The wonder that is Lake Baikal

After some confusion with my itinerary, I headed out of Irkutsk into a cab to Listvyanka, a village 70km outside Irkutsk on the shores of Lake Baikal.

I was staying at a "homestay" hosted by Olga. John and Chris, both Brits, also arrived that same morning. Her house is a traditional Siberia "izba", a square log timbered building with a massive stove in the middle to keep all the rooms warm. The longdrop loo and banya are outside (design must be questioned given it falls to around -35 degrees in winter).

The local museum was surprise surprise, dedicated to Lake Baikal. A few cool facts about the lake:

* Deepest lake in the world (around 1.6km at its deepest)

* Largest freshwater lake holding 20% of the world's freshwater

* Can drive across the lake between Jan and early May where the lake freezes over with ice up to 1.5 metres thick

* So clear that you can see up to 40 metres down

* If there was no water in the world other than that contained in Lake Baikal, the world would have enough water for 40 years (my favourite fact, although the mathematician in me wanted to understand the underlying assumptions)

The very fat nepra seal is the largest animal in the region. We saw two playful seals in the aquarium in the museum. We were also introduced to the endemic omul fish, and then had some for lunch with cabbage soup and some vegetables made by Olga.

We also headed to a viewpoint at the top of the hill (opting not to take the better cable car option). The view was cool, but it was a little hazy.

One thing I did notice is the lack of entrepreneuralism, which has also been evident in other places i've been to in Russia. There was no shop selling food or drink at the top or bottom of the hike we did, despite everyone wanting a drink as the walk was fairly strenuous and very hot! There were also no (i've been told there are a few very occasionally) watersports on offer on the lake. This was not to preserve the lake and its inhabitants as there were many more boats on the lake. Potential business opportunity?

That evening we had a banya, where one of the Brits was very uncomfortable with the nudity.

The next morning, an American couple came in, Todd and Mollie, who had been teaching English in China for the past five years. They were heading in the opposite direction, across Europe and finally back home.

I then left for my one night hike/camp trip. It was the highlight of my stay in this region. It was a fairly relaxing walk hugging the shore of Lake Baikal. For my guide, Valyara, a biologist, Lake Baikal was the dream home. He would point out various interesting things along the walk. We reached our first stop, an almost secluded pebble beach with crystal clear waters, which was to be our campsite!



The dog and the brown man. There was another family also on the beach who had their dog with them. Like most Russians, the dog had not seen a brown man before and took very unkindly to me, barking for almost an hour. At this point, the dog's owner asked my guide if I was with him and if he could introduce me to the dog as the dog had never seen anyone look like me before and was scared. I charmed the dog within seconds and he stopped barking.

After lunch and a refreshing swim in the lake (water so clean that we also use it as drinking water), we went for a walk further north. This time we were walking along the no-more-than-foot-wide cliff edge, with a gradient of around 70 degrees, 40 metres above the lake, for 40 minutes! My fear of heights kicked in and I was not feeling entirely comfortable and was glad to get to a sandy beach for another swim. Then we had the exact same walk back - not physically tiring, but mentally shattering.

My guide then disappeared for 2hrs (only supposed to be 1hr) and just before I was about to tell the family on the beach about my guide's absence, he appeared with a girl - apparently someone who help him for the following day - believe that if you want.

I briefly returned to Listvyanka the next day to find it sprawling with tourists, mainly weekend visitors from Irkutsk, before I headed to Irkutsk for another homestay . I was very glad that I missed the tourism in town!

There was little in Irkutsk to write home about. Centre was fairly dull and Irkutsk's only pedestrian street, supposedly pretty, was not very nice and had cars parked down the entire street! Although there is a good restaurant on this street called Arbatsky Dvorik (enter through Café Fiesta). There's a few nice buildings in the historical part of town. It's a city of 60,000 students, but it didn't have a particularly vibrant feel to it.

I'm now off to Ulan Ude, my final stop in Russia.