Thanks Stevie for the comprehensive report. I found it to be very useful and you were pretty accurate about most of the bars.
I was in Riga a couple of weeks back. I arrived on a Friday, the day the World Hockey Championship started, and was there until Tuesday. In general, the atmosphere was quick festive and a lot was happening due to the championship which was good because the bars/clubs were a bit busier during the week days compared to the any regular weekday. On the flip side, prices were jacked up and there were lots of foreigners getting drunk everywhere. Personally, I would have probably preferred to be there at a quieter time.
Clubs/Bars: I went to the Voodoo lounge on Friday. The atmosphere is pretty much as outlined by Stevie...there were quite a few foreigners (some in suits, others in sports jerseys etc.) in one of the bars which had dancers hired by the club to flirt/dance with the customers. But they don't seem to be hookers....atleast the ones I spoke to didn't give me that impression. The other bar in the venue had regular clients but there were almost no single women there. Most of the women were in groups with men and were pretty much offlimits. Anyway, I was pretty disappointed with the atmosphere so decided to check out ClubX down the road. ClubX is a pretty large, fairly new club spread over three floors. The crowd is quite young...generally in the teens and mid/late 20s and most girls are there to dance rather than meet foreigners. I stayed there for a bit and decided to call it a night since the girls were quite young and didn't seem too interested.
Next evening, I decided to check out the Fashion massageplanete. Unlike Stevie, my experience with the place was quite good. The venue is more upscale than the Voodoo lounge and they only seem to have genuine customers....no hired dancers (except for the models that walk in their lingerie on the runway!) or hookers. There were plenty of girls...the male-female ratio was probably 50:50. I met a couple of girls and spent quite a bit of time with them...danced with them and bought them drinks etc. At one point, while I was dancing with one of them, two locals came up to me and got a bit aggressive with me, stood close to me and started staring at me and told me to go back to my country and leave the local women alone. I guess the local men are quite threatened by foreigners coming to Riga, screwing local girls
and then jetting off. Anyway, I told them to F** off and they did! At the end of the night, the girls gave me the slip....one of the gave me her number but I didn't follow up.
Sunday night can get quite boring because most places are closed. One of the few places that was open was Roxy. This place is a bit cheesy....with sticky floors, steel panels etc. The crowd is generally quite young but with a spattering of middle aged business men in suits which is why its not difficult to find pros in the bar. But the ones I saw were not that good looking so I gave them a pass. Next night I went to Roxys again and it was pretty much the same story so decided to head out to ClubX. This time I met this cute, little local, slightly older though. She was quite friendly and had a smoking body. Spoke little english but we managed to carry a bit of a conversation. As the night progressed, she became friendlier and all along I was expecting her to propose a deal but to my surprise she turned out to be a normal girl. She agreed to come back with me and we had wonderful sex into the morning!
I went to La Rocca since I had heard so much about it from people there. Apparently its one of the best places to meet locals since its a Russian bar with few foreigners. But unfortunately its only open Wed-Sat and I went on a Sunday.
Strip bars: I stayed well clear of the strip bars after being warned by a number of people. I guess that was a wise decision because I decided to spend the money instead on one of the girls from
www.ladylux.lx.
Website girls: I first started calling girls from
www.intimservis.lx but as Stevie mentioned, it was basically the same few oeprators answering the phone. The girls answering the phone weren't the ones doing the deed so it was no use. And most of the time, the girl I wanted to see was not available but they offered someone else. On the other hand,
www.ladylux.lv was a lot better. Most of the girls answering the phone were working for themselves. I eventually decided on a hot, leggy, blonde with short hair....can't remember her name! She was wonderful. Excellent service, great attitude and beautiful body. She did ask for money upfront which was fine with me.
I surveyed girls in bars/clubs and the websites and found that the prices were generally higher than what was mentioned in some of the posts on this website. The prices generally ranged from 40Lats to 80 Lats for an hour. I think the hockey championship caused a bit of inflation due to the sudden influx of foreginers. I finally settled for 50 Lats with the girl I ordered. Actually, the prices for pretty much everything were jacked up. I remeber paying upto 6Lats ($10-11 for a drink in Fashion massageplanete!).
A words of advice....I rented an apartment because the hotels were overpriced and were pretty much not available due to the championship. This actually turned out to be a pretty good option. The apartments in the center are very modern, newly renovated and well furnished. I paid about Euros80 for a studio which was also on the high side but that was pretty much the best option available at the time.
In short, Riga is a beautiful city with tons of beautiful, hot girls everywhere you look. And they are very friendly. The only regret I have is not being able to spend more time there. Girls are very approachable. I spoke to a number of them in parks, on the street, in the malls etc. and some of them gave me their numbers...but its difficult to make use of them when you're there for a couple of days. I'm already starting to think about my next visit there!