Summer Trip to Latvia & No Nightclubs! (June 2006)
Me and my friend Rik set upon another trip to Latvia on 31st May. An early morning start from Hitchin, we embarked on a train down to Gatwick airport via the underground and Gatwick Express from Victoria station. Today we were travelling with British Airways. With a good low price and on-line check in with a meal, life couldn't be any better.
How wrong we were. I would have been grateful for a change from this flight to a Ryanair flight out of Stansted. There was no air conditioning, it was so hot on the plane, which meant all the young children and babies were crying their heads off, and the food. Well...a rubbish sandwich and two drinks to cope with the air conditioning. I just wanted to scream. Rik tried to sleep off the journey, but I don't think this worked.
We arrived at Riga airport, another beautiful day, warm temperatures and sunshine. This was a good start, shame about Rik getting pulled in by customs on ENTRY into Latvia, as a sniffer dog smelt something funny in his luggage. It turned out to be my leather jacket which I put in Rik's case which attracts attention, but still nothing found. Strange. Was the dog taking drugs? Anyway, Rik was let free and made tracks out of the airport. I booked both of us into a youth hostel a few weeks earlier online, in a place in Jurmala. We never had been there before, so we decided to go by taxi as we weren't sure about buses and the airport was not on the train line. After a short drive, and 13lats, and the driver asking directions for the hostel, we arrived at the hostel called "The Seaside Hostel" in an area called Dubulti.
Made with wood, it seemed like a typical out-of-Riga building. Ideal location as well, 5 minutes from the beach and 3 minutes from the Dubulti station, with a small hotel bar around the corner.
We arrived, paid the rest of the costs of staying to the hostel manager and bunged our bags in our room, which we were sharing, but not in the same beds. I noticed when I paid the guy at reception, that there was a big double bed as well, and a young girl who was sitting behind the desk, which I thought she was the admin or receptionist. In the end, I learnt that they were partners who run the hostel, and also stay in the same room. God, I couldn't live and work in the same room all week. It would do my head in. :)
I and Rik unpacked and the first thing we did, was to walk into the main area of Jurmala, a place called Majori.
We walked up the main road, and found the main high street as I called it known as "jomas iela". This looked like the Disneyland high street, which a Disney needed castle at the end of the road. The buildings were so modern and painted white, and mostly bars, restaurants and shops. We found a bistro place on a side street, and grab our first beer of the trip, and I had a chicken meal with chips for just 1.88lvl. It was nice, but done in deep fat which was unusual for me as most food I have had in Latvia was grilled.
We had a look round "Disneyland" and decided to go back to the hostel for a while and chill. We walked back via the main road from Majori to Dubulti, but this time we found that there was a railway line which runs along side the road and this big inland river.
So we walked across the tracks, which all the local people were doing, and walked along the tracks all the way back to Dubulti, also stopping off to have a look at the river from different locations and making some great photo shots. It was so peaceful, not many cars, not many trains going by, just the sound of the water, and a few birds flying.
After a rest period in the hotel, we did adventure out for a little while along the beach in the evening. Was a bit breezy, but was pleasant. The beach was long and sandy, and you could just about see Riga to the north. There was not many people about, and all you could hear yet again was the sound of the Baltic Sea. What a nice end to finish the first day back in Latvia.
