Siberia is the place to be. The K the L the F and ideology. Hallelujah!!!!!

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Lake Baikal

So .... 3 nights on the train. Oh my god! To make it worse I was ill. Not a cold but a throat infection and I nearly threw a fit when I found out the train was delayed a few hours. All I wanted was to get to a doctor. I spent most of the 3 days curled up in my cabin which I was sharing with the locals as it was my turn in the group of 5 to be cast out to the next door cabin (cabins only slept 4 people). Lemsiped up and drinking so much water, nothing was working. We arrived in Irkutsk in the morning and I begged our new Honcho, Ted (Tulya) to take me to a doctor. Ended up being taken to the hospital in the town. I was helped out a lot by Ted and after a couple of hours and a consultation with the doctor I got my prescription and was relieved to be told that I should be on the mend almost instantly. The doctor said that I could be susceptible to throat infections when faced with extremely cold or extremely hot conditions. And boy was it cold!

Anyhow with my medicine in hand we made our way to Lake Baikal which was a 45 minute drive away and where we would be spending the next couple of nights. We drove along the bank of the lake and it was immense. A huge lake and the sun was shining and shimmering on the water, it was amazing! The journey there was kinda fun as we went up and down the rolling hills away from the city and into the countryside, like being on the Big Dipper at Blackpool except with nicer views. Anyway we pulled up along a tiny little road, passed little wood houses and pulled up outside our home for the next couple of nights. It reminded of a chalet and I had an excellent view of the lake from my room. A quick lunch before Ted took us on a walk through the hills around where we were staying and where we would get some great views of the lake and the surrounding area. Stunning views! Although we were chased off one viewpoint as we trespassed (knowingly) on private property. Angry middle aged Russian women with dogs - never a good combination.

The next day feeling much better we all went down to the lake to go ...... SCUBA DIVING! Well unfortunately I had to skip this activity due to my stupid throat infection but the others donned their dry suits and plunged into the water. The weather today was sunny but colder than the day before due to the added factor of WIND! About -12C outside the water but 5C in the water. It was freezing! To illustrate this during the walk to the Dive Centre I managed to get ice on my eye lashes due to the vapour from my breath caught in my scarf going up towards my eyes combined with a strong gust of wind. I was pretty excited about it. So as I watched the others take their turns going into the water and jealous I wasn well enough to join them I stayed inside the cabin helping the others prepare to go into the water and documenting it all with photos. There were no toilets at the Dive Centre and 2 of the group did venture across the road to a little cafe and opened a door to what seemed like a toilet but found a 9 foot bear in a cage. Slightly concerned by this I thought it best to hold it in and wait. But somehow this didnt seem like a strange occurence. Of course its normal to have a 9-foot bear in a cafe. As Andy, the last of the group to dive, bobbed back up to the surface the sun was setting and we got ready to go back to the chalet/hostel for a sauna Russian styley courtesy of Ted and had the evening off to relax.

Waking up fresh from last nights whipping with fir branches in the sauna, we went to the Musuem and Research Centre of the lake. Some facts as to why Lake Baikal is so important: Not only is it the deepest lake in the world, in terms of volume it is the largest freshwater lake in the world and could supply the 6 billion people on Earth with water for 20 years. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! A lot of the animal species that live in or around the lake are endemic, which include the seals. The podgy grey balloons of ridiculousness. After this another climb for the best views of the lake before rushing back down to head back to Irkutsk to spend the rest of the afternoon before getting our next train. Not really much to say about Irkutsk itself. We saw a few oppressive churches, with images of hell and torture on the walls and had a play on the replicas of Soviet military vehicles but not somewhere Id go back to in a hurry. We did encounter two drunk law apprentices who were very happy to tell us that they could do whatever they liked as they were in positions of power. For some reason this wasnt a shock to me that these drunkards held positions of responsibility in this town.

Stocked up and ready to board our train to Ulan Ude in Eastern Siberia, our last stop before Mongolia, we had ended our first real outdoors experience of hiking and (for some) scuba diving. As random as some of the things we did around Lake Baikal were, this was only the beginning of what would be some of the most random things I have ever done.

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