We had a tough fitness regime on deck: Neil Harvey and I organised rigorous

We had a tough fitness regime on deck: Neil Harvey and I organised rigorous games for three hours every day in the hot sun. It was black tie for dinner every night - quite strange for a young boy from Parramatta, like me Since 1964 travel has always been by plane. On each of my first three tours, in '53, '56 and '61, we broke the speed record for the crossing from Fremantle, Western Australia, to England. The first time it took just over four weeks; the last, about three weeks. In those days we always travelled by ship, first class on P&O liners. I started travelling in 1953, with my first cricket tour of England.

The same package at the four-star Gellert Hotel is pounds 349 per person, including use of the hotel's thermal baths.Entrance to most baths costs pounds 1.50 to pounds 2.FURTHER INFORMATIONHungarian Tourist Office (tel: 0171-823 1032).. Two nights b&b in a two-star hotel costs pounds 249 per person. Goulash soup, fried goose-liver and Gundel pancakes must exact their price.BUDAPESTGETTING THEREPaul Watkins travelled with Global Connect (tel: 0171-371 6300), which arranges breaks in Budapest, including flights with Malev Airlines (tel: 0171-439 0577). The burghers of Buda live well and their priority in going to the baths is atonement. But was this a "bath-night" too far? The idea of boogieing till dawn, both in and out of the water, in such Sybaritic surroundings might appeal to the hip generation, but to older Magyars - the most frequent users of the baths - it would seem a frivolity. Lying on my stomach and acting like a roll of dough, I could only comfort myself by fixing my gaze on the three men having underwater traction in the nearby tank, gripped firmly by their neck-braces.Indolent tranquillity came finally in the Gellert's indoor swimming-pool, with its Byzantine pillars, palm trees and lion-head waterspouts. Stroking up and down the luxurious warm waters, it occurred to me that the best pleasures were the simple ones.

I didn't learn till later that there was an outside pool with a wave-making machine.The Pasha of Buda would have loved that. No less would he marvel at the latest innovation of the Rudas baths - "nightclub parties" - with ambient music, under-pool lighting and silent era movies projected on the walls. The thought of having to retrieve it from that icy depth - or even worse, get a macho Magyar to do it for me - sent me scurrying into the massage room.Any thought of relaxing under gently kneading fingers was dispelled by the muscular masseur's 15-minute work-out. By some feat of self-preservation, I managed to catch it on my little finger before it dropped into the pool.

I then felt brave enough for the "hideg furdo", a cold plunge-pool whose temperature was a matter for nervous speculation Three steps down and I knew I could go no further. Turning round, the locker key - attached loosely with string - slipped off my wrist. Then, with the spirit of a true Magyar, I entered the goz kamra (steam room) which progressed from a sweaty 50C to a blistering 70C.The Gellert Baths are segregated and the men in the steam room sat like glistening Buddhas on the benches, with only their "decency covers" - little white aprons with a string attached - maintaining their modesty. Some chose to discard this etiquette for the sake of practicality: the seats were very hot and to save their buttocks from a burning they performed what can only be described as a "diaper flip", reversing the apron to cover their behinds.An exposure to the showers was necessary to learn the difference between "meleg" (warm) and "hideg" (cold). After a ritual immersion in the 26C pool, I moved rapidly to 32C, then luxuriated for a while in 40C.

The magnificent entrance hall, modelled on the Caracalla Baths in Rome, with its glazed vault and mosaic walls, led into the interior pools, with marble fountains adorned by chubby cupids doing all sorts of things with tortoises. Skylights shafted sunrays through the steam, turning the pale-bodied bathers into strange, phantasmagoric shapes. The principle the Romans applied in their ancient thermae, of combining cold, warm and hot baths, was adopted by their successors. By the time I reached my third bath-house, the Gellert, I knew the form.