Lake Baikal

Day 36 - 30/06/2010 - 21:09 - Irkutsk, Russia

Today we got up stupidly early (considering our lack of sleep and adjustment to the time) and headed for Lake Biakal. We left at about 8am as we had to get to the bus station on the other side of the city centre and managed to get tickets for the 9:30am bus, there were only 5 seats left when we bought them!

We got there at about ten to 11. The weather was beautiful and the lake, wow. It took my breath away it really did. The water was so clear and tranquil, tiny waves hitting the pebble beaches and the mountains of the other side of the lake in the distance. Fantastic.

We were originally planning to get the boat to the next village up the lake but this was a little too expensive and we instead opted for a one hour boat trip on the lake which was nice but incredibly cold, the air from the water really reflected the coldness of the lake.

For lunch we had Omul, the Lake Biakal native fish which was absolutely delicious - even Laura liked it and she doesn't usually like fish. People just bought omul - a whole cooked fish - and ate it on the beach - which is precisely what we did! It was beautiful and we ended up sharing 3 fish between us.

In the afternoon we had a quick look around the village that we were in - Listvyanka - walking inland a bit. We also sat on the beach and caught some of the sun - a little too much on our noses!

I've got some fantastic pictures and videos (one of us dipping our feet in the ice cold water!) Myth says it's supposed to add 5 years to your life if you dip your feet in!