Railway Dog

A quick overnight stop in Siauliai turned into 26 hours. Instead of a lunchtime train to Klaipeda, there wasn’t one till 20:47. Thus I discovered that in Lithuania the train times are not as in the Interrail Rail Planner app. There are likely to be fewer trains except in high season. So it’s best to use the LTG Link website or app to be sure on train schedules in Lithuania.

Thus I met Michael the American Interrailer in the same predicament. So we took a taxi together to the Hill of Crosses. This is a little hill utterly swamped in thousands of crosses of all sizes. Later in the Vietnamese restaurant I was told there were once very many more crosses, but arsonists burnt a huge swathe. Now there are CCTV cameras.

Thanks to the unexpected delay, I also got to go to the Happy Cow recommended Vietnamese restaurant in Siauliai, which was a joy. Lively, chatty, and interesting, with yummy vegan options. One of the chefs is vegan. Jasper did his puppy eyes and got titbits too, from the other chef. She told me how her family were Boat People for whom the paid for boat never turned up, so she was born in Vietnam instead of Hong Kong, and waited decades to get out.