A Baltic Holiday

When my favouritest JimChae asked me if I'd like to go to Palanga, Lithuania with him, I said yes without thinking twice. It was his first holiday in a year (and we holiday well together), so I was more than happy to accompany him wherever he wanted to go. Plus, how fun to go to a country I never thought of visiting before, and actually had to look up on a map (my geography is shameful).

It turned out that Jim might have wanted to look it up too, because the non-Brit-invaded beach vacay he had envisioned was only half realised. True, there were no Brits in Lithuania, at least not on the Baltic coast. In fact, other than some Germans we encountered in a campground in Nida, there appeared to be no non-Lithuanians in Lithuania. Even the Hari Krishnas looked at home.

Thus, as first generation Korean and Bangladeshi immigrants, Jim and I raised the diversity quotient in Palanga by infinity percent, and everyone noticed. Every man, woman, and child got their gawk on every time we walked down the busy pedestrian street of Basanaviciaus. This horsie too. What?

No matter - I'm used to the staring, and Jim's been to Dhaka so he knows about it too - except it's not quite beach weather in Lithuania, even in August (aka the rainy season). Don't tell the Lithuanians that because they're quite happy to run from the windy cool beach into the freezing cold Baltic, and back again, in the nude no less.

Of our eight days in Lithuania, Jim and I spent exactly two at the beach: once in the clothing optional beach of Nida, and the other toasting the sunset in Palanga. In the former, we made the mistake of entering through the nude-women-only entrance, and then had to walk through a long stretch of sand to get the coed clothed bit. We're classy like that.


Imagine a fuzzy brown girl trying to be fleet, and a pale Korean boy getting whiplash, both fully dressed as it were nippy (so to speak) surrounded by naked Lithuanian women of every shape and age.

You couldn't make up that shit if you tried.

Ok stop laughing.

Our hotel in Palanga was one of the highlights for me - super lux with down pillows, king bed, red velvet couch, dark wood balcony, and frigid AC (it turns out Jim is even more of a humidity princess than I am). When not frolicking in the Botanical Gardens, I spent an indecent amount of time in this room (I love nice hotels), continuing what has turned out to be my summer of reading Stieg Larsson and David Mitchell. Jim also got plenty of massages at the spa upstairs and made daily use of the sauna.

The big tourist attraction in Palanga is the Amber Museum. As you all know, Palanga is the amber capital of the world (250 Baltic varieties alone). Housed in an old mansion, the museum features all kinds of beautiful amber jewelry and knick knacks, as well as details about how amber is formed which I cannot tell you because the signs were all in Lithuanian.

One ambitious sunny day, we took a cab to a ferry to a bus to get to Nida, on the pencil thin Curonian Spit, about 100 km down the coast. Once there, we climbed up Europe's highest sand dune mountain, the Parnidis Dunes, and at sunset, we took a sailboat ride around the dunes into Russian waters (privet!).

It took us til our last night in Lithuania to finally check out the night life which was supposed to be rocking. We had seen evidence already - strip bars on Basanaviciaus, scantily clad women in heels, restaurants clearing out tables for dancing at night. But the cheeser music blaring out of these joints had dissuaded us thus far. And plus there was the girl who kicked the hornets' nest waiting back in the hotel.

We took a cab to nearby Klaipėda, where we had our best meal yet, in the rooftop restaurant of Vivalavita. FYI, the food in Lithuania, no matter what you order, will come floating in an inch of oil. But Vivalavita had scrumptious grilled fish dishes, lightly broasted veggies, and yumyum cocktails, served up with a fabulous 20 story high view of the sea.

Next up, Dr. Who, which has trippy paisley carpeting all the way down the spiral staircase to the basement dance floor. If you seat yourself at the base of the stairs, you can see clear up the girls' dresses as they go upstairs (this is not much of a feat even without the lech positioning). There was also green laser lighting, thumpy club music, and too many hottie girls to count. I danced with a 6 foot tall bride, a birthday cowgirl, and my favourite, a 21 year old raven haired Russian wearing a dress requiring two haircuts and the most insane(ly beautiful) blue suede heels (and I don't even like heels or animal skin).

We got trashed, danced for ages, and returned to Palanga in the wee hours, with only hours left before our flight. I was done, but not Jim. He used this time to go get snackies, look in on what he called the 'saddest strip club ever' (and he's been to a few), and do jägermeister shots with a hot Lithuanian babe who pulled him away (momentarily) from the fry shop.


Needless to say, on our trip back to London, we felt like this woman, and not just because we had a two hour layover in Riga's steamy little airport. I would have cried with joy when we finally got back to Old Street except I was asleep within seconds and would stay so for the next 14 hours.

The western coast of Lithuania is pretty, the beaches clean, and the clubs packed til dawn, but I wouldn't recommend longer than a long weekend, unless you're as much of a hotel hermit as I am. Either way, be sure to get a KitKat ice cream bar (yum!) and catch the sunset from the pier at the end of Basanaviciaus. Worthy.