I've been to Subotica, and I have seen the big yellow building in the square, and I have eaten a pizza there (all 2007), so when I rolled in around noon on the 20th I was all hungry for Hungary. My whole plan was to just start walking towards the border and then hop on a train once I got there. Ugh. Not so easy.
I walked along what I had determined to the bus route and was finally able to catch a bus to the border after a considerable distance. At the border, the Serbo-babe border guard followed instructions and stamped where she was supposed to, but the unruly Hungarian guard stamped with reckless abandon, upsetting my system.
The crossing by car is at Tompa, but the train crosses at a village called Kelebia. I had to walk from Tompa all the way to Kelebia which proved to be longer than I thought and I ended up hitching a ride from a very nice man and his son. I was deposited in the centre of Kelebia at a bank and then I waited around for the train to take me to Budapest. Totally an unnecessary trip on my part, because the cost of the ticket to BP was 3088 forints (~$12) and it would ahave been similar with the cost of the ticket between Belgrade and Subotica to have gone BG-BP direct. Live and learn, I guess.
Budapest was a sight for sore eyes indeed. I feel like I had closed a loop: After arriving there in November, 2009, and thinking to myself that I was finally in "the East" I was now coming the other way after 8 and a half months and nothing ever felt more Western in my eyes. I was greeted with froccs and given a tour de force of the city. I felt like I had arrived home, and to a degree I had.
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