Sunny in Russia

Yesterday morning I woke to the horror of a rain storm and not only that but the temperature had dropped to about 3 degrees. I lay in bed for a while and then thought ho what the heck. I went to reception fully expecting them to be of no use in my quest to make it to Lake Baikal, and then another part of me was wondering if maybe i should wait till tomorrow as today was so miserable. But before I had my request out of my mouth, I was introduced to Dave the taxi driver, who would drive me there and back and show me the sights and around for 3500r. about 90eur. So myself and Dave and four Chinese men headed off in the rain to Lake Baikal. I kept crossing my mind that the cardinal rule in the Lonely Planet guide to the Trans Siberian Railway, is don't ever ever get into a taxi with more than one man!
Anyway. Dave didn't have any English, so he just kept yelling things at me in Russian while I nodded, I had no idea what he was saying, meanwhile in the back of the van, the four Chinese men kept yelling things at Dave in Chinese and they all got louder and louder until there would be a chorus of OK. Then things would quieten down. At one stage one of the Chinese men asked me if I knew what Dave was saying and I said I didn't have clue, well neither did they so all was good.
Dave brought us to a zoo first and we saw wild bears and meercats, and cats, and boars and other animals, I don't like zoos and it made me feel uncomfortable, we also visited a nature reserve with a traditional Siberian village and Churches and schools, it was interesting and all the stuff was in English as well as Russian.

Baikal is huge, I only got to see a small small part of it. if I ever come back here again I think that I would spend at least 2 weeks exploring the lake area, it was just so beautiful, just mountains forests and clear clear water as far as you could see. We went to a little market and had some Omul which is the local fish, you get it smoked, also had BBQ wild boar. It was tasty. I wandered around and all the Siberians wanted to meet the crazy Ireland person on her own, Dave kept yelling for someone who could speak English, it was so funny. I think they were more interested in my money than in me.
This is actually a lovely little town but for the gaping holes in the roads and footpaths, also for no apparent reason there are steps on the footpath and no sign to warn you, I haven't fallen over yet, touch wood, It's not too cold but I do have my layers on. It gets warm after a while. I checked out of the hotel earlier and walked around for about 2 hours looking for an internet cafe, they were all closed or said that the net was down, I 'm back in the hotel and it's way expensive here.
Anyway, I got my noodles for the trip and some water, the bottled water here is awful, it's just so salty or something. Ack. Bill was asking me what I miss from home and I told him that I would kill for a proper American style hamburger with pickles and everything. The train from here to Ulan Bator takes about 2 days, but there is about an 11 hr delay on the border while the Russians and then the Mongolians do their customs, passport, passport, customs dance. That should be fun. I can't believe that it's my last day in Russia already and i had only started getting into the swing of things.
I'm going to miss Russian TV, the way they just use one female and one male voice for all the voices while dubbing and just dub straight over the English so you can hear it but not make it out in the background. And it's funny, last night I was watching something and a lady fell out of a helicopter, she goes noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, the voice over just went Neit.

Apparently, according to the totally unreliable Lonely Planet guide to the Trans-Siberian Railway, there is a Beatles themed bar here somewhere in Irkutsk, called Liverpool owned by a couple of Beatles crazy Mongolian guys, I am going to see if i can find it. Have to catch the train tonight at around 10. There is no dining car on this train so i have gotten some noodles and some other stuff to do me for the trip. At most of the stations you can buy water and fruit etc on the platforms, so I will be hoping for that. Am over hearing some Americans and an Australians talking about their travel plans, it's not really that interesting when you are doing the same thing. The American guy is just after saying that Europe was cute and they could "do it" in four days. Cool.