By the seaside - kind of

Today we made our way to the bus station, bought some tickets and got the bus to Listvyanka by Lake Baikal. That was actually a WHOLE lot more difficult and time consuming than it sounds. The bus station makes Chorlton Street bus station (M'cr) look positively palatial. The bus window pane had the odd stone chip and several cracks but you could see out of it so what more could you want right? The transport around here is at least 150 years old and the smog in the streets is pretty potent; although I'm guessing it'll be worse in China.

The 'apartment', and I use this word loosely, is certainly basic at best. Pictures are in the photos bit. We wandered down to the lake; which wouldn't be totally remarkable if it were sea, but as a lake it's pretty amazing. It's the world's deepest lake, shaped like a banana it stretches 636km from north to south but only 60km wide. Apparently it will eventually become the earth's fifth ocean, splitting the Asian continent. It contains nearly one fifth of the world's fresh unfrozen water - more than North America's five Great Lakes combined. Geography lesson over. (Facts are courtesy of the LP Trans Sib book by the way, not my own knowledge!)

We stopped for a beer and, surprise surprise, they had no Russian beer. It's amazing how many places in Russia don't sell Russian beer, instead they have imported beers that cost at least twice as much. Funny that isn't it?

Tomorrow we'll return to Irkutsk and just do a bit of sorting before we get on the train to Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia.