In many ways, Indonesia’s celebration of independence (held every year on the 17th of August) is much like other festivals worldwide: people take a day off work, dress up, eat good food, and partake in cultural performances. Oh, and they also slather grease onto huge palm trees, stick prizes at the top, and then compete to see who can climb up and claim the goodies!
The game is called Panjat Pinang, and it’s actually practiced year round in Indonesia. And, since visitors are welcome to take part, if you happen upon a group of youngsters trying to climb a slippery trunk during your travels around Indo, ask to give it a bash. Be warned though, it’s just as hard as it looks!
Recently, we posted about the EXIT Festival in Serbia. Now, with the dust having barely settled in Novi Sad, it’s time to turn our (loving) attention to another awesome music festival in Central/Eastern Europe: Budapest’s Sziget Festival.
In many ways EXIT’s slightly older sibling, the two events occur within a month of one another (Sziget ‘08 ran from the 12th - 17th of August), which means festival-happy backpackers can get a double dose of musical mayhem. HostelBloggers have been a few times before, and though we found ourselves a bit too out of pocket to go this year, that’s not going to stop us waxing lyrical about it!
As with EXIT, part of Sziget’s schtick is in its setting. The word ’sziget’ means ‘island’ in Hungarian, and, set on a lump of land in the middle of the Danube, this is very definitely the Island Festival. There’s only one way to (and from) the music, and that’s via a bridge that connects Budapest with the island in its midst.
On first sight, this bridge can seem, frankly, pretty terrifying, given the mass of people waiting to landslide through its gates. But never fear! This is where the festival spirit starts, and within five minutes of waiting, you’ll probably already be drunk on all the pumping music and prevalent camaraderie (not to mention the beer that people freely pass around!)
Once on the island, it becomes instantly clear that Sziget is huge. And it’s welcomingly huge too. With a couple of hundred thousand people milling, mushing and moshing about, it’s wonderfully easy to get lost and meet people. Sziget surfs high on a wave of friendliness, and many a happy day can be spent teetering around and chatting to randomers.
Musically, Sziget is known for its wide-spanning coverage of just about every genre imaginable. Wander around the 24 stages, themed villages and camping sites, and you’re more than likely to encounter everything from mainstream rock to operatic thrash metal!
Particular highlights (well, for HostelBloggers, at least) include the ever-lively World Music Stage (pictured above), and the Ambient tent, where you can sip warm cups of chai during the day, and sleep to relaxing beats during the night.
Tickets for ‘08 cost €120 for the week (or €150 to camp on the island), while one day passes set you back €32. If you’re thinking about it for 2009 and don’t fancy the camping scrum, hostels in Budapest do tend to fill up pretty quickly, so try to arrange your stay well in advance.
Sziget in a Nutshell:
Food: Good. Expect to spend about €6 a day. There’s a good selection of stall vendors, and a couple of well-stocked grocery stores as well.
Drink: Excellent. About €1 per pint. Check out the bar next to the World Stage for five in the morning ad hoc table dancing.
Organization: As it should be - no one gets in without paying; tickets are exchanged for wristbands promptly; on-island security presence visible, but not in your face.
Services: Plenty of toilets, which are kept as clean as humanly possible, and showers which occasionally run lukewarm.
Best Moment: Crowd-surfing in a dingy.
Worst Moment: First sight of the bridge.
Most Frequently Broken Law: Swimming in the Danube.
Most Inadvisable Action: Swimming in the Danube (it’s disgusting!)
Survival Tip: If all the music gets too much, head to the Northern or Eastern edges of the island. You’ll find sand, trees, and perfect calm.
About a week ago, HostelBloggers went along to the London leg of the Red Bull Air Race. Not really knowing what to expect, we took our seats in one of the temporary grandstands, and filmed a bit of the action…
There’s something basically illogical about flying planes four meters off the ground whilst racing against the clock. And that’s pretty much what makes this series such a hit.
We were delighted to find the action surprisingly tense, and not without its drama, either - the favorite to win ‘crashed out’ in the first round, while multiple other pilots also managed to fly straight into the huge inflatable bollards that mark the course.
The Red Bull Air Race travels around the world, with legs in Rotterdam, Porto, London, Perth, San Diego, Abu Dhabi, Detroit and Budapest.
The Red Bull Air Race in a Nutshell:
Food: A few overpriced food stalls - about £4 a burger. You’re allowed to take your own food in, though, as long as it’s not kept in a hard-sided box (i.e. coolbox)
Drink: Similarly overpriced. £3.50 for a bottle of beer.
Best Moment: Watching the planes! It’s mental, really…
Worst Moment: Getting rained on.
Survival Tip: We were unusually lucky in that we had grandstand seats, but, at £45 a pop, they’re pretty pricey. Ordinarily we’d have been slumming it down in the cheap seats, where tickets for the standing areas went for a much more reasonable £15. Try to stand where you can see the big screens, as these help explain the action and provide decent fodder between races to keep you interested.
