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Published: August 25th 2007
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Once we arrived at the village the weather had taken a turn for the worse. It was quite misty, not wet but dark clouds were looming and the Siberian wind is rather chilly too. We pulled into a little hamlet of houses and were a little suprised. We knew it was a kind of homestay but these houses only just about had a roof! We were the first ones off with another guy, Peter. I likened him to a bit like stato from that program with Baddiel and skinner some years ago. Anyway it turned out they only had 1 small room left as they had overbooked. There was no room at the inn so Mary and Joseph, sorry, WE were taken on a short walk to a rather nice B&B with an inside toilet and everything! We were then given a familiarisation of the area and taken to the local museum to learn all about the lake. Was mildly interesting but the fact we were tired didn't help. It was the kind of place if you went on your own would stay about 5 mins and not learn anything. Back at our B&B for lunch (at 4pm) then it was
time for our Banya (a kind of siberian/rudamentary sauna). It was quality! So nice to be clean and have all the smell of the train washed out of you, after our travels we are definitely building one in our garden (wherever that may be). If they did a travel version i would put one in my bag it was that good. After having supper we went for a walk by the lake which was romantic, nice to have some time alone.
The next day was Diving. We were looking forward to our dive as on our walk the night before had been looking at the boats trying to decide which our boat would be and we had also passed a rather good looking dive centre. We were a bit shocked when we were picked up at our B&B by a guy in a realy clapped out car (probably a Lada) that had MOT failure written all over it. In the back was some dive kit and we assumed he was going to take us up the road to the dive centre for a briefing before our dive. We were taken up the road but to an old porta cabin
on the side of the main road where again we made an assumption that we were either stopping to pick someone or something up or waiting for others to meet us before we headed off to the boat. He turned the ignition off, got out and told us to follow him and unload his car of dive kit into the cabin. alarm bells atarted to ring as he had as much english vocab aas a local taxi driver. Get changed he said as he thrust dive kit on us. We were shocked and to be honest a little scared which is not what u want when diving to 18 meters. We put all our dive kit on and with no briefing or safety check we were asked to follow him to cross the main road and down a very old ladder (with all our kit on) and walk into the lake. No boat, no safety check, no taking of emergency details, NO NAMES even. This was screeming no dive! We managed to go out about 20m and down 5m before . Lisa had a problem with her tank so we surfaced and he didn't understand what we were saying so
we both decided to call it quits. Safety first is what we were tought whilst qualifying to dive and this definitely wasn't safe. Unfazed we got changed said goodbye to Yuri (we didn't get his real name so made one up) and headed for a rather nice walk and picnic in the village. This was topped off with a well deserved beer by the lake before dinner and Banya time! After a good nights sleep we were picked up, in truth we were forgotten about as they had moved us, the bus went wizzing passed and didn't stop, they sent a taxi 1 hr later when they realised they had forgotten us! and taken to our hotel in Irkutsk. Our first stop was this internet cafe where we are writting this to keep you all up to date with our travels. Our plan now is to get some supplies for the train and find a nice cool beer with the guys. Hope you are all well, we are having a realy good time and can't believe this is only the start! Next stop Mongolia!
G&L
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Dave D
non-member comment
Chaos
The travelling is looking quality. Just what it should be - organised chaos. Shame about the dive going a bit Pete Tong. Seems like our travelling is already a distant memory after two weeks back.