Hi again, it's convenient that it gets dark and cold so early here- gives me plenty of time to write blog entries. Thanks for all your comments and messages. We've just got back to Irkutsk after having a few days at Lake Baikal. Baikal is the biggest (volume) lake in the world and holds something like 20% of the planet's freshwater. Apparently it's on a fault line which is continually growing so the lake will eventually become an ocean. We took a bus there from Irkutsk that takes about 90mins on one snowy road that goes up and down hills all the way. We were headed for Listvyanka a little village on the lake-shore. The approach to the village was amazing- we could just see the massive expanse of the lake with huge snowy mountains on
... read more