Always willing to put ourselves in the line of fire, HostelBloggers went along to report on the Great British Beer Festival held at Earls Court last weekend. Here’s some footage of what we found…
The festival is held every year, and really is a great day out. While some may baulk at the idea of going to a heaving convention centre to quaff some ale (after all, it’s a drink to be savored in a nice country pub, right?), we found the atmosphere both friendly and enjoyable.
The emphasis is on the testing and relaxed enjoyment of each individual ale - as opposed to the obliteration of its existence through committed consumption.
Admittedly some do get a little worse for wear. It goes without saying, though, that HostelBloggers weren’t amongst them, given that we were there on official duty.
Rarely a day seems to pass without one of the HostelBloggers team having a bit of an adventure. And, sure enough, July saw us brave some blazing sunshine and pounding tunes in Eastern Europe - at the EXIT Festival, held at Novi Sad in Serbia.
We’d heard horror stories of sweltering heat, dodgy taxis and corrupt police (as always, when travelers step off the beaten track) but we were keen to see Serbia (and the festival) for ourselves in all its glory.
Now in its 9th year, EXIT started life as a political protest against President Milosevic but it’s since become increasingly concentrated on the music and has now achieved something of a cult status, especially in the UK.
Which is hardly surprising, really, given its inimitable location and massive scale. Set within the Petrovaradin Fortress of Novi Sad (on the River Danube), EXIT boasts 25 stages and a schedule that runs for four whole nights.
What’s more, it’s as cheap as chips! Fly into Budapest and then travel to Novi Sad by train or bus, and the whole thing - including travel, food, the four day pass and as much food as you can shake a stick at - should cost about the same as a single ticket to Glastonbury.
To further scrimp on the budget, we’d decided to camp on the provided site - a bit of a mistake, as it turned out, given the all-consuming heat that greets Novi Sad come sunrise.
EXIT is very much a nighttime event, you see, with music booming from 8pm to 8am. And since it’s very hard to sleep in a tent after about 9am given the sun, we didn’t end up with a lot of shut-eye during the week!
This is party land, however, and sleep wasn’t exactly on the agenda. The first night kicked off with fireworks and air displays, before N.E.R.D (who disappointed) and The Streets (who certainly didn’t) got the music under way.
With the next three night’s entertainment including such class acts as Booka Shade, Soulwax, The Gossip, Primal Scream and even The Sex Pistols, EXIT quickly became one big, happy mess.
You basically party all night long to whatever strain of music takes your fancy, from the big international names that grace the main stages to quirky Serbian folk bands and experimental techno in the smaller corners of the fortress.
It was the unique Dance Area, though, that proved a great hit - where else in the world could you go raving in a moat with thousands of other people?!
After such brief spells of sleep each night (or rather morning), we found the best course of action was to simply cheer ourselves up the next day with a couple of beers at ludicrously low prices and a cooling swim in the slightly suspect waters of the Danube while (subtly, of course) eyeing up the Ana Ivanocic lookalikes that seemed to be constantly bounding around after volleyballs on the manmade beach.
Too much partying, heat, dust and a lack of proper food does take its toll (even on us hardy HostelBloggers lot) but otherwise the festival seemed to pass us by without incident.
It was with regret that we packed up our things and headed out of the ‘Emergency Escape’ for the last time… (As ‘EXIT’ was plastered around so much the organizers seemed to think this was the only way to get party-weary Brits to leave without confusion.)
We did get a glimpse of the Serbian police force, though - and yes, they all had the huge stature and threatening glare that told you they were ex-military and could snap you between their fingers. Just as well we’re a pretty law abiding bunch!
Next year is EXIT’s 10th anniversary and we’re betting there’ll be even more festivalgoers heading out to this little known corner of Serbia come 2009. We might just see you there…
When HostelBloggers think of August, we think of thundery showers. But the residents of Bunol, in the Valencia region of Spain, have something much more unique (and bizarre) on their minds.
On the last Wednesday of August each year, Bunol hosts a truly awesome spectacle. A massive fight involving – wait for it – around one hundred tons of over-ripe tomatoes.
At 10am, the first tomato-bearing trucks arrive at the central Plaza del Pueblo. After watching several brave souls try to scramble up a two-storey high greased wooden pole to reach a ham (we don’t get that bit, either), water cannons are fired to signal the start of the battle.
For the next hour, it’s every man, woman, child and traveler for themselves as squished tomatoes fly through the air in every direction.
And then more water cannons are fired and the thousands of sticky revelers have to call a ceasefire.
But it’s not just the tomatoes that arrive into the city by the truckload – where there’s fruit and boisterous fun, backpackers are sure to follow. There’s limited accommodation in Bunol itself so nearby hostels in Valencia are crammed with enthusiastic tomato-throwing travelers.
