Lake Baikal
Trip Start
Aug 02, 2007
1
29
62
Trip End
Oct 05, 2007
Listvyanka, Russia
Saturday, September 1, 2007
The driver grabbed my bag, completely ignoring Ho-Ki and his bag, and away he went. It was like trying to follow a rabbit, bobbing and weaving around people, it was all I could do to keep up. Ho-Ki managed to keep me in sight, and when we got to the steps down to the main concourse to the station, I grabbed Ho-Ki's bag and followed in pursuit of our quarry. Ho-Ki and I managed to keep the driver and my bag in sight, and in no time we were out of the station into a sea of people and a clutter of assorted vehicles.
By the time Ho-Ki and I caught up with the driver, the driver almost had my bag in his Toyota van
Irkutsk Train Station
. We arranged the other bags, climbed in and found that like every other vehicle we had been in in Russia, there were no passenger seatbelts. Hmmm, was this a sign, an omen, only time would tell. In a choreograph of moving vehicles more befitting dancing hippos and elephants, we managed to work our way into the flow of traffic, only to be jolted sideways when the driver did a hard u-turn, and gunned the engine. Aha! Our Moscow driver had apparently phoned ahead and had his brother in Irkutsk, another aspiring racecar driver, pick us up and take us on another white-knuckled joyride. Sacre bleu!In what was advertised in the hotel's printed media guide as an hour and 15-minute drive from the Irkutsk train station to the Hotel Anastasia in Nikola, a small village 70 kilometers away at the junction of Lake Baikal and the Angara River, we accomplished in 45 minutes. Had a doctor checked either Ho-Ki's or my blood pressure upon our arrival at the hotel, there is no doubt in my mind that we both would have been immediately hospitalized. Except for Leon in St Petersburg who had been an easy-going careful driver, our experience with male Russian drivers on our trip so far had been something just short of sheer panic and terror. What was it with them anyway?
The receptionist checked us in, took our passports for visa registration, and showed us to our room on the second floor
Atop the Angara Dam
. The design of the hotel can best be described as funky. It was built using some quality materials in a vaguely nautical theme, and Ho-Ki was convinced that there was no way any architect could ever have had a hand in the design of the place. He was probably right. Design and execution of the place aside, we were knocked stone-cold dead when we gazed out the windows and saw the incredible view of Lake Baikal laid out before us. WOW was all we could say.We showered and cleaned up after only being able to wipe down on the train for 4 days, and had lunch in the hotel's restaurant. We then settled down to take a long afternoon nap only to be startled awake by the exploding sounds of a small canon going off several times in rapid succession just below our room! There was a wedding reception going on and apparently one of the local wedding reception customs is to congratulate the bride and groom with canon fire! Damn, damn and damn again!
After managing to get back to sleep (with our ears still ringing), we awoke refreshed and ready to search out Lake Baikal's prized food item, smoked omul. We used one of the hotel's drivers to take us to a small restaurant several kilometers away that specialized in omul, a Lake Baikal speciality, and reputed to be one of the best tasting fish in the world. After sampling it I can say without a doubt (at least in my mind) that everything they say about it is true. It was fantastic. With our tummies full, we returned to the hotel satisfied that we had survived 4 consecutive nights on the Trans-Siberian route, had made it to Lake Baikal, had tasted omul, and were roughly halfway through our journey. Life was indeed, good...
