What was probably some days later over the weekend following, Sasha and I were firming up various bits and pieces for our trip just before Christmas and I mentioned we needed to do another November trip somewhere yet. Cambridge came up again, but I just threw in there as an option that I'd looked up cheap flights elsewhere and Riga had come up as a viable trip. We looked it up again, and looked to see if there was a Friday night flight - there was, for the same price as the one on Saturday. Pretty much on the strength of that, not knowing virtually anything else about Riga or Latvia other than it was a country, a few friends of ours were either planning on visiting there or were there visiting at the time, and a quick google that found it was part of the Schengen zone (meaning we didn't need visas), we booked the flights. Booking accommodation followed, a transfer from the airport to the accommodation, and then that was that - we were going to Latvia in a fortnight, with very little idea of what to expect. Before going, we gained some idea of what to expect - there was some stuff to see, but not a huge amount; it would be cold, maybe snow; and they used the Euro. The rest, we'd discover while we were there!
Day 0 - Flying to Riga
By the time we went to the gate area, there was already a large queue lined up at the gate even though they weren't boarding yet ("Why are people queuing already?" said Sasha - "Because this is the UK and that's what they're good at" was my tongue and cheek reply!). Since we had assigned seats and our bags weren't going to fight for overhead locker space, there was no point joining the line yet so we sat down. There were many lines - quite a few Wizzair flights leaving from adjacent gates to all manner of Eastern European destinations - Vilnius in Lithuania, Sofia in Bulgaria, and Budapest in Hungary, so with all the people it was a bit messy. Eventually our line starts moving, and we board the plane and sit in our seats. There was a lady with a small child in the window seat, travelling with the grandmother but the grandmother wasn't in the seat next to her and I think myself and Sasha being together threw a spanner in their plan to ask someone to move to the grandmother's assigned seat in the opposite side of the aisle. It all worked out in the end when the guy in seat F agreed to move to seat A, which put the mother and child next to the Grandmother in seat E. The flight itself actually departed late, which wasn't a surprise but I didn't realise quite how late - we took off 40 minutes after the scheduled departure time. It started off a bit bumpy and the pilot said that we could expect turbulence most of the way to Riga, but it calmed off after about 15-20mins into the flight. The seats were fairly comfortable, and being a budget airline any food/drink was at cost and the attendants seemed to take forever to go down the aisles, creating a bit of congestion for those wanting to go to the bathrooms. Having my steel cap boots on (for cold weather/snow) with my bag under the seat in front of me meant my legs got a bit cramped but I did get to stretch them out a bit being in the aisle and also standing up in the aisle at one point. The flight there was roughly 2 hours in the end, with us landing on time at Riga having made up the time in the air - at 1.30am local time, 2 hours ahead of the UK. Hopping off the plane was a slight performance - we had to hop onto a bus, but because there was only one bus we had to wait until it ferried one full load to the terminal, then come back and load more, and so on. Upon getting to the terminal, we proceed to border formalities - I got asked "Tourist?" by the guard which I said yes to, and then "Hotel?" and I replied with our Hotel name, Westa. "Vesta?" she replied with a puzzled look on her face, while studying the screen, stamping my passport and then waiting some more until the screen came up with whatever result and I got my passport back. Then out through customs, into the terminal where we could see the sign for Wizzair transfers, went up to the guy and he led us to his taxi. The taxi had signs proclaiming free Wifi which was kinda funny considering there were no functional seatbelts - welcome to Eastern Europe! We drove into central Riga, and into the area where our Hotel should be but the driver said he had never heard of it before and wasn't sure where it was, coming to a barrier in the road at the markets. He then rang up the Hotel with the number we had, and established it was inside the markets - the third building to the right if we kept going straight ahead past the barrier. We found it, found we had to go around to another door, went inside and checked in. Once we had been checked in and given a map of the city, we caught the lift up to our floor and at first glance, it looked like it was unfinished or there was refurbishment work going on - until we realised that it was just a part of the odd style of decor! we found our room which was quite satisfactory (and warm thanks to a decent heater!). Time for sleep!
