MightyMissy's Mighty Adventure

Here is a comment about the Lake.

Wednesday morning, we headed to Lake Baikal. It is HUGE and Beautiful!!! It reminds me of Lake Tahoe in CA but at a much larger scale and less people. The lake was too big for us to drive around in the time we had and we stuck to the lower mountainside of the lake. Many of us were commenting that if it were in the States that developers would have put up exclusive homes and hid the coastline with condos. In general, the parts of Siberia that were saw were gorgeous with birch and pine trees all over the place. Although it looked green and enticing now, apparently the 7+ months of winter deter people from moving there…go figure!

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Mir-1

Three Go Sideways

News from three persons travelling on a car everywhere...
Interesting article on clrossing Mongolian-Russian border and reaching lake Baikal.

Waking up to the sound of waves crashing on the beach was really nice, and we had a great morning doing nothing chilling on the beach. If we got thirsty at all during the day all you had to do was dip your cup in the lake and have a drink. It is strange to be able to drink straight from a body of water that looks like an ocean. Somewhat reluctantly we paked up and left early afternoon to make camp to the east of Ulan-Ude. Since then we have spent two days driving and have made 700 miles east. This is our first serious driving session for a long time and it feels quite good. The only slight problem is the continued loss of turbo pressure, but it comes and goes and so we can easily live with it.

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Such a Shame

Here what we may read about Baikal.

We found the 'beach' (so strange as the Russians come here for a beach holiday, with sand and everything, but its a Lake... very strange) There are absolutley stunning views here, but it seems the Russians do not know what they have, as the litter and smashed bottles are EVERY WHERE (This is the same throughout the whole of Russian... such a shame).

Read the full article at Travelpod.

Irkutsk, downtown.

Photos taken in Ulan-Ude, Buryatiya during spring 2008...


"No tresspassing"

"Toy"

An entry from World Nomads mentioning lake Baikal

The undoubted highlight of my trip to Irkutsk, however, was my visit to lake Baikal. It is absolutely vast and extraordinarily beautiful. I got the bus to Listvyanka and spent the day walking in the little valleys of hamlets and along the shoreside, and swimming in the lake. The valleys were so picturesque with little wooden houses winding higgeldy-piggeldy uo the wooded hillsides, the lake glistening and glinting through the trees below. The lake itself stretches further than the eyes can see and the water is as clear as its reputation. I'd been worried that it wouldn't have lived up to my expectations but no, it was wonderful. Its just a pity I didn't have time to head up to Olkhun Island as its meant to be the most scenic but I really enjoyed what I saw. The hot hot weather helped of course, and although the water was freezing at first you soon got used to it. All thse years as a kid swimming in Scottish waters maybe served as good training! Its so clear and banks so quickly you don't have to venture far from the shore to swim easily.

Where is Jess...?

And interesting blog by Jess who has travelled all over the world... Here is a quote...

The village where we stayed was called Listvyanka, a small little town right on the shores of the massive Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is the biggest and deepest fresh water lake in the world, and during the winter months is completely frozen over creating a roadway between each side of the lake. It had only defrosted around a month prior to us arriving. It really was the most amazing thing to look at. It was as if you were looking out at the ocean, not being able to see where the sky began and the lake ended. And the water was so clear, that when we did a boat trip out on the lake, you found yourself suffereing from vertigo as you could see directly to the bottom in some parts. The water tempreture at that time was around 1 degrees, so we decided going for a swim would not be the best of ideas!

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Solar eclipse observed in Irkutsk

Yesterday, I spent my free time out of city at summer house. We had goo time and observed solar eclipse. I thought it would be darker outside while it happens.

Old house in the center of Irkutsk city