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Published: July 12th 2011
Hi, I’m still playing catch-up from my travel journal. I wrote this on the 25th May.
(Note that Siberia is NOT in Europe.)
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I am now on Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal, Siberia and it’s great! We’ve had clear blue skies and sunshine since I got here yesterday. Now if we can only get rid of that biting north wind. Because I am trying to travel light I didn’t bring a coat and I could do with a windbreaker. But I heard it is +40C in Urumqi, Xinjiang Province, where I’ll be in two weeks, so it’s hard to carry all I need for such extreme temperatures.
Back in Irkutsk on Monday morning 23rd May Galina, the landlady, had arranged for a mini-bus to collect me at her house at 8:45am to take me to Olkhon Island here on Lake Baikal. She insisted that I pay her for the mini-bus and I insisted on a receipt for it and for the two nights accommodation (€25/night and I supplied my own breakfast). She refused and I dug my heels in and refused to go to the waiting mini-bus. Finally she wrote something on a slip of paper. I might need
these receipts to show the Russian Visa office the next time I want a visa, to show that I complied with the itinerary I proposed when I applied for this visa. (You never know.) It transpired that she was taking a hefty commission for the mini-bus ride.
Once we got rolling at 10:30am, the six-hour drive and short ferry ride to Olkon Island was fine. The mini-bus was stuffed with 13 other adults, 10 international backpackers and a Russian family. After the first few hours it was gravel and dirt roads all the way.
Olkhon Island is situated on the western shore of Lake Baikal. It is 636km north to south, 60km wide, and sparsely populated. The lake is called “The Pearl of Siberia” and the water is crystal clear and drinkable. It is the largest lake in the world, almost a mile deep (1.6km) which is deeper than the Grand Canyon. The water is so clear that if you went swimming (never warmer than 15°C) it is possible to see down 40km. It contains about one-fifth of the world’s fresh unfrozen water supply and is larger than all of the Great Lakes in North American put together. If Lake
Baikal was drained and all the rivers of the world directed to flow into it, it wouldn’t be full in a year. That gives you some idea of how amazing it is. The blue colour is incredible and 80% of the flora and fauna are found nowhere else on the planet. An amazing place.
We were starving when we arrived here at Nikita’s Homestead, in the village of Khuzhir. The canteen staff had plenty of bowls of hot borsch waiting for us. I was assigned a room of my own with bathroom and the cost is €25 per day, including three meals. That’s better than Galina, so I decided to stay here for three nights and take the mini-bus back to Irkutsk tomorrow, hopefully on time to get my 19:00 train to Yekaterinburg.
By midnight that first night I was saying to myself, “I have seen it all now!!” I have to explain. Because I am the only older, single woman guest here they decided that I could have a cabin with a bathroom. The handyman was assigned to fill the water tank and turn on the hot water heater for my shower. He told me at about 8:00pm, before
I went for dinner, that it would be ready in an hour. When I went to the canteen for dinner there was a performance of Russian folk songs by two local women, accompanied by an older man on the accordion. It was great.
I finally got around to going to bed around midnight and I remembered the shower. I had got instructions from the staff so I thought I’d manage. Well, first I had to take the hose out of the in-pipe and stick it down into the space at the top of the tank of hot water. The shower head had been taped onto the other end of the hose with electrical tape, but how was I to get the water to come out? On the floor of the shower was a red rubber mat with two large spheres sticking up, looking for all the world like a pair of boobs. (Photographic evidence will confirm this.) I had to stand on these and pump with my feet!
In a minute or so scalding water splurted from the shower head. Well, that lasted a few seconds because the water was so hot it melted the tape and the shower head
fell off, splashing scalding water down me. There was no facility for adjusting the temperature of the water. I decided that the only thing to do was to half-fill a saucepan from the large milk pail of cold water, then add hot water from the hose to make it warm. Then I could pour this over me. Charming. You can bet that after 10 or so scoops I was muttering, “Flip this for a field of daisies!” And so ended what has to be one of the weirdest episodes of my travels. As I said, I have seen it all now. And so to bed and a great sleep.
