Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal7 Aug 2011
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3rd class train travel, like a moving coffin
Bus to Olkhon
Lake Baikal
| Lake Baikal, the 'Pearl of Siberia' or the 'Blue Eye of Siberia' is a crystal clear body of fresh water and has the singular distinction of being the worlds deepest lake: 1637m at the western shore. It holds 20% of the worlds fresh water meaning that if the worlds drinking water ran out tomorrow Lake Baikal could supply the entire population of the planet for the next 40 years! The lake is 636km long and 60km wide, making it one of the biggest lakes in the world too. The water is icy, never more than 15C, and legend has it that a dip in the lake extends your life by 25 years. Set midway up the lake's western shore is Olkhon Island. The guidebooks say 'the serenely beautiful Olkhon Island is a wonderful place from which to view the lake and relax during a tour of Siberia'. So of course how could I not stop there? One overnight 3rd class train, a 7 hour public bus ride and a 15 minute ferry ride later we arrived at Nikitas Homestead on the island (having booked ahead due to Nikitas famed popularity). I honestly thought there was some kind of a mistake. The island was like a dustbowl, hardly a tree in sight and the town looked like slums I've been to in South Africa. There were very few people actually in the town, despite it hosting an annual music festival at the time. I later heard some recorded music blaring from a ger in the middle of the road that had a sign requesting 100 roubles, so maybe that was it? There was no room available so we were farmed out to a home stay a five minute walk away where the shower was in the middle of a veggie patch and the toilet in the middle of a potato field. Really getting back to nature! So the island was a huge disappointment to say the least. No lazing on a beach in a bikini sipping cocktails at all. There is no beach and the lake is far too cold for anyone to swim in. And then it rained for 2 days, turning the dirt roads into treacherous mud slides and seriously dampening any ideas we had about exploring the rest of the god forsaken island. But what the island did introduce me to is the amazing creation that is the banya! It is a sort of sauna/steam room and lounge room in one. You walk in to a toasty warm lounge room, completely with tables and sofas. From there you enter the steam or washing room where the temperature is soaring and there are huge containers of water all being heated by the furnace. From there you if you are very brave, or suicidal, you can enter the sauna that is over 100C. In addition, while you wash yourself you beat yourself (or get a friend to do it for you) with a bunch of birch branches tied together. After the heating and beating you plunge yourself into icy water then repeat the process over and over for hours on end. The banya is definitely the best thing about Russia so far and the only redeeming factor on the worlds worst island. We left Olkhon early this morning and took a ferry and bus to Irkutsk to find that due to some miraculous stroke of luck our hostel room booked hurriedly over the Internet yesterday had somehow morphed into a new one bedroom apartment all for us, with a real toilet! Things are looking up! |
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