We arrived into bitterly cold Irkutsk around 7am. It was cold, -6 degrees, and dark. We met our driver and 3 Aussies who we would be spending the next 3 days with. With all of us packed into the van off we set for a small village on the shores of Lake Baikal (the worlds biggest fresh water lake and containing roughly 20% of the worlds fresh water supplies), 2 hours away. The scenery on route was brilliant, snow covered forests, and i'd like to say we looked out at it in amazement but in fact we all fell asleep.

We arrived at our homestay in the villiage, a beautiful log cabin and set about doing absolutely nothing. After a quick walk around the village we decided to get a few beers and watch a DVD, why not eh! After lunch it was time for a banya. Basically a banya is a steam room. Rocks are heated by the furnace and then water is poured onto them creating this intense heat and steam. All very relaxing and good for sweating all the toxins out of your skin. That night we had a bonfire by the lake, sensible stuff in minus temperatures, but we did have a bottle of vodka and some pickles (your not allowed to drink vodka in Russia without having something to eat straight after each shot). After that it was back to the cabin to share our travel stories over a few more beers.

Next day we went for a 2 hour hike along the lake to a camp designed for tourists. We had our lunch and then Trish and I said our goodbyes to the Aussies who were spending the night there and headed back to the village. With the cabin to ourselves we had a few more beers and watched a DVD. It was the first time in over 6 months we had had a place to ourselves, t'was brilliant.

Next morning we awoke, had our breakfast and waited for the Aussies to return from the camp before we left the village and headed back to Irkutsk. The Aussies were staying in town so we waved goodbye, had a quick tour of the city, got some provisions for the train journey ahead and met up again with Sean and Mel who would be travelling on the same train as us to Yekateringburg. We boarded the train at 4.15pm and made ourselves comfortable. It would be another 51 hours before we would be getting off at Yekateringburg.