Just outside the Lithuanian city of Siauliai is the Hill of Crosses. Without doubt this was highlight of our Baltic trip last September, but I've spent months faffing around trying to write about it. After a dozen false starts I still can't get the words right to convey what an incredible experience it was. So I will just crap on a wee bit and show you the photos.

From the In Your Pocket guide:

"The history of the area is a hotbed of dissent… Most believe that the crosses probably were planted a few decades earlier to mark the Lithuanian uprising against the Russians in 1831. The amount of crosses burgeoned after the death of Stalin, when Lithuanians returning from the gulags began planting crosses in memory of those who never returned. In Soviet times, the crosses here were bulldozed repeatedly with the largest campaign against the area taking place in 1961 when wooden crosses were burned and metal ones sent to the scrap heap. The hill was even guarded by the KGB while plans to flood the area were being discussed. However almost as a testament to the local significance of the monument, the crosses continued to swell."

In 1985 the Soviets finally gave up and the Hill flourished again. Today there are tens of thousands of crosses crammed onto the twin hillocks, planted by locals and thousands of visitors from around the world.

Our pilgrimage began at dawn in Vilnius. We boarded an aging bus with generations of body odour trapped in its orange carpeted walls. It wobbled through every town and tiny village along the way, stopping for cows that sat in the middle of the road, and collecting old ladies with headscarves and battered suitcases.

By the time we arrived at Siauliai we'd missed the bus that went by the Hill so we splurged on a taxi. After a brief exchange of halting English and pathetic Lithuanian (the only words we knew were yes, noham) the driver said he'd wait for us. He lit another cigarette and went off to chat with the folk selling crosses by the roadside, leaving us to gawk at the Hill in awe.

Beneath a blinding blue sky, thousands of crosses smothered two little hillocks, then spilled down each side like giant outstretched arms. For once in our lives, Rhi and I were lost for words. Instead of our usual tourist routine of chit chat and chocolate bar demolition, we wandered off separately and silently. Giant carved crucifixes loomed over as I made my way up the wooden stairs. There were crosses of all shapes and sizes; as well as statues, photos, inscriptions and paintings. Crosses hung from crosses. Some were piled high with rosary beads, all tangled up like seaweed. Narrow dirt paths forked from the stairs, leading to even denser rows of crosses amongst soft weeds. It was haphazard yet so completely calm and peaceful. The silence was broken only by the eerie chime of the rosaries in the breeze, and me oofing and grunting coz I'd forgotten I was wearing a backpack and had become wedged between a giant iron cross and a peeling statue of Mary.

This Catholic site calls the Hill "a potent symbol of suffering, hope, devotion, and the undefeated faith of the Lithuanian people". Even for non-religious clods like us it really was an unforgettable sight, the perfect place for some quiet reflection on all we'd seen and learned about the Baltic countries during our trip.

As we headed back to the taxi, a group of American tourists were watching a local man unload a giant crucifix from the back of a truck, the latest addition to the Hill.

"Did you see that concrete Jesus? Oh my god. He was like, totally staring at me."

"Ahh, that's coz Jesus is always watching you!"

Even the taxi driver rolled his eyes.

Tallinn is a tourists dream. Especially if you're a lazy tourist. The medieval Old Town emerged largely unscathed from nasty wars and nasty Soviets with their nasty slab buildings and Lenin statues. It's surrounded by walls and towers dating back to the 13th century, so there's no bewildered swearing at maps and guidebooks, you just look for the walls and towers and once you're safely inside its all perfectly preserved cobbled streets, hidden lanes, soaring churches, and dodgy souvenir stalls.

The best part about Tallinn is that British Yobs on Stag Nights haven't ruined it yet. You can wander around the Old Town at night and see people having a good time, no brawling or spewing in gutters. The locals we spoke to were worried all that will change now Easyjet has kicked off its Stansted – Tallinn route, turning their World Heritage listed city into the new Prague.

But for now you mostly see elderly Germans being herded (slowly) off coaches, Americans docking for the day from their cruise ships, a trickle of backpackers and oodles of Scandinavians. The Finns are particularly fond of Tallinn – it's just two hours by ferry from Helsinki. There's a healthy Japanese contingent too. At the Open Air Museum they ignored the architecture and chased chickens with their cameras.

Our hotel was on the wrong side of the tram tracks, but Toompea was close enough to gaze at when I couldn't sleep. You get into a routine even when you have just six nights in a city, and mine was to stand at the window blowing my nose, feel the mosquitos make polka dots on my legs, and watch dodgy people wait for trams. On Friday night I strained to hear a drunk Swede talking at a sober Estonian. After ten minutes of experimenting they realised their common language was English.

"Do you like Russia?"

"Russia?"

"Russia. The Big Red Machine."

"Well…"

"Since you are Estonian I think you would not like The Big Red Machine."

"…"

"I am from Sweden and I do not like Russia. The Big Red Machine."

"…"

"My friends do not like me. Because I drink."

"Are you lost?"

"Yes. I am lost. Can you show me to the cold beer?"

A lesson I never seem to learn:  Headphones are ESSENTIAL for all public transport journeys. No matter where you are in the world, there will always be someone with boogers rattling round in their nasal cavities like socks in a tumble dryer. There will always be the equivalent of an 80-year-old man shouting at his newspaper in Russian, spitting on his fingers before he turns each page, muttering to himself as he snaps his briefcase open shut open shut, slurping on chocolate bars so loudly you can hear his dentures rattle, all without a break for four hundred freaking kilometres!

