My Baltic Adventure — Part 4 Disappearing Borders in Valga
In what felt like a pleasing circle, I once again found myself waiting on a railway station platform early in the morning, this time I was heading to Valga.
For once I wasn’t late, there was no rushing around in a madly shoving thing into my ridiculously small backpack, my alarm had gone off on time and I had pre-packed the night before. Also, for some bizarre reason, I was able to get a ticket from the machines at Tartu station, so there was no need for me to display my stunning sign language talents, all that was really missing, was the train.
You see, why this time I had for once managed to arrive on time, the train itself had decided not to. Tartu railway station isn’t exactly the most picturesque place to spend one’s time, and I did have a connection to make in Valga. Though the connection was two hours and after googling ‘Things to Do in Valga,’ and getting zero results, Tartu railway station didn’t seem too bad after all.
Now, before you ask, yes, I did know there was a direct bus from Tartu to Riga, but no one has ever written a good story about a direct bus journey. (Well, until I write my one about the Russian gangsters on the Riga — Vilnius bus.)
Soon enough the train arrived and in no time at all, after passing through many forests and eerily deserted villages, I found myself in Valga. Annoyingly I had miscalculated and in fact, I had 3 hours to kill in this small provincial town!
Here below are a bunch of interesting and not so interesting facts about the city of Valga.
1. It has a railway station. (Duh)
2. It has a river running through it.
3. It has a church.
4. It has two large supermarkets.
5. It has a rather highly rated museum, which was closed on the day I was there, of course.
6. Did I mention it had a river running through it?
7. Oh, and yes, it also has a border running right through the middle of it.
Now coming from a country (U.K) where anyone trying to cross into the country is subjected to horrendous interrogation where they are force-fed crumpets and made to drink disgusting tea! Having a town divided by a border must be a tad inconvenient.
It turns out the Latvians and Estonians are rather less picky about who they allow into their country, as the border, to my eye didn’t really exist. I kept following the border on google maps, trying to see some border hut, or CCTV cameras keeping guard. Did I mention that I was bored? In fact, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, I crossed back and forth between the Estonian and Latvian side, without a care in the world. (Yes, I was rather bored.)
By this point, I grabbed a salad from the local REWE (the salad bars at REWE supermarket beat anything I have ever seen here in Western Europe, they’re cheap, tasty and always fresh. (This isn’t an advert, it’s just the truth.)
That’s the railway station, because that’s all there was to take a photo of.
After killing some more time playing border hop-scotch. Borders are weird places, aren’t they? Sometimes like the one in Cyprus, they’re borderline (get it?) war zones, others, like this one here, are just markers in pavements and people cross back and forth without a care in the world. It probably also helps that they all use the same currency, and to be honest, apart from a couple of faded signs, you wouldn’t even know you’d crossed into another country.
Finally, though, it was time for me to head back to the railway station, with storm clouds building on the horizon I expected another evening thunderstorm. This time though I had my backpack with me, which included the all-important laptop, so I didn’t want to get caught out in that.
Fortunately, good fortune was shining on me as I made it back just as the heavens started to open, not before I had snapped this photo of this little church.
It’s a nice church and all that, but probably not worth traipsing all the way to Valga to see.
Now, you may be thinking I have got something against Valga, I haven’t, it is a pleasant town of around 15,000 people, and most of them seemed pretty happy, to be honest. It’s also rather interesting from a travellers point of view, to visit towns that usually don’t have many tourists. It’s the closest you’ll get to feeling lost, while traveling. They do have a small hostel, but it was closed when I went past, maybe like the Museum, it doesn’t open on Mondays.
Besides, I was now on my way to Riga, and there waiting for me, was yet another train. (This is the last train ride in this series, so if you’ve had enough, don’t worry — buses are next) Unlike the rather new and modern trains that greeted me in Estonia, Latvia was still using, well — I think the best way to describe it, was a bus with railway wheels.
Climbing aboard, the seats were also straight out of a bus, and immediately gave me flashbacks to the bus I used to get to and from school. Nevertheless, we left on time and headed south toward Riga, I half expected the scenery to be a bit different, but nope, it was just trees, trees and you’ll never guess what, even more, trees?
The good news was, according to a sticker at the front of the carriage there was free WIFI onboard, the bad news was, it didn’t work, and also didn’t exist. (This was a time before free data roaming existed around the EU.) I gathered it was probably done by some teens as a prank, it was going to be a long ride…
Part 4 will be up soon where I find myself arriving the Paris of the east, I hope you are prepared for my French jokes…
