$1 = HF150 at 26th Nov, 2002.
The strip scene in Hungary came with two radically diverging sets of pre-conceptions. For this was the country which has become known as the porn capital of Europe. On the other hand, reports from the front-line were not exactly encouraging: "abrasively bent on ripping people off...Watch out for $200 drinks!...Unless you are a linebacker in the NFL you will get ripped off". As usual with such things, the truth lay somewhere in the middle: there is undeniably a huge potential to get taken for a great deal
of money. But with care and caution.
Every tourist guide has dire warnings about accepting invites from attractive women in the street. We were sadly disappointed in this aspect: going by our experience, you're far more likely to be accosted by Armani-clad than any babes. Not that it made any real difference the first evening; Visions of Mafia thugs dancing on your kidneys easily overpower any and all other inclinations. This was despite passing one club, Galaxia, on the other side of the street, where the window rapidly filled with women teasingly waving their breasts at us. It says something about our state of
mind that we ran away!
In the end, we asked for local advice: don't go any place where you are the only customers. He also specifically namechecked the Tropical as a dangerous venue.
Though, in the end, we only visited two clubs, Dolce Vita and Pigalle, the format in both was similar, and it seems reasonable to extrapolate this to being the basic modus operandi for most venues. The details may differ (there may be an entrance fee of HF1000 or so, or there may not), and the drink prices vary too (a beer ranged from HF1000-3000), but these are relatively trivial differences.
let's start with a description of the general rules of engagement.
You sit down, and order your drinks: there is a menu on the table, and I think this is a legal requirement, as it is to have the bar prices posted outside (it would thus seem a good idea to run, not walk, out of any place that doesn't do this). Soon thereafter, a number of attractive ladies will approach your party and ask to sit down. Shortly after that, the waiter will ask you if you want to buy the "beautiful ladies" a drink. [That ringing sound you hear is, indeed, alarm bells going off] If you accept, you will be hit with the most expensive drinks on the menu, costing anywhere up to HF8000. Prising this info out takes a little bit of interrogation, but to their credit, they did admit it...eventually. If you demur, the company evaporates like "sna' offa dyke", to use a good old
Scottish expression. This is the basic catch, and if you are not aware of it, it would indeed be very easy to rack up a huge bill in no time at all.
We were worried what would happen when we opted not to buy the drinks (Mafia...kidneys...), but there was never any sign of physical intimidation, perhaps because there were five of us. Certainly, when our numbers thinned out, due to private dances or toilet reasons, the repeated fending off of demands to "buy the pretty ladies a drink" became extremely tiresome, but it was never any more than that. In Budapest, Clubs rely solely on drinks income: at least twice we were told that private dances
were entirely the girls' responsibilities, and one club didn't even know how much they charged. Speaking of which, dances seemed to be a standard HF10000, though reports suggest the quality varied wildly, from a perfunctory song's worth of
moderate topless contact (Dolce Vita) up to something that lasted twelve minutes (yes, we were timing them!), and which left the "victim" looking as if.....well, right after sex .This was in Pigalle, where it was also made clear that you could purchase company by the hour for HF30000. You would, I personally think, have to be quite mad to go for that, especially given the
threatening circumstances.
You couldn't knock the quality of girl in either venue, but of the two clubs, those in Pigalle were far more enthusiastic and lively. In Dolce Vita, beta-blockers appeared to be the order of the day, with little more than gentle swaying, while at least one girl at Pigalle was doing pole work...she would have been signed instantly at any venue in Toronto. There was a great sense of energy here, though against this, the hassles of "drinks for the beautiful ladies" were far more frequent and I repelled wave after wave of them in my role as Guardian of the Coats.
Pigalle was also weird, in that there seemed to be three interlinked venues in one street, though one had no customers at all (ALERT! ALERT!), and the third's claimed "variety programme" was one guy not playing the drums, while the clientele was a bloke slumped over the table. There's no doubt that the raw talent is available, in spades, and a well-run, legitimate establishment would rake in cash by the bucketload
without needing to resort to flogging overpriced pseudo- Cocktails...
