Day 10 Lake Baikal!!!!

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Hello All,



So today we have reached Lake Baikal. We were all really tired after a horrible night sleep on the train due to people coming and going at lots of station stops throughout the night. Jo had a Russian women think it was acceptable to sit on her bed at 3am after a swift kick she moved but on to Neil's bed....Russians have very limited social awareness!!!



We arrived into a quaint little village Listvyanka, lake Baikal with the snow topped mountains in the background, it looks beautiful here. Its also not as cold as we thought it would be-bonus for Vicky 😊 It was -15 degrees 4 days ago and now a comfortable -2 which is T-shrt weather!!



We set out straight away with the group and the honcho (who was very hungover from Halloween) walking around the town, seeing the local crafts and animals for traditional activities in the area (iron monger, dog sledging, horses). We came back to the hostel to have a sauna. So the Traditional Russian sauna is drinking tea in the cold before entering the sauna and whipping each other with hot leaves tied together to exfoliate the skin this was fun lol!! We were told we only had 10 mins as our brains would melt!! Then in-between sessions we had to ice down with snow water this was awesome!!!



We then had a wash up headed to dinner which was traditional chicken stew with rice, it was surprisingly very good, then as it was Vicky's 26th birthday we had a bottle of vodka and beer to celebrate which was good fun whilst playing cards. Later a dutch couple who we had met on the train came to meet us and joined in the celebrations with us, even giving vicky a present of dutch clogs (small magnetic ones).



We then headed to the most amazing bed to sleep (anything after the train would be luxurious).



All the best N&V X

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