So, after all that we got back to Latvia this morning, and now I keep thinking about potatoes. Yesterday we were on yet another bus scooting around the south-east corner of Lithuania, just me and Rhi and a driver with gigantic shoulders and a slightly nutty guide. We hadn't wanted to do any evil touristy day tours as such, but it was the easiest thing for this particular location. The problem is that by mid-September there are sweet bugger all tourists left in Lithuania, so you have nowhere to hide. You must pay attention to every story, you must nod and express awe at every Ancient Fishing Tool in every museum.

Anyway, back to the potatoes. This area of the country was all about agriculture. But it was also extremely poor. Our bright shiny bus whizzed past locals hunched over potato crops, headscarves shielding them from the relentless sun. Others attacked the earth with crumbly tools, some drove carts, the horses ambling slowly on dusty lanes. I spotted just one solitary tractor all day, two puffs of black smoke hanging awkwardly in the sky.

The guide caught me looking and said, "This is very poor part of Lithuania. They have to work very hard."

"Yes…"

"So would you like us to take you somewhere nice for lunch?"

She asked us a lot about our lives, asked us what it was like in Australia, asked us how we could be so young and afford to travel so far. She asked us if we were rich. What do you say to that? I could have said how we had scrimped and saved to come here, but how ridiculous would that have sounded with the potato people right there? I felt apologetic and guilty and cranky all at the same time.

At one stage the guide got the driver to stop the bus. She skipped across the road and pulled some strange wildflower out of the ground. She crushed the little brown pods in her hand so a tiny seed was revealed.

"What you call these in English?"

"I've honestly haven't seen them before."

"Yes, you must! Children eat them."

"Umm… I guess we haven't got them in Australia."

"Ha!" she smiled, "There is nothing you have not got in Australia."

Last night back in our dodgy hotel I flicked on BBC World to see if things were okay in Australia. There was a story on suicide, and how Lithuania had the highest rate in the world. 30 people every week in a country of just 3.7 million.

I know a lot of you people out there have travelled a lot, and wonder anyone feels this same bewildered frustration about the world that I am struggling with right now. I've been away from Britain for nearly two weeks now and feel like I have learned so much about this Baltic chunk of the planet, about its complicated history and politics. It's nice to build this tiny awareness and understanding of a place you barely thought of before.

But at the same time, you're in a complete vacuum when you travel. You are so wrapped up in your cushy travellers world, absorbing new places and experiences, that you can start losing perspective. You can fall out of touch with what's happening elsewhere. When I heard about the Jakarta bombing I just felt this sinking, horrible feeling of being so far away from everyone. Then I thought of how it's been almost 18 months since we left Australia, how out of touch I am with the issues of the upcoming election. I even started worrying about family and friends and if I have done enough to stay in touch with them and make sure they know they're missed.

None of this makes any sense and no doubt sounds like a pile of wank. I am just confused and homesick, for Scotland and Australia.

Sometimes I just lay awake at night, squinting at the ceiling and feeling so excited about life, dizzy with this appetite for the world, feeling ever more alive and aware since I left home. But sometimes I think I am just as ignorant and indulgent as ever, and in danger of disappearing up my own arse.

We just signed on for another three nights in our hotel after intense debate. Sure there are holes in the wall and the door won't shut properly, but it will cost us less for a week here than it does for our rent back home. Plus I get to hang out the window and watch the hookers drum up business across the street.

The toilet really unsettles me. When we were in Russia we encountered plenty of those pit toilets, where you must drop your dacks and straddle a hole in the ground and try to ignore the floating objects left by previous tenants. I would close my eyes and whisper to myself, "Come onnnn! Just let go!". That I could handle. Not so the toilet in our hotel room.

This beast appears innocent at first. But it has no seat, no lid, and a bizarre split-level system. Your basic Western loo is just one bowl and everything goes down right away in a beautifully detached, impersonal manner. But this one has the second level, a balcony; a waiting room for waste, if you will. I am so disturbed by it that I have been avoiding any controversial foods and/or running into the nearest McDonalds if the urge hits.

I am haunted by this vision, that if one had to use it, one would have to jump up and face the bowl in order to hit the flush button. Then one would be confronted by one's own handiwork, waiting there on that ledge, like giddy children queuing at the top of a waterslide. And of course the flush button is barely holding on to the tank, so you'd have to swear and wrestle with it for five minutes before it would work and then I bet your business would shriek wheeeeeee! as it finally began the thrill-a-minute ride into the Vilnius sewerage system.

Of all the thrilling tourist delights of this city, I choose to tell you about a toilet. Hmm, what else? I saw a statue of Frank Zappa today, that was very cool.

Here we are in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Lithuania is one of those countries that comes under the heading of Things Shauna Has Obsessed About, alongside Lenin, Alex Popov, Ed from Radiohead, Green & Blacks chocolate and MotoGP. But this is a particularly sad bastard of an obsession because the obsession was sparked by a story on Channel Nine's Getaway show in 2001 and I vowed afterward that I would go there someday.

So here we are. Thank you David Reyne.

We went to the KGB Museum this morning, which was utterly disturbing. Rhiannon found two pairs of very sexy shoes for a bargain price which has sent me into my usual I'm An Ugly Lumberjack mood because my honking huge feet will never fit into anything so dainty.

UPDATE:  I just re-read that last paragraph and realises it sort of sounds like Rhiannon bought her shoes at the KGB Museum. She did not.