Lively bus ride to Daugavpils, Latvia

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(the article below accompanies this video)

As Masayo and I roam through Eastern Europe, I am on a constant quest to have days where my blood glucose never reaches 200. It has been a rarity lately, unfortunately, but today as we moved from the capital Rīga to the Russian-speaking town of Daugavpils on Day 14, I did it!

My blood sugar was a low 64 when I woke up. Fair enough — I’d been high late last night and had taken some corrective Humalog. Four units; one too many I guess.

We had some breakfast at the hostel for the second day in a row — just cereal, no bread or meat this time. Trying to keep it simple. My BGs have been so high for several days that I am willing to try new things to fix it.

I felt we hadn’t really seen Rīga properly; what we had seen was nice but there was so much more. But we had to press on: budget and time dictate the trip, not pure desire. So, this morning, at the very last minute, we decided to go down to Daugavpils, a large town in the Latgale section of the country said to be Latvia’s “most Russian town”. More Russian than Latvian is spoken there. And it has such a cool name: Daugavpils. Or, as I kept thinking of it, Dog-paw-ville. It sounds like a town of Snoopys.

We checked out of the hostel (i.e., gave our key to the girl; I dig the lack of formality) and walked to the main station, not too far from the hostel. We were a little early, so we strolled around the big market behind the station.

It was cool, with themed sections — fruit, shoes, hats, bags — and I looked at some small daypacks because the straps on my fake North Face bag we bought in Vietnam are stretched to their breaking points. Plus I don’t really like it in general. But the bags I saw at the market were too big and not quite what I need. I’ll keep looking.

Our tickets for the bus, which I bought online, said we needed paper printouts (which we didn’t have) and that we had to show our IDs to the driver. None of this was true; we just showed the tickets PDF on a phone screen and he waved us on. And soon we were off – to Daugavpils!

The town is about four hours from Rīga by bus, which follows the Daugava River all the way (it’s often visible from the road). The scenery was blandly pleasant but it was the scene inside the bus that was the main aspect of the trip.

For the first half of the journey, there was a big guy in the seat behind me, talking in a constant stream to a woman in the low growl of a gentle old man’s voice. I realized after about 20 minutes that he was just babbling. He went on and on, a constant murmur. The woman would say two or three words every few minutes.

After a couple hours of this guy’s directionless sermonizing I noticed people looking around to get a glimpse of him – it wasn’t just me who had noticed him but the entire bus. I also realized that he was not actually with the poor woman next to him. I don’t know if he was drunk or what, but he wasn’t unruly, just talking.

Eventually he got off at one of the stops while the Latvian woman beside me stifled laughs at what he was saying. I tried to ask her what it was but she didn’t speak English. Anyway you can see his mustachioed face behind me in the above photo. If you encounter him maybe you can pick up some of the local language. It’s not like you’ll have much choice.

Masayo and I had separate seats, across the aisle and one row apart. But at Jēkabpils, some people got off and we sat together. The rest of the trip was spent staring at the sun (same as the bus from Tallinn to Tartu in Estonia).

A lightning-quick lunch decision

The bus overlapped lunch time, and we hadn’t brought anything with us. At one station, I asked the driver if I had time to get off and buy something but he said no. At a later stop, he said I had five minutes. I’d noticed a small grocery on the last corner so Masayo stayed on the bus while I jogged to the store.

After some very quick decisions in the store I returned with my catch: two sandwiches, some potato chips with a Russian name, and some chocolate cookies. And we still had water from Rīga: the complete backpackers’ meal.

I checked my BG and it was 183. Not over 200! My larger-than-usual breakfast dose of Humalog worked all right. So I took a shot in the bus seat (through my pants) and ate my cheap, junky lunch. The potato chip packaging was in several languages (Uzbek, Kazakh, Moldovan, etc) which as far as I was concerned made the chips taste better. More exotic.

Even the small mundane points of traveling are awesome.

Daugavpils

We arrived in Daugavpils and went looking for the hotel I’d booked on booking.com, Hotel Biplan. I had no map per se, but had seen one this morning and memorized it. I thought.

But walking from the bus station in the direction I thought was correct took us to some industrial-looking area that didn’t seem right. I got confused, and Masayo tried to help. It was as if she knew where we were, and I knew where we were going, but we couldn’t match our information up.

The correct path turned out to be totally turned around from where Google Maps had said it would be – apparently they didn’t know about the large bus station in town. Google Maps is quite often more of a hindrance than a help.

Hotel Biplan is an old airplane-themed place. The guy who checked us in was super nice, recommending all kinds of things on a map of the town, and saying several times if we needed anything to just ask.

I checked my BG at 6:00 pm — 196. Still under 200! Barely, but I’ll take it. I think I have been so scared of being low that I’ve been underestimating what I needed for most meals. Going back to my regular carbs/BG/Humalog formula was working. Trust the math.

Gubernators for dinner

Although I don’t like walking through a strange town after dark if I don’t have to, it was dinner time and the sun sets early around here these days. We walked all the way across town, through yellow streetlights and large dark square buildings along wide, empty, cold streets to a restaurant called Gubernators the hotel guy had recommended.

It was excellent – decorated with all sorts of interesting old wooden stuff and black and white photos from a long-gone but still cherished era, and the food was good (and not too expensive).

I had a stuffed cabbage and rice with sparkling water, and bread was free. It was pretty filling and heavy in carbs so I took a large Humalog shot for it. I assumed that my sub-200 streak would be ending after this.

On the way home we stopped at a place that looked like it was probably a grocery store, open, but the door was a big dark black set of double doors. Not exactly welcoming, but we swung them open to reveal a shop that was mostly a liquor store, but they had a row of juice and water and a row of food. It was 80% a liquor store maybe.

We bought a 1.5 liter bottle of sparkling water for the room and walked back home. By now even fewer people were out, but it felt safe and uneventful. Small-town Russian Latvia at night in winter; it was an electric feeling to be in such pleasant but exotic surroundings.

So how did I do with my dinner time shot? At 11:00 pm, I was 152. Excellent! A day of BGs all under 200! I haven’t had that in a few days. If you take enough Humalog there’s nothing it can’t handle.

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