Ripped off in Riga

Day 86 

With the music festival being on and food and drinks being so much cheaper in Riga, we decided to stay another day. 

As we had seen a good part of the old town the day before we looked at attractions a little outside of the city and had heard of a shooting gallery in an old Soviet bunker nearby. 

It took us forever to find the place (I guess it is a secret bunker), but after about an hour and some directions from locals we came across a small grey shack in the middle of a large construction site and headed downstairs into the bunker.

The shooting gallery. A little difficult to find as it was in the middle of a construction
site and not the biggest of places - well at least upstairs wasn't.

We were a little unsure as to whether we were going to be able to fire a gun off, as from what we had read on internet forums advanced bookings were required and it was very busy on weekends. This turned out to be a load of bollocks as we wandered into the dingy little fallout shelter with not a soul to be seen. 

Moving around the shop, we finally spotted an older man in the office and he came out to help us. We asked whether we could shoot a few rounds and in his broken English he said it was fine and he would just get his college to help. 

Another large Latvian emerged from the back room and he showed us through a catalogue of guns. Basically, you would choose the gun you wanted to fire ranging from pistols, AK-47, shotguns etc and the number of bullets you would use on each. You would pay per bullet so it was completely up to you how much you wanted to spend. 

The older gentleman, who greeted us asked for our passports, got us to sign against the visitors’ book, handed us some safety glasses and ear muffs and that was it. No liability waiver or safety briefing – just cough up the cash and here is your guns!

We grabbed a couple of targets of James Bond (Sean Connery’s version) and then followed the man into the shooting gallery. The gallery itself was about 30 metres long and littered with old bullet casings and targets. He pulled a table over, loaded up the Glock, gave us a quick (i.e. 20 secs) run through on how to use it then handed it over for us to shoot.

From about 15m away we fired at the target and using the Glock felt just like firing a weapon in a video arcade. It didn’t have a huge amount of recoil and just felt solid in your hands. Although I had my glasses on, I couldn’t see whether I had hit the target from where we were standing but the man said we would take a look once we had finished with both guns.

Next up was the AK-47 or Kalishnakov, which is considered one of the best rifles in the world and I think the weapon of choice by Bin Laden or at least that’s what you always see him shooting in his home movies.

No safety briefing on using the AK-47
and it was okay to wear thongs.

Claire enjoyed this a little too much I think.

As expected this gun was a lot bigger and a lot heavier. He loaded up the massive bullets and handed the rifle over. In this instance I was expecting a bigger recoil and noise and wasn’t disappointed – it felt like shooting a bazooka!  Despite it’s firepower, it still felt like you had a lot of control over the weapon and you got used to the kick back, although I can’t imagine shooting hundreds of rounds from it.

With both of us finished, we got a look at the targets and we both did really well with me getting Bond right between the eyes and Claire getting him in the forehead. Out of the 10 rounds we each shot, I scored 85 and Claire got 70. This was a good win for me as up until that point, anytime at a shooting range has clearly been won by Claire with her ‘Hawkeye’ abilities. In her defense though she would like to say that she closed her eyes on the first two shots due to the deafening noise and that is why she missed.

 Right in the forehead. Bam!

Had to put a photo up of the toilet at the shooting range.
I think it could do with a woman's touch.

From the bunker we took a ride out to the Riga central markets, which were just across the other side of town. Our guidebook had said that you could find pretty much everything you ever needed at these markets, so it was going to be interesting to see if they had any jousting sticks.

We arrived at the market about 3pm, so it was a couple of hours out from closing time, but there was still a load of people around. The market itself was housed in some old aircraft hangers and there was also an outdoor area for the non-permanent stalls. Everything was organized into separate sections; so you had your food in one; dodgy fake T-Shirts in another, pirated DVDs, games and music in another location and so on. We wandered around for about an hour or so and still didn’t manage to cover the whole expanse. It was probably the biggest market we had been to in Europe, if not our whole lives!

At the Riga Markets.

The market was housed inside a whole bunch of old Zeppelin Hangars.

Pa-Puss in a Bucket.

Many of the stalls were starting to pack up as we left and we made our way towards the main Art Nouveau district of Riga, as it was famous for this type of architecture. We pinpointed a specific couple of streets that had a lot of examples of Art Nouveau architecture and rode our bikes over to them. As we approached, there was a large number of people heading down the street and by chance we had timed our visit to the district to coincide with some sort of celebration of Art Nouveau.

The street was littered with people and there were old school stalls setup with people dressed in traditional costume – including a couple of young lads dressed as paper boys selling mock up papers from the 1930’s.

At the end of the street there was a band playing and a large number of traditional dancers. We made our way around to the front of the stage to get a better look and it was quite interesting to watch the people dance, as they all had a very peculiar look on their faces as they danced with each other. The lady singing at the front of the band would also count the dancers in with a methodical shake of her backside three times.

The somewhat odd Art Nouveau Band.

Riga Locals.

The Art Nouveau District.

This is what Art Nouveau looks like. If you were wondering.

