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Published: June 16th 2010
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Day 50
First impressions of Irkutsk were not great and was following a similar pattern to other Russian cities. Around the station area was chaotic and madness with the people, driving and buses etc. Eventually we found a tram to get us to the bus station as decided to leave immediately for Lake Baikal which is the major attraction in the area. It is some 600Kms long and 80kms wide (almost the size of Germany) and some 1600 metres deep in parts, so easily the biggest freshwater lake in the world! It supplies 20% of the words water and when we first saw the lake it was so foggy it actually looks like a sea as you can not see the other side. Pretty impressive and it is a big part of Tourism for this part of Russia. We decided to head to the closest village on the lake called Listvyanka, easily the most popular also. It is a very pretty old village with great old wooden houses with a lot of character and the coastline has not been taken apart just yet with high rise hotels etc. Unfortunately for us it was a awful day weather wise when we
arrived, foggy, rainy and very cold so we just found some accommodation in and old house with Nicholai a very friendly russian and took it easy.
Later in the evening we tried some local fish which was superb, so fresh and tasty and a must.
Also had to be careful and get home early as after dark the lights in the town do not really work so it is almost in complete darkness, spooky! Really feels like you are in Siberia.
Day 51
Well woke up to amazing sunshine this morning, huge change from yesterday which was a relief. We headed out to take in some views of the lake and the area. Hiked around the northern part of Listvyanka, ate fish on the beach and took a dip in the water which is something like 4 degrees, not to hot but I read if you dip your hands in the water it adds 1 year to your life, feet and you get 5 years, whole body and if you survive the plunge it is 25 years. Was fine with hands and feet really was like ice, so very cold. The lake in Winter freezes over completely
to 3-4 metres so you can drive on it, and to think it was only a month ago it became unfrozen so you can imagine!
Later in the afternoon I took a walk to one of the higher lookouts on the island but not much in the way of marked hiking trails here so was pretty much walking where people normally ski in winter 😊
In the evening we had real trouble with organising a train for tomorrow as we needed to once again get moving. No success and would have to risk it at the train station in Irkutsk to see what we could get. Off to Ulan Ude for probably a night (other part of the lake further south) so we could catch a connection to Mongolia
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