Sophie's travels 2011-2012: 8/2/12 Lake Baikal, Russia TRANS SIBERIAN RAILWAY

We were woken up really early by the carriage lady who told us in broken English we had to get up and packed, we lay there for a few seconds and she came back and said don’t go back to sleep you have to get up! So we got up and packed and got off the train in Irkutsk where we were met by our honcho Costa. It was -11 degrees and blowing a windy snowy blizzard. We walked to the bus that took us to Listvyanka (Lake Baikal) – an hour and a half away. It was soo nice to get off the stinky stuffy train and out into the fresh air again! When we arrived in Listvyanka we had to drive up a steep, windy hill in the slippery thick snow to get to the hostel which was an experience! The hostel was great – a little wooden cabin that we had all to ourselves which was awesome – it even had a sauna! We showered and got dressed which was awesome after 4 days on a stinky train. We then set off for a walk down the road in the snowy blizzard which was kind of fun! We walked past an ice sculpture park and Lake Baikal to a yummy bakery where we had lunch. There seemed to be a lot of cute dogs everywhere around the lake, strays but very well behaved. From there we walked to the snow mobile rental place and were given helmets, gloves and snow pants if required and a 2 minute run down on what was accelerate and brake and which button not to press then we set off! I shared a snow mobile with Sophia and she drove 1^st which was funny – we stacked once into snow that was more than thigh deep which was hilarious! We fanged through the snowy forest into a clearing where we were allowed to cruise around for a while which was awesome fun. Sophia and I swapped drivers and I had a go which was heaps of fun! The scenery was amazing and it was snowing lightly – we had sooo much fun!

We returned the snow mobiles and went to the dog sledding place. The dogs seemed so excited to get out and run, it took a while because everyone went individually but it was very peaceful being towed around in the snow. Occasionally the dogs would stop of a pee or a scratch which was pretty funny, I was one of the last so they were pretty tired by my turn… Amazing experience.

After the dog sledding we went back to the hostel and straight into the sauna - called Banya in Russia. The temperature got up to 100 degrees and it was crazy! The tradition is to lie on the bench and use a bunch of birch leaves to hit up and down the body like a massage then at the end of it you leave the sauna room and get a bucket of cold water thrown over you – fairly amazing experience! We sat in there for a while then went out and stood in the snow to cool off!

We finished the day with a tasty dinner at the hostel dining room and discussed plans for the following day.

Andrea and I played some uno before bed. We had the most amazing day – Siberia is awesome, we had so much fun!