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Published: August 5th 2006
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A Fallen Idol
Statue of Stalin in a statue park, Moscow Wotcha from Mongolia! Been here for about 10 days now, after travelling through Siberia and into Mongolia, I've just got back from a 7 day trip through the Gobi desert - but more about that in a following entry, as plenty to talk about before getting here!
We arrived at Lake Baikal from Tomsk on a short (36 hour) train trip - having got to know the Provodnitsa a bit better this time (important when she's about to lock the toilets for a 90 mins or so at stops where you can't get off!). We stayed the night at a hostel in Irkutsk which turned out to be yet another unofficial place - so they couldn't register our visas. Not a problem in itself as the odd night here and there was nothing to worry about (I can say this now I've left the country!) but it did mean that we were told that if were stopped by the police and asked for our documents, we weren't staying at that hostel (as it didn't exist) but to casually name another place (and hope they didn't ask where it was!). Anyway, we weren't stopped in the end, but it just added
to the bizarre bureaucracy that overwhelms Russia!
We only used Irkutsk as a jumping off point to Lake Baikal, so booked a bus and ferry off to Olkhon Island. We'd heard that it was a great place to chill out at and it turned out to be a highlight of the trip so far. The island is a shamanistic centre for the Buryat people who live in the area and we kept coming across totems with prayer flags attached to them and gifts of vodka and cigarettes, as well as money (which incidetally you can take if you're down on your luck or fancy a drink).
The bus took us to the village of Kuzhil where we asked around for a room at Nikita's Guesthouse - it turned out we weren't the first to arrive but Nikita (former Russian world champion table tennis player) made a few calls and we ended up staying with a family down the road. The family were really cool - didn't speak any English nor us much Russian but we got along really well with sign language and plenty of smiles and laughing. We even managed to make use of their banya -
Our Home On Olkhon Island
View From The Bedrooms (dog cage lower right and toilet in background) a traditional Russian sauna that's used as their bathroom. As we went in (me, Rob and Will) we were handed some birch twigs and shows what to do with them... . Once the initial "this never leaves this room" moment subsided, we realised that being beaten with birch twigs is actually very refreshing! Given that none of us had showered for 5 days, it was the cleanest I'd felt in a long time!
The actual island is really spectacular - with high cliffs and rolling hills it's great for those dramatic sunsets and many an evening was spent watching the sun go down over the Lake. We took a day long tour in a Russian 4x4 van around the island and got to some really remote spots. (Now for some Lake Baikal facts for the geeks amongst you). Lake Baikal holds 20% of the world's fresh water - which is more that the Great Lakes of USA/Canada combined. It's a mile deep and would have taken 400 years to fill (and that's the end of the factoids!).
We bumped into a few other travellers along the way all with different stories to tell about their adventures which is
Sunset On Olkhon Island
Looking out over Lake Baikal great fun. Bizarrely, a lot of people have pre-booked their Trans-Siberian train trip from their home country. One Brit had paid GBP1800 for the trip from St Petersburg to Beijing, by booking it in the UK. I reckon I've paid about GBP250 from Murmansk to Beijing (I'm heading to China on Friday). Admittedly, you have to queue up at the station and sharpen your elbows to get to the front of the queue - but we've got the hang of handing over your ticket details in Cyrillic - destination, class of ticket and date (and then hoping the ticket counter girl doesn't just say "niet" and hand it back) and we've even had help from people standing in queues. Lots of people have asked us where our translator or guide is but it's definitely more fun learning a few words and flying by the seat of your pants!
Meanwhile, back at Olkhon Island... . I should really give a mention to the family's huge dog - it was truely the biggest one I've ever seen. It lived in a cage on the way to the outside toilet and once the owner drew his hand under his own neck when
I watched the dog from a safe distance, I kept out of his way! It made the night time toilet trips more interesting - would you get attacked by the dog (he always barked and growled at you) or woudl you fall between the wooden slats that made the toilet, in the pitch dark?
We stopped for a few days on Olkhon Island, generally chilling out and relaxing, through the dusty streets that resembled Kabul - but which had a great relaxing atmosphere (especially Nikita's which was a bit a too commune like for my liking - I'm not that much of a hippy to sing around a camp fire everynight to cum-by-ah yet).
Afterwards, we headed off to Ulan Ude, the capital of the Buryat Republic for a couple of days. The fab Irish that we've been travelling with headed to Mongolia where we'd meet them shortly.
That's all for now. The next entry will be in a few days time where I'll send some pics of the trip around Mongolia. I'm off on a 2 day trip to the north of Mongolia tomorrow, to explore the forests and mountains.
Hope all is well. Thanks
The Gang
Great friends and fab travelling companions for your texts and emails - I'll try to reply more quickly this time! Still can't reply to texts from Mongolia though for some reason.
Cheers - enjoy the sunshine and don't work too hard!
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Mike & Hils
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Lenin's bust
Who has more hair ? Andy or Vladimir Lenin ?