HostelBloggers really don’t envy the hostel staff’s clean-up job the next day - even though (apparently) after the pulp is cleared away, the acidity of the tomatoes leaves the streets of Bunol rather clean. Whilst we’re not convinced that chucking tomatoes around is a very efficient way to spruce up a city, we wouldn’t be against trying it in London…
La Tomatina was started back in the 1940s, but no one seems to know quite how or why. The fight is actually part of a whole week of events (including a paella cooking contest), parades and dancing in honor of the city’s patron saints, Luis Betran and the Virgin Mary.
There may be some religious significance to the tomatoes, or an important historical event that started it all off but, basically, it’s just an excuse for a massive food fight.
During a recent trip to Edinburgh, HostelBloggers became aware of a certain looming occasion that’s creeping up on the hostels in Edinburgh. You see, August is just around the corner. And that means the Edinburgh Fringe, along with all its inimitable mayhem, is most definitely on its way.
Here’s Steve of Bus Station Backpackers talking about the Fest, and suggesting a few ways to negotiate its delights without blowing your entire holiday budget in one drink-and-drama binge.
Continuing the July events theme, Saturday was the date of the prestigious annual, ‘Moon Amtrak Day’. The event’s been going since the late seventies and is essentially just an excuse to bare your naked behind at a passing train.
Frequently asked question No.7 from moonamtrak.org - ‘Can I decorate my butt?’ - is answered with a straight to the point, ‘Yes that’s Ok.’ Amusing and concise, you see.
And yes, before anyone mentions it, we are conscious of a relatively high concentration of infantile posts involving nudity and the like. Are we going to stop it? Probably not.
Around the world, July’s got a handful of events that are on the unique side of idiosyncratic. There’s the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, the Calgary Stampede, and - one of HostelBloggers’ favorites - the Moon Amtrak day.
But few worldwide events - now, or at any time of the year - can hold a candle to the Palio di Siena for the sheer insanity of it all.
It’s a bit of a wolf in sheep’s clothing of an event, really. Ostensibly, it’s an historic horse race, complete with lashings of pageantry, pomp and show; then the race starts… and all hell breaks loose, as riders and horses charge round the Piazza del Campo at breakneck speed leaving a mass of twisted bodies (human and equine) in their wake.
The Palio di Siena is just one of various other palios across the country. But for the real deal, backpackers in Italy over the summer should drop everything and make for Siena on the 16th August, when, believe it or not, they carry out the whole crazy spectacle again!
Hard as it is to believe looking out of the window at the grey perma-drizzle of London, but midsummer’s almost upon us.
And Midsummer’s Eve/St John’s Night/Summer Solstice has, since pagan times, been the date of one of the year’s biggest parties - from the new-age celebrations at Stonehenge to the downright peculiar ‘Frog Dance’ in Sweden.
But one party packs more of a punch than all the others put together: the Festa de Sao Joao. Anyone within a sniff of Portugal’s usually reserved city of Porto should make sure they’re there to see it get turned upside-down by a mad midsummer street party on June 23rd and 24th.
Ostensibly a celebration of the city’s saint’s day (Sao Joao), any religious connotations are overshadowed by a raucous festival.
Porto’s streets are filled with locals progressing through the town carrying leeks and plastic hammers with which to hit any (attractive) passers-by to (somehow?) commemorate the saint’s patronage of lovers.
Hammer Time!
For female travelers, this tends to be funny the first time and mildly annoying the second. By the hundredth time, though, you’ll probably be prepared to throttle the next hammer-wielding Portuguese teenager with an amorous glint in his eye!
The focal point of the party is the main square, Avenida dos Aliados, which becomes a giant marketplace filled with stalls, people and illuminated balloons.
Aside from offering a fascinating slice of local culture, the hastily erected bars, barbecues and live music stages that fill the city guarantee an orgiastic night of eating, drinking and dancing in the streets.
The festivities reach their formal climax with a dramatic fireworks display along the Duoro estuary at midnight.
Porto Fireworks
After the fireworks, though, the party decamps to the Praia dos Ingleses beach, where bonfires are lit, the music’s cranked up and nobody goes home till well after the sun comes up.
With the next day (the day of Sao Joao itself) a public holiday, the city is totally deserted as revelers lie in darkened rooms groaning. In the afternoon, the entertainment returns to the riverfront, this time in the gentler guise of a regatta of the area’s traditional wooden boats.
Oddly, given its scale and vibrancy, Festa de Sao Joao is practically unknown outside of Portugal, but it’s definitely worth a visit to experience one of the liveliest summer festivals – and wildest parties – in Europe.
You basically party all night long to whatever strain of music takes your fancy, from the big international names that grace the main stages to quirky Serbian folk bands and experimental techno in the smaller corners of the fortress.
Too much partying, heat, dust and a lack of proper food does take its toll (even on us hardy HostelBloggers lot) but otherwise the festival seemed to pass us by without incident. 
