Non default charters to mysql

[eluser]FnTm[/eluser]
Hi! Im living in Latvia, and in Latvian language we have charter like ā, š, ķ, ļ and so on. And heres the main problem. When I try to send them to mysql, it turns up as some sort of symbols: as;asasfÄ?asÄ?sdaefffÄ?Ä?ģģ.

What could it be? Ive change my phpmyadmin connection type to utf8_latvian_ci , changed the charset in the config file. even added it at the top of input, and send to db pages. What else is there?

Could someone help me?

Thanks

[eluser]Base Willy[/eluser]
try $this->db->simple_query("SET NAMES utf8") before inserting and selecting from db