I don't judge if Hungarians are more or less polite, but the language barrier factor is to be considered.
English native and non-native speakers accept as a fact of live that anybody in the word must know at least some English words, mostly in cities. Most of the time, this assumption is right, but with a few exceptions, beeing Hungary clearly one of them. Besides Hungarian, the official language, German is the 2nd language, many of locals even speak Russian as a 3rd language.

yes yes StCirq is exactly correct....I heard nothing you said except "at our 5 star hotel".....constantly....and again....and perhaps one more time. lordy...

May be some writer is reading this thread and will write a movie script. Story is very compelling with vast array of characters (two rude women ticket checkers who looked like beggars, ambassadors, 6 children under the age of 14) and locales (lovely 5 star hotel, etc)

Did I mention I once went to a 5 star hotel?

I stayed in a two star on Sunday and a three star on Monday.
Can i tell people I was in a Five star hotel for my vacation?

The woman with six children may have been a people smuggler.

Throw that into the script.

In the meantime, watch out for "Beware-Rome", this writer's tale of being ripped off by a taxi driver.

I was amused to read the following statement on another website about Budapest. It was written by someone whom I actually know and have had dinner with:

<i>But one good thing I did on my last visit was to get a one week pass on all public transport. It not only saved money but it meant I didn't have to worry about getting tickets. And there were plains clothes inspectors who saw me getting on buses without a ticket and got up from their seat to come and check me. </i>

<i>The woman with six children may have been a people smuggler</i>

Perhaps they were en route to neighboring Austria? Were the hills alive with the sound of music?

My next trip report will be "Beware Venice !" :)

lcuy~~ I'll go one better... if I stay in a 1-star hotel for 5-days in a row???

Ignorance is bliss


but


Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law

prettyamerican:
<i>We have had no problems using the Paris Metro or even the Tokyo Metro and do not speak French or Japanese. No signs were in English in the Tokyo metro, which was fully automated, state of the art, and accessible to all.</i>

The Tokyo metro does have all signs and announcements in Japanese and English.

kerouac:

Cool website... Thanks :)

I have lived in Budapest for more than 6 years and travel on the public transport - trams, buses and the metro trains every day and can therefore comment on this thread from a lot of personal experience.
As far as the comments made by verynaiveirishgirl, all I can say is that, although her experience was unpleasant, it is really not typical. The ticket controllers have their job to carry out and the majority of them do it in a polite and courteous way. I have seen many tourists responding very aggressively to their request to see a valid ticket, however have never seen a ticket inspector respond with aggression or the same bad language that is used against them. On the contrary, they tend to stay calm and even go as far as explaining the rules and the system that should be used for validating tickets. I have even seen controllers let tourists off with a warning to be more careful next time. Every traveler on the system is controlled, not just tourists as has been suggested. It may seem that way, but that's just because it's the tourists that generally don't understand the system and get caught. For anybody traveling to Budapest, or any other city I would really recommend that they do a little homework first, and especially if they intend to use public transport, should check the rules. As far as Budapest public transport is concerned, all ticket controllers are obliged to wear an official BKV armband, show ID if asked and issue a receipt for fines they collect.

For anybody planning a visit to Budapest, there are some good pieces of advice for using public transport in Budapest and other helpful articles, such as currency exchange advice, nightlife scam warnings and even a picture of the Budapest public transport ticket controller's armbands on this website:
http://www.budapestvacationservice.c...or_advice.html

I was served by somebody in McDonalds yesterday.

They had 5 stars.

Can't we have a "Beware Paris" thread? I'm sure that I would find so many things to warn people about.

>I'm sure that I would find so many things to warn people about.<

I wish someone had warned me about shops selling wonderful patiserries that I'm completely incapable of walking past. There should be laws against that sort of thing.

Come to think of it, when we were on the tram/metro, a guy came up to us and said something which made us think he was "official". I figured it must be an inspector, so I pulled out our (validated, since we knew to do so IN ADVANCE) tickets, he nodded, said nashladnow or something like that and went politely on his way. Very innocuos. (sp?)

Kerouac, I think you need to start a new thread! Looking forward to those postings!

Still waiting for PalenQ's apology about "the UGLY Americans" he should be taking to task for these uncalled comments....I guess he missed out on the clue "verynaiveirishgirl".