After a very leisurely start, Damian stated that he would pick us up from our hotel at 10:30, breakfast was at a comfortable pace. John found that he was once again able to request a specially prepared omelette (this after he had already knocked off a cooked breakfast) and I managed to find some blinis (Russian pancakes). We were continually served by the Siberian waitresses, all of whom were extremely attractive. Damian gave us a fairly quick walking tour of th...

This morning started quite late again as the guest house doesn’t serve breakfast until 9am. As such, we were packed and ready to leave before breakfast (which this morning consisted of porridge, bread, sausage, cheese, boiled eggs and savoury pancakes). After we had finished what we could, we assembled outside of the guesthouse to be met with a different guide to Eugene, who first took us to the Baikal Museum. The trust have recently updated this Museum, and it...

Today began late, as breakfast in the guesthouse doesn’t start until 9am. Breakfast consisted in whole of; bread, pancakes, porridge, sausage, cheese and egg and also yoghurt. Our guide turned up and handed over our train tickets for the rest of the trip to Berlin, but of course they are all grouped together and I got volunteered to look after them all. This morning we drove down to the Listyanka ferry to go over the Angara River, which happens to be the only ...

.... continued. The Russian border crossing started with a very young soldier asking to see our passports, which he did, and then passed back to us. We were then visited by 2 more officers; one of whom took my passport, and one took Todd’s. We were asked to remove our glasses to check if we matched our visa and passport photos and then there was much scanning of the visa page and our main page. They each had a scanning machine to check the validity of both. Th...

After the 6am visit and restocking of the fire I had had enough and got dressed and went outside for a walk. It was about -12C outside, so the walk consisted of a quick walk around the gir and back inside. I did re-emerge around 6:50 and walked up the ridge again looking for a shot of the sunrise. No luck. Breakfast was some bread, 2 pikelets, a fried egg and coffee. Needless to say, last nights exploits we were ready for the van to pick us up at 9am. This morni...