After Lake Baikal we took an 8 hour bus trip back to Irkutsk, spent the day "catching up" before getting a train at 7:00am the following morning to Ulan Ude, an 8 hour journey. Ulan Ude is the capital city of the republic of Buryatia, the centre of Russian Buddhism and has largest statue of Lenin's head in the world - It is 5,500 kilometres from Moscow.
We arrived at Olga's, our home for the night and it seemed a bit intimidating. It was an 8 storey block, built in the Soviet era and looked extremely utilitarian. A huge steel front door with access by code and password "16K" and "Jacqueline Kennedy"
We were staying on the 2nd Floor, another Starting to worry about the neighbourhood.
Olga herself was 4 foot of Siberian smiles who was extremely friendly and welcoming and despite the austere exterior had a very nice apartment - She spoke French accompanied by pantomimic gestures and facial expressions. We managed French better than Russian but later she introduced her granddaughter who spoke English.... Olga translated Russian into French which her GD put into English - very clean simple communication mechanism (Allo, Allo)
We had been told that we might have border problems. because we had not registered our visits to any of the towns we had been to and the Russians were very picky about passport photo likenesses - I reluctantly ditched the beard (Santa is dead) but tomorrow may still hold problems at the border.
Au Revoir Olga ..... The Border Awaits