How to promote your city by Lonely Planet? :D

[aboriginalhostel]

Budapest has been recently "promoted" personally by Lonely Planet's founder, Tony Wheeler.

I'm pretty sure this article will be spread all around abroad... But was it worth for Budapest?

[santa klaus]

2. They must have seen us wrestling unsuccessfully with the machine and instead of coming over and saying ‘can we help’ they waited until we got on the train and grabbed us!

Assholes.

I got checked almost every time on the metro in Budapest. Either I attract them or they are really everywhere. I get checked maybe one a year here in Vienna.

[aboriginalhostel]

Originally Posted by santa klaus

Assholes.

I got checked almost every time on the metro in Budapest. Either I attract them or they are really everywhere. I get checked maybe one a year here in Vienna.

Few things about our public transportation company:
1. They hire anyone, especially steroid stereotypes.
2. Controllers get commission for fines, means the more people they fine, the more money they make -> No interest on helping tourists at all.
3. The company is 50-50% government and city council owned, and is the second biggest employer in the country -> No one knows what's going on. (the railways is no.1 which is even more inefficient). They have billions of losses every year due the inefficiency and scandals every year.

And it goes on and on...

[santa klaus]

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

Controllers get commission for fines

Same here. They still don´t behave like crooks though.

Originally Posted by aboriginalhostel

The company is 50-50% government and city council owned ....They have billions of losses every year due the inefficiency and scandals every year.

Send them to Munich to learn how a state-owned company can deliver profits!

[Stefan]

if you wanna know more about the budapestian (?) subway system, check out this movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373981/

[santa klaus]

Weird, whacky, amusing, unsettling with a thumpingly good soundtrack, Kontroll is a funky cult-style adventure in the Budapest subway system, the scarily unbalanced but mostly good-hearted (and fictitious) ticket inspectors, their adversaries, games of dare, the weirdos that play games of evasion, a gorgeous woman dressed in a teddy bear suit and so many other out-there and unpredictable aspects that you never know whether a seen will make you laugh or jump. Not for the very squeamish. The movie is perhaps slightly longer than it needs to be, but the aesthetic ending more than makes up for the sometimes dissipated storyline. The ingenious lighting and costumes, and the sheer audacity of the script and execution shriek of great things to come from this director.

Sounds cool! Will it be available in the Aboriginal Video Collection sometime soon?

[Oli]

The last time I was in Budapest my girlfriend and I were having trouble with the machine and did not know what ticket to buy. So we bought the most expensive one just to be safe. We transfered once before we arrived at are final stop, when we got off the trian and we were checked. I guess we had the wrong ticket and you needed to buy your ticket at the ticket office if you need a "transfer ticket". We told them that the office was not even open, they could care less. So I played the old "oh this is all the cash I have my bank card is all the way back at the hostel" game. We got a fine for only one of us. The cash went into his pocket with no recite.....of course.