were being frantic about not knowing so naturally that rubs off a little).

The ticket conductor comes along and doesn't have a problem with the ticket so must be in the right place, or close to it. After a couple of hours I noticed the carriage was pretty cold. I just dismissed it as being an eastern european train without the trimmings - like heat.

Then we saw big burrly blokes with orange safety vests and large crowbars walking through the train. Eventually we were told to get off and move up to the next car as this one was about to be left behind. I got off the train and the 5 cars I walked past at Budapest station and considered getting on were just gone.

They must have split the train somewhere and just a major incidence of blind stupid luck - otherwise I might be half way to the Ukrane border by now. This luck must be about to run out... and possibly at the worst possible time.

So we were just about to jump onto the next car when the train starts moving. There is a work men in between the two cars trying to disconnect them and everyone starts freaking out (cause it is so dangerous for that dude to be in between the cars and ends up having to walk about 10m before the train finally stops).

The next car is 1st class and quite nice, at least warm. So the 1st ticket inspector comes along, sees our 2nd class tickets and tries to tell us to move back to the car behind. We try to explain that it no longer exists and she doesn't want a bar of it. So we literally walk her down and show her that there is no other carriage. She smiles and leaves us alone.

A couple of border checks and they weren't exactly too happy that I didn't look 100% like my passport photo with full beard (haven't shaved in about a week so at least trying to get a similarity). The border control to get into Poland was like the Spanish Inquistion with questions - wanting to know how long, where, what I was doing. Then pulled out a phone book like thing with a whole bunch of presumably different codes and was checking them. Eventually walked away but I would love to know what codes were in that book.