Unlike others there, Sayed was ready to take a bus that would likely send him to a formal refugee camp. "All my journey was horrible, so I won't be afraid of [another] camp ... It's all horrible here."

Before he could visit a doctor, a bus arrived, and he got into the crowd of people wanting to board. Chaos reigned about who would get on and when. One man yelled out, "Family, family," to the police to stress he was with children. One policeman asked another group how many children they had with them. Sayed waited with one backpack under his coat to shield it from the rain, with another bag slung over his right arm. The police told people to back up. Sayed missed the bus and had to wait for the next one.

Amid the steady flow of people crossing into Hungary was Naim Alkordi, 25, who was walking along the train tracks with his girlfriend, uncle, aunt and cousins. He said he was a rebel fighter near Damascus but fled after driving to Aleppo, then walking to Turkey.

"In Syria, I don't have house … The war is very [dangerous]," he said. "[I was] a sniper in Syria, but I don't love war." He worked as a cook for a year in Istanbul with his parents, but they stayed behind.

"I want to go to Germany. I want a new life," Alkordi said.

He was afraid of getting his fingerprints taken, but he waited for one of the buses. But amid confusion, he — along with the rest of the crowd — decided to start walking, believing that no bus would come.

By 8 in the evening, dozens of refugees were walking down a country road farther into Hungary, not knowing what city they were heading for. Dogs barked in driveways, drivers honked their horns as they sped by, and police in cars with flashing lights caught up to the refugees and warned them to stay on the side of the road so that they would not get hit.

After about four hours of walking, often in the freezing rain, they arrived on the outskirts of the town of Szeged. Men started to approach them, yelling "Taxi, taxi," saying they could get them to the capital, Budapest, or even Austria. One of the refugees turned to another and said, "Smuggler."

Fearful of going to the town's train station, where police often are, Alkordi and his family talked to a man who offered to drive them to Budapest for 200 euros ($227) each. They decided to walk on. By midnight they arrived at Szeged's train station. The group as a small fraction of its original size. Alkordi said many decided to pay to be driven.

After the remaining people got tea and sandwiches from volunteers, police started shouting for them to get into a waiting bus.

Alkordi said he did not want to get on the bus but resigned himself to his likely fate.

"To camp, right?" he said. "[At least] I will sleep."