Livin' the Island Life in Kuzhir
Trip Start
May 02, 2007
1
41
70
Trip End
Ongoing
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Irkutsk,
Russia
Thursday, October 18, 2007
01.Snow Trail on the way to Olkhon Island
It turned out he was just hung over from a night of drinking and was sleeping it off!All of the travelers we met (including the Aussie couple in Irkutsk) had plans to lodge in the same homestay (Nikita's Homestay). Our agent told us it wasn't good and instead booked us into another one. When we arrived in the small town of Kuzhir, we felt like exiles as we said goodbye to our new friends and headed down the road to our place. We found it, after seeking the help of a local, and were shocked at how terrible it turned out to be! We were met by a young Russian woman in a bathrobe and shown our little hut where we were to sleep. It was a shoebox that they managed to cram two single beds in, and the toilets were disgusting outhouses. All of the facilities (which amounted to a couple of dirty sinks) were outside in the stark cold and the water had to be carried from the kitchen in a bucket. It was a real shock to us and it appeared we were the only people there. After we thanked her for showing us around, we snuck our stuff out and made our way to Nikita's. We were lucky to find out that they had room for us, so we promptly booked ourselves in and had them call the agent in Irkutsk to tell them that we wouldn't be staying where they booked us. We made plans to attempt to get a refund when we returned.
We couldn't have been happier with our choice to leave and come here. We were put in a cozy little wooden hut, complete with a wood-burning stove. We had a table and chairs and nice décor. Compared to where we just came from, it was like we were given the honeymoon suite.
02.Waiting for the ferry
And the complex was very nice. We did discover that the lack of running water wasn't just isolated to the crap hole we left, but to the entire island. After all, Olkhon Island just got electricity in 2005! But everything was much cleaner and they had a banya to use as a shower. After settling in, we took a walk over a nearby hill and were amazed at what we saw. Ahead of us stretched a sandy beach about a kilometer long. A small pond sat back from the beach with some evergreen trees surrounding it, like an oasis. If the trees had been palm, it would have looked like a tropical paradise. This was the last thing we would have expected in the middle of Siberia. Waves crashed on the beach giving the illusion that we were on an ocean coast. We headed back to Nikita's for dinnertime where we met up again with all the people we'd met along the way, including the Aussies we met on the street in Irkutsk. After dinner, the young British couple, Sam and Karen, came back to our room where we chatted and drank some vodka. The next day we sat with the Aussie couple for breakfast whose names we learned, after a formal introduction, were Mark and Natalie, then headed off on our own to explore the island a little bit. As we walked over the hill again we found ourselves shocked once more, not by the beach this time, but by someone swimming in the frigid lake water! This is a lake that freezes over three meters thick only a couple of months from now. On a whim we headed down to the little cove where he was. Once he was gone, we stripped down to our birthday suits and ran into the water for a quick (very quick) dip.
03.Our "bus"
The shock hit us like a brick wall as we sunk down up to our necks before running back out. Our guidebook says that dipping in your hand adds five years to your life, and that if you survive jumping in, you add twenty-five years. So I guess we're all set now for a long life! (Knock on wood.) With that out of the way, we walked down the length of the beach and through the forest to the other side. After emerging from the trees, the island opened up onto vast yellow, hilly plains. A few habitations broke the monotony and cows and sheep grazed intermittently. We walked along these plains, close to the shoreline, taking in the spectacular views. A line of small, snow-covered mountains rose up across the lake and in the distance much higher ones provided a beautiful backdrop. From our vantage point it reminded us a lot of the drive to Whistler on the sea-to-sky highway. We stopped to eat our lunch (packed up by our homestay) and continued on, taking it all in. The silence and isolation was golden. When we stopped walking and talking it was kind of eerie and we can only guess that that is what it must be like to be deaf. After some more walking over the sandy, grassy bluffs, we turned around and found the dirt road that led back to Kuzhir. We followed this for a few hours before entering the small village. We had quite a scene in front of us. The wide main road that leads through Kuzhir was shared by cars, people and cows. We had the unfortunate sight of a local relieving himself just off the main road, in plain sight of man and bovine alike.
04.Scene from the "bus"
We're not talking about number one here. He was doing a number two. To give you a picture of this (because we're sure that's what you need), it looked like he was doing tricep extensions on a bench, with his pants around his knees. With that lovely picture etched in our minds, we picked up some snacks and beer went back to Nikita's and hopped in the banya for our scheduled shower. Banya showering is beautiful! You sit in a big sauna relaxing and sweating for a bit before washing off with some cool water and soap. What a great way to clean yourself! After dinner, Sam and Karen invited us and the Dutch couple to their place for some beers and conversation. The next morning we hopped the bus back to Irkutsk with the Aussies, Mark and Natalie. Along the way we picked out a guesthouse in Ulan Bator to stay in and meet up again (we found out our trains arrived only thirty minutes apart). Back in Irkutsk we said goodbye to them and headed straight for the agent. We weren't sure what to expect and imagined that it would be hard to get any money back, let alone the whole thing. We walked in, and they gave us the entire refund straight away, no questions asked! The rest of the day we killed doing some window shopping and stocking up on food for the train ride to Ulan Bator the next morning. In the evening, we found a restaurant with free Wi-Fi access. There were no available seats when we walked in so we asked a couple of locals if we could sit with them. To our surprise they spoke some English (one better than the other). It took a few minutes for all of us to warm to each other, but after they had a couple of beers and also bought us a couple (they did proclaim that we were their guests), we started to chat. They were really surprised at how we were traveling. They were under the impression that Russia is a very dangerous place. We tried to explain to them that it is not and that we've felt safe the whole way. We sat with them for a few hours, at the same time using the Internet, and learned some of their stories. The one who didn't speak much English kept using his cell phone to translate words and then would show us the English word to get his point across. He was especially envious of our travels and told us that he admired us (this he did with his cell phone). At the end of the pleasurable evening we said our goodbyes, and one of them walked us to the tram stop where we hopped on and headed back to the train station.
Many of the train stations in Russia have some rooms with beds where you can pay by the hour. Since our train was leaving at 5:45 AM the next day, we decided to take up this offer in Irkutsk, so we paid from 11:00 PM until 5:00 AM. We had a decent night's sleep and the following morning, with the sun still out of sight and the tracks covered in a light dusting of snow, we were on our train to Mongolia.
