Day 15: Irkutsk, Siberia

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September 27th 2008

Published: October 10th 2008

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chloes

Day 15: Irkutsk

Seems that this town loves Billy Joel

We arrive in Siberia at 6am, pitch black and cold. After 4 days with our cabin friends we say good bye - wish them luck and wonder if we'll ever see them again.

Get picked up from our tour agent and get taken to Hotel Anagara. According to the guide books this hotel is one of the most upmarket and classy in Irkutsk. Inside the reality is more Gulag in style, a truly Soviet building with (I'd like to believe) is a State Radio hanging in the corner of the room - with only 4 stations (none of them working). The bathroom and shower is an all on one design, like you'd imagine a prison cell to be.

The 3rd floor restaurant where we head for breakfast is drab and happiness-less. Breakfast is some very sad toast and cheese, instant outs and bad nescafe coffee. The shabby wallpaper has been 'spriced up' with some cheaply framed picture from Vogue magazine.

Despite being exhausted and still feeling 'rocking' and 'on the train' we spent a few hours walking through Irkutsk and checking out the local sites; which included a camel from the local circus, 2 BFCs and a big

Day 15: Irkutsk

There is a big circus in the centre of town. And hence the camel wasn't a surprise to the locals.

statue of a Tsar of somesort. The Tsar dude seemed to be in the place all locals get married, as there were 3 weddings there when we arrived. All of the brides in huge puffy dresses and the grooms with red sashes.

Doesn't seem like much for the kids to do in this town, most of them hanging out in the park drinking (beer is considered a soft drink in Russia so it is okay to drink it in the street, and it's not odd to see people drinking it for breakfast!).

Joined the locals for lunch in the park near our hotel. Had a feast of picked vegetables, our new favourite snack - that dried salty fish, cheese, bread and some beer.

Dinner at a place we found in a guide book called 'Bar Paradise' which was described as being a mix of Chinese and Bulgarian! Outside looked promising with a bright Red Chinese sign - inside was a standard Eastern European bar with that usual haze of smoke. Our waitress basically explained that the menu was all in Russian - so we used our phrase book and pointed at words like FISH and BEEF and

Day 15: Irkutsk

An example of the amazing wooden houses all around the town

SALAD - so she ordered for us. Despite the fact there were two wine glasses for each person - there was no wine to be had. (It's soo expensive in this country). The local way is to order 1 L of Vodka (drink that from the small glass) and then fill the big wine glass with juice.

Nice dinner - but not $75 nice!!(the total bill). We are amazed that even in the middle of Siberia we get ripped off!

Attempted to find a Beatles themed pub called 'The Liverpool Pub' and keep to the meeting place we agreed on with an English pair we met on the train, but our map proved once again to be inadequate, so we went home and I left Tim watching Russian surf TV.

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