Day 9

Up, stomach is fine. Go to market. It is amazing - the largest covered market in Europe, something like 1,600 meters squared. It's in four buildings so big they were used for building Zepplins in WWI. I finally am in a proper meat market.

We start the walking tour and head into ''little Moscow''. It is much less pristine that the Old Town. We see a monument - in WWII the ''Jewish Problem'' was solved in Riga by rounding up Jews into a synagogue and burning it. The monument is a testament to those who helped Jews escape.

We go to the flea market, which is like a car boot sale that had gone off the rails and spends all day shooting up. There were military uniforms, weapons, radios, rifle scopes, general scrap metal, musical instruments, everything. The buildings in the Russian quarter are built of wood which is a traditional city defence - when Napoleon was rampaging Riga still had city walls. When a watchman thought he saw Nap's army the outer city was abandoned and burnt, so the invaders had no shelter or food. It was a brilliant plan, although Napoleon's army was no where near at the time.

We have a brilliant hot chocolate and finish the tour. I say my goodbyes and get on the Sigula train. Sigula is lovely, but I can't find anywhere to sleep. The hostel I was going to go to is full and the hotels cost too much. I get back on the train and keep going to Valga - I'll come back to Sigula in summer sometime.

By the time I get to Valga there's no train or bus onwards to Tartu which is where I really want to be next, so I need to find somewhere to sleep. Luckily I picked up a map earlier and I find two or three places to try. The first is a hotel - it's affordable in an emergency, but I don't really want to pay 23 quid for the night, even if it does include breakfast. There is a hostel a fair walk away, but it's only about 9 or so. I start walking towards the hostel and I'm soon walking down dark Estonian country roads. It seems like every house has a dog in the garden.

This is terrifying. I don't like dogs very much at the best of times. I can deal with them, and I'm usually okay with them even if they are barking at me as long as they're behind a fence or on a leash. However, it's pitch dark and I can't see any of the dogs. It's not the barking which is most chilling, it's the threatening growls. I get hit by a few waves of adrenelin. One tiny dog runs along on his side of the fence towards me and I'm so jumpy I whip round and make some audible response - not so much a scream as an inimidated 'whuuh!'.

I am the most scared I have been for as long as I can remember.

I finally make it to the hostel and it is closed. I go back towards town, but I take the long way round which is a bigger road - I don't want to take the dog shortcut. I walk through the centre of Valga. I've been wandering around this town for about 2 or 3 hours now and haven't seen a single pub, bar, club, kebab shop or any kind of nightlife. Calling this place dead would be an insult to cadavers everywhere.

I go back to the emergency hotel. My room looks serviceable. The bathroom would make a Spartan think twice though, and there is no hot water. The room is absolutely freezing, I was genuinely warmer outside. I'm in bed wearing two T-shirts and a jumper and I'm still cold. I've had no real dinner, just snacks all day. I shiver my way to sleep. At least I get breakfast tomorrow.


Estimated number of units today: 0
Estimated number of units total: 34

Estimated number of girls taken to bed today: 0
Estimated number of girls taken to bed total: 0