Day 5 - Beach and village

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When the morning came I wished it didn't.

The previous night we had remembered about a bottle of vodka in on of the backpacks and drank some. Not used to drinking vodka, I got a massive headache, and was lying on my mat, clutching my head and trying to shield my eyes from the brilliant sunshine.

We decided to seek relief on the beach. Surprisingly, there was no wind, the water was clear and relatively warm, so we were able to bathe and even swim a bit.

In my experience, there are only two true inconveniences about camping. The first one is that I find it uncomfortable to sleep on the ground and the mat doesn't help much. We could have bought those inflatable mattresses but in the end decided not to.

The other thing is the lack of shower. I love taking baths and Mike can't start the day without a hot shower.
I guess we could have heated the water in the pot and then did what we do when there's no hot water - mix cold and hot water in a bucket and pour it using a dipper or something of the sort. (Unfortunately, this is something you need to get used to in Russia - in spring and summer, when they check water pipes for leaks and if they find some, during repairs, the hot water is switched off sometimes for as long as couple of weeks. While it is understandable that a pipe bursting in the winter when it is 30C below zero would be disastrous and much harder to repair than in the summer, it is still quite annoying).

But we did after all camp out on a lake. So we decided to brave the cold water and get clean. Keeping your head underwater long enough to get your hair wet is quite a challenge in this cold water, but I don't think I had ever had such a fun bath!

Having tired of splashing around, we read and sunbathed, until finally deciding that it was time to go to the village. We were going to buy tickets for a boat tour the following day and also get lunch. Our other goal was to find accommodation for our last night on Olkhon - since our bus was at 9 am, we would have to wake up at like 6 am to pack our tent and backpacks and make it in time to the village if we had stayed on the beach. Luckily, the lady working in the internet cafe, also helped travelers with accommodation, as well as selling tickets for various activities and allowing people to charge their camera and mobiles for a small fee (15 rubles an hour, which is around 50 cents). So, after buying our boat tour tickets from her, and plugging in the camera and the mobile, she walked us to a camp where she thought there might be places available. Unfortunately, and rather predictably, as it was the height of holiday season, it being the end of July, they were fully booked, so the Internet cafe lady sent us to a man she knew was renting out rooms three streets away. The man, in turn, sent us across the street, where an elderly Buryat lady agreed to let us spend the night in a little cabin. This was one of the things that I described earlier - when locals build houses or cabins, or house extensions on their land plots with a view to rent them out. Now this was a tiny wooden cabin, but it had beds, and electricity, and a small heater, and we only needed to spend one night. Besides, it was less than $10 per person, so we arranged to come and stay the following Thursday.

We then shopped for some souvenirs and tried to find a place to eat - there are lots of little cafes, and the prices are absolutely the same at every one of them - they must have agreed on what they should be! We finally settled on one place, and sat down. In the far corner there were scruffy French tourists, to our left a group of young Poles were signing post cards, to our right some locals were drinking beer. We wondered was it was like, to live in a place so overrun with tourists, yet seemingly not bothered by it, and not trying particularly hard to impress them. We wondered what people did there in winter and concluded that we probably couldn't live in a place like that, lovely as the location was. Even aside from work, there is nothing to do if you aren't a tourist - it's not as if we go out every night, but it's nice to know that if you suddenly feel like seeing a movie, or going to a bowling alley, or a pub, it is there for you to visit.

Heavy after lunch, we slowly walked back to our lovely tent, on our lovely beach, which was our home only for a week, and that was just fine...

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Comments

[Colleen]

Wow!
The crystal clear water of the lake is so inviting. Wish I could jump in right now. I am really enjoying this blog!