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Published: June 27th 2011
We arrived in Ulan Ude and made it to a hostel at around 10pm (thanks to losing an hour with the time difference). That really suprised me since it was still bright as anything and summery and warm. It stayed light until about 11pm when we were at the train station standing in a short but completely stationary line trying to buy tickets. After 1.5 hours I finally left (on my own since the English girl was catching a night train) with a ticket to Slyudyanka for the next morning. I walked back to the hostel, half paranoid I was going to get mugged carrying the bag with absolutely every valuble item I own through dark and dodgy looking streets, and half highly enjoying the fake bricks they used to pave the footpath which are made of some sort of foam or rubber and give you a nice bounce!
I stayed up way too late talking to the other people staying at a really nice cozy hostel with very friendly and knowledgable owner. It was just an apartment really but I've since found out that all Russian hostels are. I got up an hour late since I still hadn't changed
the time on my clock. This would have been ok but it took almost an hour to buy a SIM card (I'm not entirely sure why but they took my passport away for ages) so I really had to rush to make my train. I also found out that you can't exchange Mongolian Togrog anywhere in the world except Mongolia so I now had a massive wad of Mongolian cash to go with all my Laos kip. I had to race back to the hostel and run to the train station, getting there just in time to catch my 11am train.
I wanted to do this stretch during the day since the scenery is meant to be amazing but it was a cold, rainy, foggy day so the views were nothing much. I ended up sleeping and reading for most of it and arrived at 4pm. The couchsurfer I contacted couldn't host me so I didn't have much of a plan - I just started to walk along the lake. I never thought I could do a long walk with all my stuff but it was fine in the end. The weather definitely helped and I don't think I
would've made it with SE Asia style temperatures but its probably also a mentallity thing. If you know you'll be walking for hours you don't let the bags feel so heavy. It was nice in parts but I also had to walk along the train tracks and through a swamp where my 'water-proof' shoes failed me yet again. With plenty of stops to change into more appropriate hiking clothes, put shoes on, soak some lentils, etc, I made it to the next village, Kultuk and kept going on the path next to the Circumbaikal train track. I was originally worried that you wouldn't be able to do this since the train goes through a lot of tunnels but I didn't come across any and further along the tunnels are aparently wide enough for a path next to the tracks. I walked another 5 km or so and found a really nice place to camp below the tracks but still not on the rocky beach which was clearly a popular place to camp.
I cooked, ate and set up my tent and it was still conveniently light although I was still driven into my dark tent quite early by the
giant mosquitoes and other annoying insects. The next morning I had the fun task of packing away my tent in the rain and putting on soaking wet shoes before walking the last 3km to Angosolka settlement where the AlpBase hostel is. This was a really cool little place but there was nothing to do there with that sort of weather. I met an Australian and an English guy and a bunch of New Zealanders in the hut where I sat and waited for the Circumbaikal train to Port Baikal. Being a Saturday there was actually a train and it arrived in the morning rather than the afternoon but it was a ‘tourist train’ which means it goes even slower than the regular circumbaikal train (which is already pretty slow) and makes plenty of stops (including one for well over an hour) for everyone to take photos. On a nice day this might have been great but it was so foggy that there was absolutely nothing to take a photo of. Luckily I had the company of the English and Australian guy for the 10 hour trip. I’m pretty sure I could have walked the whole way in about the same
time.
We arrived in Port Baikal (or more like 2km from the village where I had originally planned on staying) and followed the crowds onto the Lisvyanka bound ferry across the river mouth. The ferry does not stop near the main cluster of the town and with the fog we had no idea where we were. We walked around for a while before settling for a hotel right by the ferry – not a place I’d expect to stay at in a Baikal village but it was just for the night and I was tired and freezing from spending the day on a cold train in damp clothes and wet shoes. We shared a triple room and ate at the restaurant where 3 very friendly and English speaking guys helped us with the Russian only menu. The weather was the same the next morning so we caught a marshutky (a minibus) straight to Irkutsk rather than hanging around until the afternoon. We came out of the valley and found that the weather was warm and sunny back in the city. I had arranged to couch surf here but then I found out the train to Severobaikalsk (which only leaves
every 2nd day) left that night so I would have to take it or skip this. Since I still hadn’t really seen the lake because of the weather I didn’t really want to do this so I bought a ticket and spent the day with Ben and Url (the guys from AlpBase), using all of Ben’s hostels facilities as if I was staying there myself. I felt pretty guilty about this but they didn’t seem to mind and knew I wasn’t staying the night. I even spent over an hour cooking in their kitchen. My train left at 11:30 but I went to the station a few hours earlier so I could attempt to buy my next ticket: from Severobaikalsk to Krasnoyarsk. Since there was actually no line for once it took no time at all and I had 2 hours to waste.