In the morning I thought to myself, “That scalding water should be cooled down enough that it will be nice for a shower now.” But then I saw that I had put down the outlet hose/showerhead when I finished. Err, hot water tank higher than showerhead → all the hot water drained out of the tank overnight. Doh!
Yesterday I went on the tour to the north end of the island in a real wreck of a mini-bus, with about eight Russian and German men who must have been related to
Galina, they were so morose and uncommunicative. But the scenery was great – spectacular. At one point I was thinking, “This must be about the cleanest air on the planet!”
The driver stopped to show us the former site of a gulag. He said it was a fish factory. One could only imagine what it was like for the people imprisoned there for years, with the icy north wind coming across the lake. I was very surprised to note as we drove through forests that there were large areas of deep sand. In fact most of the island is covered with a layer of sand. In other places the road had deep ruts that must have been difficult to drive through. I had to take a 4-wheel driving course ns deep sand outside Berlin before I went to Afghanistan so I know it is difficult. This man only had a beat-up old mini-bus with tires that we were told burst often and regularly leak.
The weather was bright and sunny and not cold at all so we could take off for walks at some stops. I enjoyed discovering alpine flowers and even what looked like Manitoba purple prairie crocuses. Meanwhile
the driver cooked a fish stew over an open fire for us. At Nikita’s they regularly serve the special fish, omroe, which is unique to Lake Baikal. I think all fish tastes like paper and this is no exception, but I participated in the picnic with the required gusto. It was a great day out and I hope the photos I took can reflect some of the extraordinary beauty of Lake Baikal and the coast line. This is definitely the visual highlight of my trip so far.
I am delighted that I came here to Nikita’s Homestead. Nikita is a former Olympic table tennis champion who set up this collection of guest chalets with his wife. The centre is now world famous. It is in the village of Khuzhir and has a canteen, entertainment, a banya/sauna, bikes to rent, excursions to go on, Wi-Fi, etc. Of course most of the visitors are backpackers so it’s fun to swap information.
Today I chilled out and took a walk around the town of Khuzhir. The streets are amazingly wide and I can’t figure out why, since it would take longer to visit neighbours in bad weather. One would expect the streets to
be muddy but they are sandy. None of the streets or roads on the island are paved. The town is quite spread out and has a few trees. There is a lot of new building going on, which must reflect improved economic times. All of the houses are wood and none of them are painted, just the windows, so it is easy to see the fresh timber of the new builds. Maybe the popularity of Nikita’s Homestead is drawing more travellers to the island. There are clusters of new guest cabins with brightly coloured roofs throughout the island.
I found what is probably the only grocery store in the town, selling everything from vodka to electrical supplies and souvenirs. The only preserved vegetables were pickled except for tinned corn, but they had some fresh fruit. I bought some food for the long train journey ahead - juice, kolbassa sausage/salami, fruit and UHT milk. I later bought a plastic box of coleslaw with a separate sour cream cup in the cafe. I get one meal on the train included in my ticket so I’ll have that on the second evening.
I’ll be catching the mini-bus back to Irkutsk in the morning.
This has been a great three days.
I can’t plug in this netbook where I access the Wi-Fi and I have a warning light to tell me I’m nearly out of power so I’ll say...
“Dobre vecher!”
Sheila
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Tania Segura
non-member comment
Beautiful Photos
Great entry! Do you think you'll be back? What is one thing you would recommend to other travelers visiting Lake Baikal and Olkhon Island? I have been working with White Umbrella which leads tours there and throughout Siberia, Mongolia, and India. So glad you are out exploring the world! Is there a spot in particular that you have absolutely loved in Siberia? http://www.white-umbrella.ru/destinations/baikal/intro/