passengers hopped down onto the tracks and
started the long walk towards the next station,
I cursed the two little cubes of plastic in my
pocket. They’d put me on this broken-down
tram, sent me to the middle of nowhere and
I was still miles from the restaurant they’d told
me to eat at.
Since arriving in Hungary three days earlier,
life had been hard to predict. The idea was to
shun guidebooks and apps, and let a couple of
dice decide everything for me – fromwhere
I stayed and what I did, to the people I was
allowed to talk to. Just like in Luke Rhinehart’s
book
The Dice Man
,
I could set the options
myself, but I’d have to do whatever came up,
with no backing out.
Jostling through the airport’s crowded
arrivals hall, the first choice was how to get
into town. I tore out a page frommy notepad
and scribbled down six options, including a
couple of unusual ones thrown in to make
things exciting. The inky scrawl read something
like: take a taxi (expensive), negotiate the
public transport network (complicated), ride
the minibus (my preference), hire a car (where
the hell would I park it?), hitchhike (possibly
illegal); befriend a member of airport staff and
ask them to drive me there (a bit weird and
possibly illegal too). A single die tumbled across
the airport floor. My decision was made.
After 20 minutes on the sweltering
airport bus, which stopped among warehouse
buildings on the outer reaches of the city,
I followed a group of locals down towards the
Metro. Linking Buda with Pest, east with west,
this is the oldest underground rail network on
T
he evening air was warm,
but the tram still shuddered
on its way out of the station.
I wrapped my fingers
around the handrails and gazed out at
the jungle of spires illuminating the far
side of the Danube. Down we lurched,
into a darkened tunnel. Then, bang!
The tram stopped dead. Shopping
bags slid down the aisle and the lights
flickered angrily. A chubby man next
to me let out a girlish scream. Then
the driver appeared, waving his arms
wildly and shouting something in
Hungarian. My best guess at a translation
was, "Everybody off!"
It was my final night in Budapest and the
dice weren’t being kind. As the first angry
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