A visit to the Hungarian meat market

Written by JB jnr
Dad and I agreed to go our separate ways for the morning (a week with his son was obviously too much for him and so needed some time alone!) Whilst he went to experience the symbolism and schisms of sculpture of the communist era, I wanted a massage and to relax and soak up the experience in some Hungarian thermal baths and see if the medicinal waters could rejuvenate some tired feet.

There are several famous thermal spas in Budapest and all sounded fabulous so I went in search of advice. I asked the young lady receptionist at the hotel which baths she frequented, and got a very quizzical look, a subtle rephrasing of the question and she told me she didn't go, but her father went 3 times a week to the Szechenyi baths in the park north east of Andrassy. So I packed my trunks and got onto the metro line 1 and journeyed the 10 minute ride to the park. On existing the subway I was presented with the most fabulous building with huge ornate facade, looking more like the Brighton Pavilion rather than the expected Tooting Lido.
Walking up the polished marble stairway and into the atrium I thought for a second I was at Champneys for the day but the look of the woman (more Man the Wo) at the ticket hatch put rest to those thoughts.

£4.50 later I was walking through a corridor clad with white tiles, and felt I had stepped back into a 1920's hospital (when this place was last refurbished), all the stewards were dressed in white and looked menacing and clinical. Everything was white porcelain, brass and wood. On my way to the changing rooms I caught a glimpse of one of the main pools through a doorway, filled with 20 or so large elderly women floating on their backs, not wanting to be too rude but I was minded of a river cruise on the Zambezi in 2000 watching the hippos cool off from the intense African sun.

I was roughly ushered into the mens changing room by a monosyllabic mustached Hungarian, who showed me to my locker and asked if I had a swim hat (you have to have one over here – so I had to hire one.) I tentatively walked out into the main pool area and just followed others that had recently arrived, as I knew nothing of thermal bathing protocol.

There were 3 indoor pools with brackish coloured water and steaming hot with faint whiffs of sulphur. All were of varying degrees of heat, and were filled with locals over the age of 60 jabbering away and floating on their backs or sat over the jets where the water that had been heated miles below the surface of the earth, obviously trying to absorb the mineral goodness to soothe rheumatic aches. Obviously by the colour of their skin they came here often as they had taken on the same yellow tarnish from that of the water.

I moved outside to one of the beautiful heated uncovered pools, where old men sat up to their shoulders in the warm water playing chess. After a few laps in the main pool and a telling off from the steward for my hat floating off. I didn't have my goggles and so could only manage a feeble breast stroke. No fellow triathletes here doing 'chicken wings' or 'catchup drills!'
After my fingers had pruned I went inside for my alloted 20 minute massage. I had booked the £5 Medical Massage after having explained I had sore legs and needed a “hard” massage (I didn't know the Hungarian for deep tissue!) I was shown to Olnj's cubicle – “she very good at hard massage” I was told! I kid you not, my expectations were spot on – a 80's Hungarian Female Wrestling champion in the 120kg category.

Her cubicle was 6ft square, white walls with a white plastic covered table in the middle and barely enough room for her to work her way around. For those readers that have visited cubicle no.6 at the High Wycombe 'special' clinic in the early 90's you will know what I mean (for the record I never went to the place but had several friends who were there so often that I feel I know the place well!)

Olnj – smiled as I entered, not a calm reassuring smile but more of the way a henchman smiles before he is about to do you in. She curtly told me to put my head there and my feet there. As I lay down I turned to look at her as she lubed her hands up from an industrial sized pot of cream, and she 'smiled' again and said “You want strong massage?” she held out her hand and showed 1 finger and said “for very soft” and then showed 5 fingers for “very strong” and rolled her eyes and then tightened her bicep and it bulged through her white cotton surgeons coat.

I asked for a 4 – thinking that all the guys here were old and wrinkly and I could stand it - and then she laughed and I really wished she hadn't!

When I awoke later that day......no I'm kidding, as soon as she started I screamed and my body started to convulse on the slab. This woman must have gone into training the Hungarian Secret Police in non-invasive torture methods, after winning the Olympics.

Scrap the word non-invasive, she roughly pulled down my trunks to just below my cheeks, I was quite surprised by this, being a well brought up country boy and quite shy in front of strange women, but within 30 seconds I was screaming again and the massage table had moved across the floor and my toes were now trapped between the table and the walls of the cubicle. I had a moments respite as she lifted us both back into the centre of the room, with one hand. As she put us back down (me and the table!), I gathered the strength to ask for a number 3 on her personal Massage Richter scale. She cackled again and then smiled, presumably at my pain and for a short moment, I saw a small glimpse of a compassionate person beneath her harsh exterior, a mother, a grandmother maybe; with real feelings and sympathy for someone in pain – I was clearly delusional.

As she worked her way up from my calves, legs and backside (bare), back and neck, I had to ask her again to reduce the effort to a whimsical 2 – this was all I could bare as she put all her weight into the small of my back. I wanted to pass out!

I am glad I only paid for the 20 minute back massage, I don't think I could have coped with a full frontal assault.