Looking forward to a day off from the train, we walked through the rather ghostly 7am Irkutsk city centre, a city far more developed than the towns we had passed through over the past few days, and successfully purchased our bus tickets from the bus babushka for the 90 minute ride to Lake Baikal.
Holding (according to legend/Google) 25% of the world's fresh water, or enough to supply the entire world for 40 years, Lake Baikal is a monumental feature even on the scale of Siberia's massive landscape. The beauty of the lake is rather successfully tempered by the Soviet style development of Listvyanka, the lake's nearest town to Irkutsk, however only a short hike into the forested hills gives an idillic environment for camping (it is May, mid winter could be different).
Fed with local fish, easily our best Russian meal of the trip, we eagerly escaped the smelliest accommodation either of us have ever stayed in and made a run for Irkutsk where Katya and Tomas (thanks guys) took us in for a few hours before we headed back to the train station for our next train.....a 36 hour ride with all the daylight hours spent stuck on the Russian/Mongolian border... and the spectacular scenary passed in the dark!
Irkutsk - Ulan Bataar: 36 train hours / 1,100 km
TOTAL TO DATE: ~9,390 km
FUND RAISING TOTAL: GBP 2,600 including Gift Aid - All Donations go to support Doctors of the World
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