Tuesday 10th August mileage 4908 Valga In Estonia

Nice nights sleep after late finish last night, showered in good clean facilities and then decided to head back along the road to see Tartu.  City is a student down, very nice with lots of young people.  Went into a car park and stopped next to a young woman biker on what looked like a Yamaha Virago, one of those low seat easy rider type bikes.  She told me that the first hour is free in all the parking lots in town, you just put a piece of paper somewhere on your vehicle saying what time you arrived.  Secured the bike and belongings and trudged up the hill to where she said there was a library.  Got there and it was the university library and if you wern't a student with a student card you didn't get to go on the internet.  receptionist redirected me to the city library.  Back down the hill and off to the city library.
Saw a rubbish bin with Veolia label so took photo and sent to Peter Dawson of Veolia saying they had found their management potential at last !!

 Checked that I can have access ok, and then went and got my bike which by now was approaching the hour time.  Parked the bike on the entrance plaza of the city library, locked everything down, hid the beer under the jacket that was secured via the helmet lock etc. and then went and updated blog.  Good internet access speed but the keyboard had dual charcters on the keys and for the life of me I couldn't find the apostrophy.  Tried again to upload the videos, seemed to be working as this time I didn't get a failure message, but it seemed to be stuck at processing video for ages 30mins + so had to abandon this idea again.  Finished on internet and walked around town for a bit , had a salad in a cafe/deli bar.  Suddenly started to get indigestion again.  This happenned yesterday at about this time and therefore I think it is the pasta, peppers and nut meal that I keep making.  Must vary the diet !!

Pressed on for Valga a town right on the border between Estonia and Latvia  Journey was pretty uneventful other than I got tired after about an hour (in the heat) so I stopped at a small village bought an ice cream and cold drink then laid down on the village green and slept for about 30mins..  Batteries now fully recharged restarted journey to Valga.  Passed a combine harvester cutting the corn and all around there were storks looking to scavange anything the machine disturbed.
Valga looked interesting but when I arrived at about 6pm it felt like one of those mexican towns in the spaghetti westerns.  I felt as though all the people were hiding.  Parked next to the politsie building and walked about to get a feel for the place.  There were big notice boards around showing facilities like post office, B&B supermarkets etc.  one label saīd "look out post" seemed intersting so I set of to have a "ļook out" Found out that the border between Estonia and Latvia runs right through the middle of the town. Apparently when they were negotiating the borders the two parties couldn't agree and so the English person who was overseeing the negotiations just put his sword in the ground (as you do !!) and said "the borders here" White and black marker post delineate the boundary.  Never made it to the "look out post" I think it was just a small hut on a small hillside.

Thought I might splash out and try a local B&B to see what the experience was like, so following the directions on the board to the one nearest to my bike I plodded off.  When I got there they told me they were cloised now for the rest of the season.  What season??  Thought ok so go back to the camping ground I had seen signposted at the outskirts of the town.  On way back to bike fond an arts centre with lots of wooden sculptures by people from Estonia and Latvia.

Tried to find campsite.  Followed sign that said "this way  for 1.5km" but no luck. Stopped at petrol station and asked and woman said yes go past traffic lights, turn left and you cannot miss the sign.  Want to bet !!

I turned up every road left after the traffic lights.  I stopped and asked people, but lots of blank expressions. 

In failing to find the campsite I did however come across the railway station with a fine steam engine exhibit and also some of the famous dirty oil tanker carraiges, and a street called Savi

 In the end I saw a sign for one of the B&Bs so decided to revert back to plan A.  Went inside this private house, and the man came out dressed in what I could only descride a brief swimmimg trunks and said yes he does B&B.  He looked at my bike and gear and said "Do I have my own bed?" by which I assumed he meant tent. I said yes, and he said you can camp.  Guess what?  This was the campsite that I had just spent 15 mins trawling around looking for.  What a great place.  he takes in lodgers and campers and accomodates them all in his very well equipped double garage.

Cost of camping and breakfast was 100EEK about seven pounds fifty.  Nice people who spoke little english, but we made ourselves understood.  One person who was staying there was an Estonian salesman from Tallin called Argol ( I think this was what he said, so if you are reading this Argol and the spelling is wrong my apologies. He did describe what he sells but I have to admit it got lost on me after a short while so I just nodded and said yes.  His wifes sister married an english man and lives in Birmingham.  His view of Birmingham from her is that it is very dangerous.  You don't go out alone at night time, and there are lots of "bad black people".  An interesting perspective on how other people view England!

Went to the supermarket to get some food, and because tonight cooking in the double garage decided to push the boat out and so bought some fillet steak, tomatoes, onions, new potatoes and potato salad.  Had lovely meal with beer talking to Argol.  He went off to his room and so I bnrowsed the TV channels in the garage. They had every kind of TV you could think of.  In the end settled for BBC entertainment channel and up came Eastenders.  The episode where Veronica tells Roxy her father raped her, and Denisš family were choosing the coffin for her funeral.  To bed after Eastenders, too much excitement.

In the morning breakfast consisted of semolina and jam, then boiled eggs, cofee and bread.  Also on offer was ham cheese etc.  All in all a bragain. I like the place.

TOR