I travelled platskarty which is third class but still has sleepers. The difference is the whole carriage is open rather than being separated into 4 berth compartments. Theres probably also a little less space but I don’t think it’s too bad. The main issue is having a top bunk and feeling forced to stay in it
rather than sit by the table on the lower bunk (since this is someone elses bed). It’s also non air conditioned which wouldn’t be a problem if there was some sort of ventilation system. Some of the windows open a little bit but the Russians tend to prefer to keep them closed and put up with the stuffy and smelly (people fart very liberally) sauna like temperatures between 30 and 40 degrees (I’m not exaggerating, there is a thermometer in the carriage)! Luckily every 4 hours or so the train stops for about 20 minutes so you can get off, walk around, and cool down. One last issue I have is the toilets. There are 2 in each carriage of about 60 people but some people spend up to 40 minutes in there (I have no idea what the hell they do!) and if you try and sneak into the toilet of another carriage the provodnitzas will give you an ear full and send you back to your rightful place – in the que to your own carriages toilet. I noticed the platzkartny carriages are exactly the same as the train carriages on the Mongolian trains and that the top
bunk is in fact for luggage and not meant for people, but in Mongolia they sell it as a bed.
From my Russian experience so far, I noticed a few things sbout the unusual fashion. About 95% of Russian females have fringes, and I mean the massive kind. Its popular for guys to have crew cuts or mullets with a rats tail and their wife beaters tucked into the sports shorts or pants which are pulled up to at least their belly button. Socks and sandals is definitely acceptable here too. Maybe this is more of a train fashion though, I’m yet to spend enough time in a city. People are not nearly as rude or unfriendly as expected either. The worst are the people who sell the train tickets – they speak no English, make no attempt at making it easier to understand them when they realize you’re not Russian, and sometimes just shout at you in Russian and send you to another window. But, in their defence they spend all day dealing with grumpy and impatient Russians who have been standing in the que for at least half an hour and take out their frustrations on them
so no wonder they're also rude and grumpy.
Life on the train is pretty boring. I don’t know where the vodka parties take place, certainly not in platzkartny which are very quiet apart from the young kids screaming and running up and down the corridor. I’ve found that long distance train rides aren’t as much fun when you’re bouncing with energy from plenty of fresh, raw vegetables and several good nights sleep. This particular ride was about 34 hours – 2 nights and a day. It’s not really very far from Irkutsk to Severobaikalsk but there are no buses (since there are no roads going the whole way up) and the train does a big loop which meant I backtracked about 20 hours. This is by far my biggest unnecessary detour of the whole trip. Bad environmentally conscious traveler, slap on the wrist. I got really sick the second night and spent most of it awake sitting in the seat (luckily not taken) below my bunk. Being night time too I had the toilet all to myself. I don’t know if it was from the water or maybe something I ate but I seem to get sick a lot
easier than I ever used to.
