Temperature minus 10 degrees C
We thankfully get off the train and arrive in Irkutsk – where the people are seemingly much warmer than European Russians but the weather is colder! We
head to the deepest lake in the world – Lake Baikal.
We arrive into Irkutsk. Thankfully the people are very friendly because we are half asleep and nothing is in English
Sitting in the bus station cafe (think Victoria Coach Station)
A whole minibus-load of people help us to get to our destination!
The road to Lake Baikal
We trek uphill to our hostel (thinking "it had better be good")
The hostel IS good. We are the only guests!!
The hostel!
Our walk to the Angara River
We are greeted by a Siberian Cat
The cat poses for its modelling shoot
and tells us how it is
It can barely walk in the snow
Dinner at the hostel. SO much better than dinner on the train
ANOTHER cat in the hostel over for dinner
Stephen and Igor (the hostel owner who drives us everywhere) next to a place where Igor goes ice-diving in Winter
The Museum of Wooden "architecture"
Chloe says hello to a Siberian horse
The trees are beautiful
Lake Baikal - It is the world’s oldest, the world’s deepest
If all our fresh water ran out, Lake Baikal could provide every person on earth with enough drinking water for 50 years.
Chloe adds a year to her life by putting her hands in the mystical lake. According to locals, if you dip your hands into the lake, you will be rewarded with 1 extra year of life. If you dip your feet into the waters, you are to be rewarded with 2 extra years of life. If you dunk your entire head into the lake, you will be granted 5 extra years of life. And if you completely submerge yourself in the waters of Lake Baikal – hands, feet, head, and body – you will either extend your life by 25 years, or be killed immediately.
Kangaroo admires the waters. And why not? It is the only lake on our planet with thousands of plant and animal species completely unique to it. The lake is so big that it has a tide.
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