Items tagged with Lithuania

2008-06-18 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Rest Day
Distance: 0km 

After 9 days of cycling and 8 nights of camping, this break was very welcome.  We slept late and had a huge breakfast (ate about a box of cereal each).   The afternoon, Paulus and his girlfriend Vyda, took us sightseeing around Kaunas. Afterward, we went to a park where two rivers meet for a game of frisbee. There we met Indre and a lot of their friends from the hitchhiking club.

Billy and Lance joined in the intense game of frisbee.  They play with teams and goals and it can get quite rough.  The young people in Kaunas looked like they are very active, the park was full of life for a Wednesday night.  People were playing soccer, frisbee, running with their dogs and there were even two hot air balloons that took off from the park while we were there.

Later that night, I cooked a meal of bobotie from a recipe I got from my brother.  Because they do not have chutney here, I mixed apricot jam and tomatoes (that’s what the recipe suggested) and it really works!   The bobotie tasted good if I have to say so myself…

Paulo and Indre talked to their friend in Siauli where we will go to next and organized accommodation for us with him.  Again, I just want to say thank you to them for being so helpful, poor Indre went to bed long after midnight for the second night in a row, even though she has to work and both of them really went out of their way to help us.  A funny thing, when we showed them our photos, they recognized Ania, our host in Poznan, she has stayed with them in Kaunas!  What a small world…

2008-06-19 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Cycling Day: 15
Distance: 168km

The previous night, while talking to Indre and Paulius, we told them that we would probably rough camp in Siaulia, as we had no campsite and host. They began talking amongst themselves, got quite excited and started typing on Skype (now remember that this was past 1 in the morning). Then they told us that we don`t need to worry, they've organized for us to stay with their friend who lives in Siaulia.

The morning, Paulius cycled with us to outside Kaunas, to make sure that we take the correct road. The cycle to Siaulia was good, we managed a fast pace and the weather behaved itself. We got a little side tracked with a cute goat that was tied to a pole and eventually fed it almost all our left over food.

At 9, we arrived at Paulius' friend's (Mindavgas) apartment. Mindavgas and his flat mate are professional online poker players. Apparently they got bored with studying applied mathematics at university, and realised they could use it to make money. So they started studying poker and now they make enough money from it to live quite comfortably. You can see that they almost never leave their flat, because they were both very pale.

They wanted us to help them light a hubbly bubbly pipe, because they had it for so long, but never knew how to use it. After the pipe, we went to the supermarket and then they gave us a lot of meat and pasta which I used to make dinner for all. It was interesting to chat to them, they were quite funny characters.

2008-07-06 00:00:00
Written By: Billy van Graan

Click on an image to enlarge it and then browse the larger images with the Next and Previous buttons at the bottom right. This contains all the photos from the updates we did. Just makes it easier than to go to every single article to check the photos.

Flying and Netherlands

Germany

Poland

Lithuania

Latvia

Estonia

Russia

2008-06-20 00:00:00
Written By: Claudine du Plessis

Cycling Day: 16
Distance: 176km

A lack of sleep made it difficult to get up early, but we eventually got away from Siaulia at 10. Just outside of Siaulia, we stopped at the Hill of Crosses, as the name implies, it is a hill full of crosses of all shapes and sizes. According to the tourist information signs there, the hill has a lot of history. In the Soviet times, no one in Lithuania was allowed to place crosses next to the roads (now you can see it everywhere, it is a Baltic custom) and people began to place crosses on a certain hill. The Soviet government noticed that and burned everything down. This happened about twice, until in protest, thousands of Lithuanian people picked up the crosses and marched with them to this hill where they still are now. Now there must be about a million crosses, every day people place new crosses on the hill.

It started to rain, and we crossed the border to Latvia and exchanged some money. Latvia uses Lats, at about the same exchange rate as Brittish Pounds. The roads in Latvia was a little flatter than in Lithuania. Still the rain continued, and soaking wet, we stopped in a little Latvian town and had lunch. The rain only stopped as we entered Riga at eight that night, it was the first time we saw the sun for the day. Lance got a puncture, the most expensive puncture ever. He wanted to use a bomb to inflate the tire, but something went wrong and it didn't work. Next bomb, same story. So he used his new pump he bought in Berlin, but it only squirted out water. As he tried to get the water out, the top half broke off. He then broke the pump further by jumping on it. Kerry´s pump finally did the trick. I phoned our host in Riga, Reinis, who lives about 25km outside of Riga and we arranged that he will meet us in Garkalne, a town close to our house to help us find his home.

Getting out of Riga was trickier than we thought and we started to run a little bit late. Lucky for us, Reinis decided to look for us on the main road and when he found us we followed his car to his home.

Now I have to explain to you Reinis' place. He calls it his Little Paradise and we all agree. He lives with his parents and brothers in this house that used to be an old hospital in the forest. Surrounded by a forest, the house looks almost hidden, but it`s huge and beautiful. If I ever had to imagine my dream house, this would be it, only better than my imagination. His mom did the interior, wooden spiral staircases, everything is pine inside. We had a whole room for ourselves, kind of in the roof. Next to the house is a lake, where they catch trout. They also have a clubhouse, with a sauna and projector and screen for watching movies, a volleyball court, a tennis court. Everything in the middle of a pine forest, where you can't see another soul.

Reinis baked us traditional Latvian bread and we had it with tomato and Latvian cheese. Reinis`dad is the owner of Brolis beer, which is Latvian unpasteurised beer and we all agree – the best beer we have ever tasted. Reinis has this huge hubbly bubbly (he calls it his water pipe) and all funny flavours of tobacco like Raspberry Cheesecake. This pipe is his only weakness, if you can call it that, he is a vegetarian and doesn't drink or smoke and likes to live very healthy. He is one of five brothers and his one younger brother, Karlis (I hope I have the name right) also came with his friend and chatted with us. They were already starting celebrating for the Midsummer night party, which is a very big thing in the Baltic states.

2009-02-10 10:08:59
Written By: Billy van Graan

Name: Amstercow
Type: Bicycle Touring
Distance: 3300km
Countries: Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia
Date: 28 May 2008 – 2 July 2008
Team: Myself, Claudine du Plesses and Lance Smit

Amstercow is a 3300km bicycle tour from Amsterdam in the Netherlands across Europe to St. Petersburg in Russia. It was first planned to end in Moscow rather than St. Petersburg but since getting visas for Belarus is nearly impossible for South Africans we had to change our route.

New Route - Click to Enlarge

The trip was Claudine’s idea and at first I would have not gone with. But when Lance decided he would go with Claudine and I realized the trip would actually happen I was in.

The highlight of the trip was using couchsurfing.com for the first time and all the people we met through it really made the trip and memories special.