Frenchy
The strip scene in Hungary came with two radically diverging sets of pre-conceptions. For this was the country which has become known as the porn capital of Europe. On the other hand, reports from the front-line were not exactly encouraging: "abrasively bent on ripping people off...Watch out for $200 drinks!...Unless you are a linebacker in the NFL you will get ripped off". As usual with such things, the truth lay somewhere in the middle: there is undeniably a huge potential to get taken for a great deal
of money. But with care and caution.
Every tourist guide has dire warnings about accepting invites from attractive women in the street. We were sadly disappointed in this aspect: going by our experience, you're far more likely to be accosted by Armani-clad than any babes. Not that it made any real difference the first evening; Visions of Mafia thugs dancing on your kidneys easily overpower any and all other inclinations. This was despite passing one club, Galaxia, on the other side of the street, where the window rapidly filled with women teasingly waving their breasts at us. It says something about our state of
mind that we ran away!
In the end, we asked for local advice: don't go any place where you are the only customers. He also specifically namechecked the Tropical as a dangerous venue.
Though, in the end, we only visited two clubs, Dolce Vita and Pigalle, the format in both was similar, and it seems reasonable to extrapolate this to being the basic modus operandi for most venues. The details may differ (there may be an entrance fee of HF1000 or so, or there may not), and the drink prices vary too (a beer ranged from HF1000-3000), but these are relatively trivial differences.
let's start with a description of the general rules of engagement.
You sit down, and order your drinks: there is a menu on the table, and I think this is a legal requirement, as it is to have the bar prices posted outside (it would thus seem a good idea to run, not walk, out of any place that doesn't do this). Soon thereafter, a number of attractive ladies will approach your party and ask to sit down. Shortly after that, the waiter will ask you if you want to buy the "beautiful ladies" a drink. [That ringing sound you hear is, indeed, alarm bells going off] If you accept, you will be hit with the most expensive drinks on the menu, costing anywhere up to HF8000. Prising this info out takes a little bit of interrogation, but to their credit, they did admit it...eventually. If you demur, the company evaporates like "sna' offa dyke", to use a good old
Scottish expression. This is the basic catch, and if you are not aware of it, it would indeed be very easy to rack up a huge bill in no time at all.
We were worried what would happen when we opted not to buy the drinks (Mafia...kidneys...), but there was never any sign of physical intimidation, perhaps because there were five of us. Certainly, when our numbers thinned out, due to private dances or toilet reasons, the repeated fending off of demands to "buy the pretty ladies a drink" became extremely tiresome, but it was never any more than that. In Budapest, Clubs rely solely on drinks income: at least twice we were told that private dances
were entirely the girls' responsibilities, and one club didn't even know how much they charged. Speaking of which, dances seemed to be a standard HF10000, though reports suggest the quality varied wildly, from a perfunctory song's worth of
moderate topless contact (Dolce Vita) up to something that lasted twelve minutes (yes, we were timing them!), and which left the "victim" looking as if.....well, right after sex .This was in Pigalle, where it was also made clear that you could purchase company by the hour for HF30000. You would, I personally think, have to be quite mad to go for that, especially given the
threatening circumstances.
You couldn't knock the quality of girl in either venue, but of the two clubs, those in Pigalle were far more enthusiastic and lively. In Dolce Vita, beta-blockers appeared to be the order of the day, with little more than gentle swaying, while at least one girl at Pigalle was doing pole work...she would have been signed instantly at any venue in Toronto. There was a great sense of energy here, though against this, the hassles of "drinks for the beautiful ladies" were far more frequent and I repelled wave after wave of them in my role as Guardian of the Coats.
Pigalle was also weird, in that there seemed to be three interlinked venues in one street, though one had no customers at all (ALERT! ALERT!), and the third's claimed "variety programme" was one guy not playing the drums, while the clientele was a bloke slumped over the table. There's no doubt that the raw talent is available, in spades, and a well-run, legitimate establishment would rake in cash by the bucketload
without needing to resort to flogging overpriced pseudo- Cocktails...
Frenchy