In the end the dancers creeped us out a little with their fake looks and we headed into town for a couple of drinks and dinner. With the success of the restaurant the night before, we decided not to ruin a bad thing and ate at Lido again.

As we walked into the restaurant a small table for two suddenly became available. Being there the night before, we knew that it was quite difficult to get a table outside and quickly moved over to stake our claim. 

As we waited behind the table for the departing couple to leave an elderly lady rounded the corner with her tray full of food and shoved us out of the way of the table so she could sit there with her young grandson. 

I stuck and arm out to stop her advance but she dipped her shoulder into me shouting ‘Nie, Nie, Nie (i.e. No, No, No). I was flabbergasted. This woman had blatantly pushed us, and also the couple leaving out of the way, so she could get a seat at the table. 

Without really thinking, I went into a bit of a tirade of abuse. Unfortunately the woman’s back was turned away from me so it was directed at an innocent eight year old, who probably had no idea of what I was saying. Too be honest, on reflection I wasn’t too sure what came out but I do remember yelling ‘You’re an absolute disgrace’ and that may have been purely directed at said 8 year old.

As I turned around, patrons sat at the tables behind me were shaking their heads at the way the old woman had shoved both Claire and I out of the way. Well at least I thought it was at that and not the verbal tirade I had just unleashed. 

With no table we decided to just get our food and head down the back of the restaurant where there were plenty of tables. Claire headed in to get dinner while I waited in the entry. While I was waiting another, larger table came available outside and I moved over to claim this one in the knowledge that the elderly front rower across from us was head deep in desert.

With a rather large table and only one person sitting at it, I became enemy number one and there was a lot of death stairs as larger groups entered the eatery. As the minutes turned over, I was really under the pump to produce some drinks, people or food at the table and neither was happening. I couldn’t leave to see what Claire was doing or to tell her to hurry up as I would instantly loose the table, so I just had to sit tight and fight off the vultures.

Claire eventually came out with our dinner and I had to do a made dash to the bar to get some drinks before dinner. Claire now had to feel the pain of sitting at a table that could hold four at a push, but one we only wanted to accommodate two. 

I came out with the beer and wine after about 5 minutes, but looking at Claire’s face as I sat down, it had obviously seemed like eternity. Sitting down, she explained that an older man and his early 40’s son had tried to force their way on to our table, as they ‘wanted to enjoy a drink outside too’! 

Luckily the couple sitting across from us had witnessed the earlier fiasco with the older woman and came into defend Claire, telling them to basically piss off. 

While we were eating our dinner, the older man and son continued to hassle patrons for a spot at their table, and at one stage forced another couple to move over. What they didn’t tell them was they also had another 3 people inside with them and as they came out with drinks they all tried to squeeze onto the one table. 

Finally a table large enough for their group of five opened up and they dived on it. What was particularly funny though was the response that the couple next to us gave to this party of five as they finished their dinner and left for the evening. First the man got stuck into the man in his 40’s and then his young lady offered the table up at the top of her voice. We couldn’t really catch exactly what was said as it was all in Latvian, but the young couple gave us a smile and roll of the eyes as they walked out. 

I can say that the food and beer was cheap and tasty at Lido, but I have never felt so under the pump to get in downed!

With all that excitement, we decided to cool down with a stroll around town hitting some of the parts that we had not seen the previous day. We discovered some really interesting parts of town and a whole new set of bars and restaurants that we did not know existed.

Finding some more Riga gold and just before
we lost some of our gold.

As we were working our way back towards the old town square to watch some more live music, a man in a suit who looked to be in a bit of a bother stopped us. Caspers (as he introduced himself) explained that he was parked just down the street and needed to get his coins changed for a note so he could exit the parking bay he was in. 

Seeming quite genuine and what appeared to be the correct change in his hand, we changed a 20 LAT note for the 10 LAT coins he had. I was a little skeptical at first, but the coins appeared to be exactly the same as the 2 LAT coins we had seen previously. He struck up a bit more conversation asking us where we were from and giving us some tips on where to go and we parted ways. 

Being fairly inebriated at this stage, we didn’t think too much of the exchange and made our way to the roof top bar with amazing views of Riga that he had mentioned. We exited the lift and went to pay the entrance fee with our newly acquired LATs – or so we thought.

The girl quickly explained that what we thought were 2 LATs were actually 2 LITs – i.e. Lithuanian currency. We had been had!

After 10 plus years of travelling, both Claire and I had managed to avoid all the scams, muggings and horror stories you hear from some travellers, however, old ‘Caspers’ the unfriendly ghost had managed to take us for a ride!

Having just realised we had been done over, we weren’t in the happiest of moods but decided to pay the entrance fee to the SkyBar so we could at least see the view and use their WiFi to check the currency exchange. 

In the end, we had lost about £18 in the whole affair – call it daylight robbery or a very hefty exchange commission if you like, but either way we will probably never help out anyone like that in need again and that is what is quite sad.

The bridge that took us home to our £3 a day car park.