Irkutsk

Day 35 - 29/06/2010 - 20:15 - Irkutsk, Russia

2 full days in Irkutsk we've had now. Arriving at about 10am on Monday (28th) - it was raining for the first time in about 10 days - it was pretty cold too! We slowly made our way over to where we thought our hostel was (forgot to print a map out) and we met a man on the road side that was in our train carriage - I heard him on the train and knew he was a German.

He stopped to talk to us in the rain "Are you English?" he said - I presumed he had kind intentions and wasn't going to lay into me for Englands poor performance so I said yes. He asked if by any chance we were going to this particular hostel. It just so happened that we were and therefore we both walked with him trying to find the hostel with the lack of directions either of us had (he had a print out of directions but they were truncated).

Luckily we managed to find the hostel surprisingly easily in the rain and we checked into our private room whilst our German friend had one of the dorm beds. The shower and tea we had was most appreciated and we took our time getting ready. I managed to have a fairly lenghty conversation with the German guy - he said he was travelling from Moscow, via Yekaterinburg and Novosibirisk as well as Irkutsk - sepending 10 days around Lake Biakal, one one of the islands there and then going to Mongolia for a few days before heading home. I am quite jealous of the amount of time he has around Biakal, but then this is whistlestop eh!

I then bit the bullet and asked him about the World Cup - he said he'd only watched the Ghana game. I told him about the England game - he chuckled to himself and said "oh, sorry!!" Very funny - oh well, I'm on the other side of the world - I have no need to get upset about football now!! I have the whole of next season for Villa to bore me waiting when I return home!!

So yesterday we didn't do much - we spent a lot of time resting and didn't see much of the city. The weather was truly awful yesterday which was such a shame but there you go - you can't have everything!

Today however, we saw quite a bit of the city. We saw the trans siberian builders monument (of Alexander the III) which was about the only useful thing he did! We walked through town to the main square area where the main 3 churches are. It was very nice. The weather was a little better than yesterday - not as much rain but still muggy and grey.

There are quite a few differences we've noticed between here and the other 3 places we've visited in Russia. First of all - there is poor drainage, everywhere. The water just sits there which made it particularly horrible to go out yesterday. Secondly, there are few to none road crossings for pedestrians. There are zebra crossings, but drivers like to pretend the aren't there and will often drive faster around you before you reach that part of the road. The air quality is not as good - they obviously use lower grade petrol here and finally it does not look as well off as the other parts of Russia we have visited.

That said though, it is still a nice enough place, barring the air quality. There are also a few "oriental" influecned buildings here too and more oriental looking people than elsewhere in Russia.

We are off to Lake Biakal tomorrow - I really can't wait for that. The tap water here is sourced from the lake and it's absolutely amazing water - really nice taste!