Hotel Victoria Irkutsk

... of credit as her purchases<br>are noted in a book..<br><br>A traditional village with a small fish market and a pier for the boats. Like elsewhere, however, modern tourism developments threaten the uniqueness. The traditional wooden houses are overshadowed by the ostentatious new-builds.<br><br>Lake Baikal is the world&#8217;s largest fresh water lake with lots of unique, indigenous species of<br>flora and fauna. The museum and aquarium are ...

... really liked being in Irkutsk, it was very pleasant for me after being in Moscow. The drivers are just as crazy, but in the centre you can walk everywhere and all the streets have beautiful trees along them. We thought it would be a good idea to buy a good big coat to keep us warm at the lake and in Mongolia. We found the shopping centre and it took a long time to find what we wanted but we managed eventually.<br ...

... fresh water. If we ran out of water everywhere else tomorrow, Lake Baikal could supply water for the world at it's current rate of consumption for the next 40years... cool place.<br><br>I'd walked into Irkutsk from the train station, made it to the hostel I'd booked, walked straight to girl at reception and asked to cancel my reservation. Since I only had one night in town I was going to spend it up at the lake.<br><br>After ...

... into cattle trucks. So I was having it very easy!<br><br><br> The scenery varied little for the first couple of days: grey and misty; long sections of dark forest where the dense trees on either side obstruct the view; mile upon mile of 'taiga' , the swampy forest common over much of Siberia, with open pools of murky green water visible from my berth. (More than 30% of the world's trees grow on this plain.) On day three, though ...

... russian and in our carriage many swiss but not many british. Everyone is very friendly<br><br>We were expecting to see varied scenery but we were slightly disappointed as all we saw were pine and silver birch trees.<br><br>The journey had not ben too bad and a very interesting experience but at the end of 4 days we were not too sorry to leave it and we are still talking to each other.<br><br>**Lake Baikal and Irkutsk***<br><br>We are now in Irkutsk for 1 night after spending 2 ...

This morning, I mostly just packed and wandered a bit. Got some souvenirs at the shops, but being mostly backpackers that come here, there wasn't a whole lot to select from around here. T-Shirts and magnets, etc..<br><br>So, I had already checked out of Olga's (if that's what you can call it) and wandered til noon when the minibus was coming. Pretty standard trip now, crazy driver back, ferry ...

... too cause it&#8217;s just easier to spend your time that way.<br><br>Also, there&#8217;s been one somewhat important detail that&#8217;s been heavy on my heart probably since after the first couple days of the cruise, but I&#8217;ve left it out of my travelpod as I felt it somewhat too personal. I&#8217;ve had a lot of good time to think as well as plenty of time to talk with my new friends on the cruise, especially Stephen. When one goes on vacation, the ...

... to ask for every item in turn, and even though we knew some of the names of them in Russian (cheese, ham etc.), she patronised us,<br>pointing every time to the Western brands, and asking with her body language and facial expressions: "Is this the dirty Western **** that you ignorant capitalist tourists want?"<br>We were just about able to laugh it off, safe in the knowledge that this was to be our last night in Irkutsk, and proceeded to ...

... towards the Mongolian border, and prepared our documents for the dreaded Russian border control.<br><br><br>Well they didn't disappoint. A seven hour sweat-a-thon to get out of Russia and into Mongolia. First the passports are collected. Then the train is shunted around as they extract the dining car from the middle of the train (not sure what harm it was doing). Eventually we are allowed off (bear in mind that for half an hour before any major stop all ...

The next day I took an 8-hour train ride to Irkutsk. The main purpose was to drive to Listvaynka to see Lake Baikal. The lake is famous for having the largest volume of water of any lake in the world. It constitutes 20% of all unfrozen fresh water.I met my tour guide, Vera, the next morning. We toured the lake and visited an open-air museum full of log cabins that showed the way people lived in Siberia. <br><br>On the way back to Irkutsk ...