I'm very aware of the fact that I've neglected this for a good few weeks now, and in terms of where I'm currently traveling, I'm an age behind with the writing (this is being typed sitting at a hostel computer in Berlin... a good 3 weeks and 2 countries away from Lithuania), but I have been genuinely busy over the last while, and the longer I left it, the less appealing it became to write. But, I had an urge to write something tonight, so here it goes...
My first night in Riga was somewhat of a non-event. I arrived in time to watch the Arsenal vs Man United match and accidentally got very drunk on the strong local beer, making some vacuous clubbing friendships for that night with a couple of lads from London. However, I met a very interesting (if slightly odd) man from Bristol whilst watching the match who had moved to Riga, leaving his wife and family because God had spoken to him and told him he had to go and fix Latvia's problems. I quizzed him on his one man crusade, which he assured me was going very well up to that point. The conversation was different to the ones you mostly have when first meeting people because we were both so blunt with eachother, without being offensive, and it encouraged me to try and carry that on more rather than just going through the motions when you meet people and telling them what they want to hear. It's always good to be challenged on what you're doing and why you're doing it because it makes you re-evaluate your choices and get a clearer picture of where you're headed.
Riga itself is a strange city, a UNESCO preserved World Heritage Old Town which is punctured with ugly, newly built, glassfronted shops and bars. As far as Old Towns go, I wouldn't rank it up there with Krakow or Tallinn, but it does have a certain charm. It's most enchanting to wander it's streets at night, wrapped up warm carrying a 20p cup of tar-like coffee because the new buildings dissappear into the darkness whilst the Old Town buildings are lit-up, so it's much easier to forget you're in the middle of a quickly advancing capital. Because of this, I approached Riga in a different manner than I did in Estonia, and focused more on meeting people and trying to gauge opinions on the Nazi/Soviet comparisons I raised in the last blog. Those who I met from Western cultures tended to agree with me, and we threw about ideas about why it is the way it is, why Communism isn't as vilified as Fascim is in our part of the world, and the general concensus was that it was mainly because we were so far removed from it, that it didn't effect us at all, therefore it was easier to ignore. However, I did meet a few native people who still spoke up for Stalin, and still considered him to be more hero than villain because he did so much for the economy of their countries. Any attempt to show them that he was in fact a complete bastard were dismissed out of hand, and it just showed me how differently you view things dependent on how it effects you directly. I did manage to pick up a local magazine though in which there was an article about a forthcoming movie, "The Soviet Story" by Edvins Snore, which addresses this issue, and which has been funded partly by the EU... So maybe the tide is turning in an attempt to raise awareness of the oppressive regime which Stalin ran, and the damage it did. My views on the whole thing were strengthened by a trip to the Latvian Occupation museum, and how the story of that country paralleled that of Estonia so closely. The closing, bare statistics give you a sense of the museum's subject matter: "During the periods of Soviet and German occupation, Latvia lost more 550,000 people, more than one third of it's population. This is the number who were murdered, killed in fighting or fled"... "We were killed simply for being ourselves".
Much like the other Baltic states, Latvia is a haven for those who love the outdoors. I day trip to Jurmalsa national park saw me landed on a beach about 6 miles long, all by myself, and it's not often you can walk through a thick pine forest and still hear the waves lapping at the shore just a few yards away. It truly is a breathtaking part of the world, and one which I'd recommend immediately to anyon who just wanted to get away from life for a while and disappear with yourself (or with a few chosen friends). The same can be said for Sigulda (which is an hour away from Riga on the train and is called "the Switzerland of Latvia" dues to it's many mountains and valleys), although it attracts more tourists than Jurmala. But, traveling at this time of year benefits in that respect as there's not many other tourist about, if any... so I was free to hike wherever I wanted, castle spotting and wandering of the marked trails at will. It took two trips out there (one alone, and one with Pesh and Scouse when they came out for my birthday) to really appreciate it, but the time was defintely well spent doing so.
So aye, I turned 25 in Riga and a few of the lads (namely Scouse, Pesh, Veggie and Bangers) came out from Scotland to celebrate it with me. The days they were over were lost to a haze of Riga Back Balsam (the single most disgusting drink you can ever try) and football, but I had a cracking few days, and after travelling alone it was great to see some familar faces and not have to have the initial getting-to-know-you conversation over and over. The most interesting part, for me, was a trip out towards a part of Riga called Andrejsala, which we were assured was a buzzing bohemian neighbourhood, full of artists and cafes which we'd like a lot. Well, when we got there, we instead found a complex of run-down and abandoned buildings, graffitied within an inch of their lives and gutted by fire. But as I've mentioned elsewhere, abandoned building fascinate me, so the afternoon stands out for me as my favourite part of my time in Latvia, not least because I managed to pick up a couple of really cool (free) souvenirs from going inside said buildings.