Day 1 - Riga City
Day 2 - More Riga, Jurmala, and Flying Home
Summing UP
Riga is a curious city, still very "real" or "raw" and unpolished in areas and feeling just very "different" - but also in a country where Latvian, Russian and German are the three main languages, there was a huge amount of English signs and advertising and I don't think we came across anyone that we talked to who didn't speak English. I often feel guilty that I go to these countries in Europe and can't speak even a shred of their language, but the truth is they often speak English anyway and you can get by otherwise. Had we gone to deepest rural Latvia we might have struggled somewhat, but I'm sure we could have got by - just as I get by in the Harz in Germany where they don't speak English. In fact, had I learned German like I keep meaning to, I might have been able to get by better in Latvia although I never really saw any Russian or German text anywhere - things were either written in Latvian, or English. The Old City caters a lot more towards tourists and English speakers than outside of it does - they know what a Mocha is for instance, while outside of the Old City in the Markets they didn't. I don't know if Riga or Latvia in general ever crawls with Western tourists, but it has had hard times economically from time to time in the last 20 years and I think that's helped keep the place feel "raw" without bending a lot to Western influences. Having said that, in the Old City or nearby you can find Subways, western-style Starbucks coffee places (some even imitating the Starbucks logo) and McDonalds or McDonalds-like places. I wonder how the locals feel about the city and their country having an ever increasing influence from a foreign culture taking over their city - mind you the same is taking place in a lot of places, but in the former Soviet Bloc countries the feeling must be more acute. On the other hand, if you want the tourists money, you need to cater towards them - it always weirded me out back in NZ seeing lots of Chinese or Japanese language inside souvenir stores or particularly around shops in the Queenstown region, but its the same thing. Imagine if the current Chinese tourist boom is sustained for a long time, and seeing lots of Chinese adverts and writing all throughout various places in NZ or even more people having to learn to speak Chinese to cater towards them - I can imagine some very xenophobic attitudes emerging from certain elements of the population, but those same people would go to other foreign countries expecting to speak and deal in English exclusively while in that foreign country also. When it comes down to it, I feel I am quite lucky to speak English as my native language - it certainly helps that it is so widespread, thanks to Western Culture and the Internet.
So, that fateful question - Would I go back? In all honesty I'm starting to dislike this question a bit, its changing in meaning as the time to the end of my visa inches ever closer and there is a distinct difference between "Yes, I want to go back before my time is up" and "Yes, I'd be happy to go back sometime but don't care when or if I ever do". The latter answer, for all intents and purposes, is a No - and is how I feel towards Latvia. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Riga and Latvia a lot, had a great time and would recommend it for a visit. But I feel like I saw all there is to see in Riga and I wouldn't gain much more if I saw more of Latvia. If a return to the Baltic region was to be contemplated, I'd be better off visiting one of the other neighbouring Baltic countries such as Lithuania or Estonia (with Estonia being the preference) in order to sample something different whilst also being the same. In actual fact I put "Maybe" down as an answer to the same question for the Canary Islands, but really that should have been a No knowing what I know now. Latvia, you are very nice, but you're not the kind of place that makes me want to visit over and over again. Having said that, it would be interesting to see what Riga might be like 20 years from now - will it still have that "real" feeling, or will it be much more westernised? Who knows, and would I ever get to see that answer first hand? only time will tell I guess.
I feel like I'm ending this blog post on a bit of a down or sour note -which I don't want, because I really did enjoy the trip immensely and Latvia is a nice place. In fact, I am very grateful in having Sasha as a travel companion, not only as someone who likes jumping at left-field travel suggestions such as Riga for the weekend but also adventurous enough to take me out of my usual comfort zone and trying some of the local things - the Riga Balsam or the Golden Sprotes are case in point, had I been by myself I can pretty much guarantee I would have had neither! I'm also looking forward to our next trip together, which also happens to be overseas - while Riga, Latvia was my first Eastern European experience, Budapest in Hungary will be the next - Sasha has been there before and liked it so much she wanted to go back, so I'll have an excellent tour guide showing me around!