Thermal Baths in Hungary

Thermal Baths Pools in Hungary

I recently received some emails from a reader who sold me on the notion of trying out a Hungarian thermal bathhouse. Today at lunch, in a sort of off-handed manner, I asked my friend A'kos if he ever goes to the thermal pools that abound in his city of Gyor. He said that he did and invited me to accompany him to one on this very night.

I did.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Gyor, Hungary- July 16, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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When evening came around and A'kos got off of his job at the architecture plant we met in front of the big doors of the thermal pools in Gyor. The building stood in between two rivers and took its soothing heat water from underground springs in the earth. We walked in through the doors, paid the 1000 Hungarian Forients each, and then disrobed in the unisex locker room.

A'kos was civil and had a nice pair of Speedos to cover his modesty - which, he shyly told me, his wife had purchased for him (thus speaking the usually escape route for all men whose friends pick on them for wearing Speedos). But I must say that he was more appropriately clad than I, who could only boast of a pair of little yellow Chinese undies with white racing stripes flanking down each side respectively. I know of no traveler who moves about the globe with swimming shorts.

So I just pretended that I was wearing swimming trunks. It worked.

At least I was not wearing Speedos, I told myself.

Hungarian thermal bath or pool.

I think that I may have had a problem with my simplistic attire if it were not for my bright pink "so gay" slippers stealing the attention of anyone who dared cast a gaze at my countenance. It is these odd pink sandals - and not my semi-exposed privates - that win the attention of people on every corner of this planet. The one thing that the world seems able to agree on is the fact that this type and color of footwear does not seem to properly suite its wearer. And they laugh at the visual incongruence.

But the thermal baths were warm and the brownish, greenish, yellowish water flowed over me in massaging, warming droves. I dunked my head deep down into a pool and only momentarily thought of all of the floating piss and ass particles that were more than likely making my direct acquaintance. The public pool is rather disgusting, but I have little care about such matters. I like thermal baths.

I swam and swam and talked to A'kos who talked about how his family once struck oil on their land and thought that they were rich. Yes, they celebrated. They celebrated all the way up until the time that the Hungarian government rolled up and claimed not only their oil, but their land as well. So poor A'kos' family just made the government richer and themselves a little poor by striking oil.

So I laughed at him.

There really is not much to do in thermal baths than to laugh at your friends, watch grisly wives and their pretty young daughters being blown around by thermal jets, and look at men who are too aged for modesty gander about with their testicles protruding from within their tight bikini Speedos. A'kos and I leaned back and relaxed and should have been smoking cigars.

I like thermal Hungarians and their baths.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Hammock Tent as Travel Shelter
• Hobohideout.com Mission Statement
• Modern Architecture in Hungary
• Words of the Dead

Thermal Baths Pools in Hungary
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