Pesh had accidentally (or so he maintains) booked himself an extra week away, so we had to decide what to do. He was dying to visit Estonia, and since I'd loved it so much I wasn't adversed to heading back there again. We made plans to head to Tallinn for one night then to go hiking and camping in Lahemaa the following two days, and headed of the following afternoon, still reeling from hangovers. Once at the hostel, one of the staff took a shine to us and wanted to know what we were planning for the next couple of days - as soon as we mentioned going camping we were labelled as "insane" and "likely to freeze to death", especially because Pesh had no sleeping bag and we had no tent. Thankfully, the girl (who's name I can't for the life of me remember) managed to arrange the loan of a tent and a sleeping bag for us in an attempt to stave of death for as long as possible... the only condition was we had to head out to the ghetto to pick it up. After all Anton had told me during my previous time in Tallinn I was a little bit unsure of this, but we were assured it'd be fine, and thankfully it was. In fact, it was better than fine, it was brilliant - one of those nights you get when you're away completely through luck and entirely by accident. We sat with the girl and her friends, drinking tea and listening to Estonian music, whilst they ridiculed us both (in the nicest way possible). Things like that are what makes traveling what it is for me - personally I think too much emphasis is placed on how many imaginary lines you cross over, when it's really the people you meet that shape your experience, not the country you're in. Heading back, we were newly enthused for our adventure the next day because we were now completely ready to cope with anything that nature threw at us. Well, in theory...
In much the same way as I got out to Lahemaa, we caught the bus which dropped us off at Viitna. To save time we decided to hitchhike up to Palmse and were picked up by an amiable man who was more than happy to tell us tales of working in the oil fields in Siberia. He dropped us off, and our adventure was ready to start proper. For the next 5 hours, we hiked through the fantastic forests of Lahemaa, kind of knowing where we were headed, but also not really at the same time, but that didn't concern us, it was just great to be out there. In a round-a-bout way we got to our targeted campsite in Vosu and got the tent up before dark without any hitches at all before heading down to the nearby beach to take a rake of photos. I should point out here that the temperature during the day never got above 0 degrees, but because we were always on the move and carrying our stuff we didn't notice it, once you stop though you start to realise just how cold it is. The darkness came in really quickly and by 4.30 it was impossible to see eachother even though we were standing within four feet of one another. And yes, we had no torch. Not to be defeated though, we got a fire going and cooked our food whilst trying to keep warm in the ever dropping temperature... but by 6.30 it was out of the question to stay outside, so we retreated to the tent. At this point we realised that we'd gotten ourselves in some situation: minus temperatures, pitch black with no torch, and a good 14 hours to wait until sunrise. It was actually so cold by now that we both had on almost every piece of clothing we had (which for me was 2 thermal tops, 2 t-shirts, a hoody, long johns, jeans and two pairs of thermal socks) and were in our sleeping bags... and we were still freezing. The prospect of a further, inevitable, temperature drop was looming, and we still had 13 hours to kill before the sun came up... hmmm. In all fairness to us, we stuck it out as long as we could, but there were too many obstacles in the way of any enjoyment and personally I didn't want to freeze out of sheer stubborness. We decided that if we were going to go and ask at a nearby house for directions to a hostel, then it was now or never, because we couldn't justify waking up the whole house at 2am when our blood had frozen in our veins.
So, a little bit regrettably, we wandered over and knocked at the house nearby. The whole of the following just outlined to me just how good people can be when you're in need, there were no questions asked, just help given and solutions provided, despite the obvious language barrier. In fact, that made it all the more apparent to me just how good the people who lived there were, because they rang their daughter in Tartu (a good 5 hours away) to translate between us... One telling line in the translation was that we found out the Mother had seen us putting up our tent, looked at us and though we were completely mental. So, before we knew it, we had the tent down, it was packed into the back of a van, and we were getting a lift to the nearby hostel. Problem solved. Almost.
The hostel was shut for the winter.
Right... so now we had another problem, but this just elicited more help from the Man who'd driven us this far. He rang round his friends, found out who owned another hostel and had the fella come down and open it up, just for us and just for one night. I've been the beneficiary of help from strangers so many times over the last few months, and when you're stuck, someone going the extra yard to help you really stands out - but this time, we had far more help than we could have imagined... re-instills a bit of faith in humanity for sure. So now, we'd gone from freezing cold to being in our very own hostel - couldn't have turned out better. We were still massaging our bruised egos the next morning, but only until we looked out the window and saw that there'd been 2 feet of snow, which would have seen us buried in the tent! We also later found out that the temperature had dropped to a chilly -10 degrees during the night, so by that point we felt entirely justified in our decision.
That morning we spent down on the same beach we'd been on the previous say, except this time the sand had been entirely replaced by snow, giving the place a really magical feel. It was a first for me to see snow so close to the sea and we took numerous photos which I'll hopefully throw up on here when I get the chance, or on flickr so you can see it. There's something about snow which makes you instantly regress to the ages of 5 and we took the time to make snowmen and I laughed a whole lead as Pesh fell over and made a complete fool of himself. All in all it was a cracking adventure, and again was an experience that you don't get by sticking with tours... OK, so it had been decidedly dodgy at certain points, but I wouldn't swap it for anything else now I can safely look back on it. Rather than put me off taking risks, it's made me more likely to do it again (sorry mam!) because it's what really builds memories.
I'll tell you about Lithuania tomorrow night...
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1 comment:
tune in for the next installment...SNOWBOARDING!
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