Weather is sunny and warm. Arrived in Irkutsk at 9.10am with an immediate transfer by mini bus to Listvianka on Lake Baikal. The station is extremely busy bordering on the chaotic and it is here that you realise just how many people are travelling the Trans Siberian rail trip to Beijing. Irkutsk and Lake Baikal are on everyone’s itinerary, unlike Ekaterinburg. The transfer takes about an hour and we are staying in what is supposed to be a homestay but turns out to be more of a hostel in a village house. This is a small village which, by Russian standards, is quite commercialised and clearly caters for both foreign and Russian holidaymakers. So it is relatively expensive. We are on full board but our hosts seem to be a bit stumped by vegetarian food and I am served 8 fried eggs for my first two meals!
Listvianka village stretches along the shore of Lake Baikal and up seven valleys which run at 90 degrees from the shore line. Our homestay is up a dirt road that runs up one of the valleys. It is a pretty village and as everywhere there seems to be a lot of building going on. Once settled in we have a group tour of the local church and the lake museum. Andy has been chuntering away since we arrived about being herded together with other travellers for the transfer and the guided tour when we should be travelling independently. On top of which we are not staying with a family in a traditional wooden house (an Izbza) as described in our itinerary. Oh well, we are learning to modify our expectations!
There are seven people staying here and sharing one bathroom! Lance is from South Africa and is travelling from Vladivostok to Moscow and will later be going to Jakarta to take up a six-month working post there. There are two British women (Noreen and Kathy), as well as Bryce and Jennifer. Noreen is a Tottenham supporter so she and Andy have lots to talk about! (Yawn).
Lake Baikal is the largest fresh water lake in the world, containing 20% of the world’s fresh water. The lake is absolutely crystal clear and perfectly safe to drink, enough to provide drinking water for the whole world for 40 years! It’s 636km long (further than the journey from Moscow to St Petersburg) and about 50km wide and some 1900 meters and it’s deepest. It takes about 10 hours to travel the length of it by hydrofoil. So large, in fact, that it can be seen from outer space.