Back to the Lake

Listvyanka, a small town by Lake Baikal was the perfect reward for our mamouth journey. An hours bus ride away from Irkutsk we're taken to the picturesque and seemingly abandoned town. Like the train, being here feels like i've gone a long way back into the past. The wooden houses have been torn apart by harsh weathers and their delapidation looks beyond repair. A fantastic place to visit, but probably not live.

The sky here during the day is very blue, and bright with stars at night, but when the wind kicks up it's pretty bitter (maybe the coldest I've ever been!). A hike to the top of a huge hill demonstrates the scale of the lake (the worlds largest and deepest), with mountains becoming visible across the sea like expanse if you look hard enough.

Then a trail back down took us all to the water front. I don't want to bore you with the details, but this could be my favourite place on earth. It's hard not to be struck by the beauty of this natural occurrence. Huge layers of thick ice had been pushed to the edge and rippled over and under one another to create a sort of ice sculpture. The near edges were certainly thick enough to walk on, but I didn't push my luck and venture further out.

The Russian sauna was an experience too. Essentially a toga party in a room nearly as hot as our old train cabin, that on regular intervals required us step out into the -15 temperatures and even lay in the snow. Our Honcho also insisted that it was custom to hit us with pine tree twigs. We were dubious of it, but after the past 4 days of torture on the rails it didn't seem so bad so we went along with it.

Finally, I took the opportunity to drive my own dog sled. It was a lot of fun but I wasn't quite heavy enough to steer effectively so had to ride quite close to the trees mostly (fortunately i'm quite short so didn't have too far to duck).