We arrived in Severobaikalsk at 10 am. I was still feeling pretty aweful plus I’d barely slept so I went to the Sanitorium next to the station where you can get really cheap private rooms. They didn’t speak English but I gathered that they were full and sent a woman to get me from a homestay – the last thing I wanted! She didn’t speak any English either but was really nice and made a much bigger effort than most to be understood. A Russian guy, Aydar, from Kazan was also going to stay and he had a very handy English-Russian translation program on his laptop plus he knew a little bit of English which improved alot over the next 2 days. It became clear there would be no resting, I would have to push through the pain all day. We went to Lena’s (the homestay host) daicha (summerhouse) where she spends a lot of time, sleeps when she has people at the apartment, and is actually only a 5 minute drive away, to have a banya. Well theres nothing like getting naked with your homestay host you met an hour ago and
having them whack you all over with a bunch of birch branches, washing your hair, and scrubbing you down. You actually only spend 5 minutes or so in the sauna so its more about the cleaning and bathing - probably a good thing as I wouldn't have lasted much longer in there anyway. We also had lunch there and after explaining that I was a vegetarian we went out and picked a huge amount of greens from the garden to go with my bread. I did not want to eat anything but felt like I had to and I didn't feel any worse afterwards even though it had so much salt in it I thought I might pass out from dehydration before I finished my meal.
After lunch Aydar and I caught a marshutky to Nishnyangarsky, a town about half an hour away, and went swimming in the lake. It was nowhere near as cold as people had warned me in the South and quite a comfortable swimming temperature.
The next day I felt much better and went to Baikalskoe, a fishing village with classic Siberian architecture and hiking opportunities. I originally wanted to go hiking and camping
somewhere but didn’t have any information on this. Aydar found out you can get to Irtusk (which is where he needed to go to get back home) by bus so he could stay an extra day and came with me. Unfortunately he had his big bag with him to the station so we had to hop off the only bus of the day to take it back to the apartment. We ended up taking a taxi, maybe only because I really wanted to go and I swear Aydar said it would cost 100 roubles, not 1000! Yes, it was expensive but worth it in the end! Aydar found out a bunch of info from the taxi driver and we walked to the cliff near the town from where a trail starts that follows the lake the whole way back to Severobaikalsk. By road this is 40km but I’m sure this trail is much longer since we walked for 8 hours and weren’t even half way when we made our way to the main road. The hike was amazing, right next to the lake the whole way both on barren hills and in the forest. Its also very well if not
excessively marked with blue dots all over the place. There were plenty of places along the way to camp too so this would have been a perfect 2 day hike back to Severobaikalsk, although the march flies and mosquitoes wouldn’t have made camping much fun. Not to worry though, I still got to walk it, lots of great lake views, and had company too – a man with a spear. Apparently there are 4 bears per square kilometer in those parts and Aydar seemed legitimately concerned about it, hence the spear. We made it to the main road by 5 and were waiting for the bus but ended up getting a life back into town with a young couple.
I was catching the 2:30pm train to Krasnoyarsk the next day so I had just enough time to catch a train to Goudzhekit where there are hot springs. I caught the local workers train with Aydar who continued on for a few hours to a place where the bus to Irkutsk leaves from. Goudzhekit is surrounded by pine and snow topped mountains. The train station is a small concrete hut in the middle of nowhere but there were about 10
other people headed for the hotsprings so I just followed them the 1km or so along the dirt road to the small village. The pools are outdoors but man made and very very hot! Too bad there was no cold pool or snow to jump into because I only ever managed to stay in for about 3 - 5 minutes before running out to get slaughtered by mosquitoes. I ended up hanging out in the changing rooms (with most of the other people) when I wasn’t in the pools even though it was also quite hot in there. I was back in town by 11am so I tried to buy some train tickets (fail), went to the markets, and used the internet before going back to pack. Lena had just got home with new people to stay. They didn’t speak any English but were very jolly and liked to laugh at (or with?) me. Lena walked me to the train station and helped me buy the tickets I tried to get earlier. I’m still not sure why there was a problem a few hours earlier? Leaving was a little sad, Lena was so sweet! She accepted my payment for accommodation
as if it were a gift and kept saying thankyou. There were hugs and cheek kisses and she gave me a big bag of lettuce and spring onions from her garden.
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oh your tent photo looks so cute - but i do believe that yellow tents photograph better! what an epic entry. i think i laughed the hardest at this entry: somewhere between the russians taking 40minutes in the toilet and your friend walking with a spear because he was afraid of bears, i couldnt breathe i was laughing so hard! have you been practicing any bear hangs? i cant believe that the water wasnt that cold? i havent been swimming in ages..... im such a whitey at the moment its out of control!