Give the cat some fish

Even though we had crossed onto Olkhon Island, we still had a long and bumpy hour or two until we got to Khuzhir. When we had finally reached the main village/town we needed the toilet quite urgently but had to follow the direction that the driver pointed us in until we could use one. It was a fairly peculiar sight, seeing Nikita's in the distance; a maroon coloured tower peering out over the huts and sheds of it's surroundings.

As we entered there was a hive of activity for a bunch of tourists had arrived just before us. The receptionist then looked at us strangely as we had planned on staying for such a long time, far longer than any other sane traveller would do. We were shown our room and our precious toilet and shower pump, it would only take an hour and a half to heat up he said, which meant at least 5 hours in reality. But how does one use the shower? You just stand on one pump with one foot and alternate with the other pump and the other foot - although this does get slightly hard when you are washing your hair with your eyes closed and you keep losing your balance.

Peter was most excited by the logs in our room, he would get to be a man and make a fire to keep us warm at night, every man's dream.

But even better, almost immediately we had made good friends. We had overheard Iain and Sarah speaking English on the ferry and they had heard us as well, so considering that we had spent 3 and a half days on the train without anyone else to speak too, we were pretty excited. They live in Brighton and they've taken 6 months off to go on a honeymoon. They were very hardcore and had come straight to Nikita's all the way from Moscow so we let them use our shower (they were the ones who let us know that one and a half hours is not enough).

During Iain and Sarah's stay Iain beat Peter 7-3 at table tennis and he beat me twice in chess (although he was damping my senses by giving me some beer). Nevertheless we were still good friends. We went to the very North tip of the island, Khoboi Cape, together. It which was stunningly beautiful even though there were a few clouds which occasionally decided to spit at us. We stopped off in many places on the way including a beach where we saw some locals get naked and jump into the lake together. I also had much fun freaking Peter out by walking right up to the cliff edges. Iain gave him some advice as Sarah would always do the same; just don't look. We thought it might be a man's lack of oestrogen. The driver prepared for us a lovely picnic in the forest with some warm fish soup he had heated on a fire for us, some cheese sandwiches, salad, and then biscuits and tea. The pictures will hopefully explain themselves for how amazing the scenery was.

Randomly, everyone was invited to a concert in the village one day. There was quite a group of us: Norwegians, Finnish, Belgian, English, Scottish, Mongolian... I think there were more of us than the locals. Well, it was a very interesting concert; there was poetry and singing, accordion playing and lots of speaking in Russian inbetween. I'd say it was kind of like a school play but with adults instead of children. As an added extra, there were gifts occasionally given out to the locals in the audience; a certificate and what looked to be a duvet. A nice idea for the oncoming Siberian Winter.

That evening everyone gathered and celebrated the Finnish guys birthday with beer, champagne and vodka. It was a great party and everyone got to know everyone and it was just so merry. We spent a lot of time talking with Dmitri who has become a great friend over the past few days. He currently works here, and he speaks fantastic English, and wears the coolest glasses. And he lets us use his internet for only 50 rubles! He grew up in the North of Russia somewhere but has also spent some time studying in Texas. Soon he plans to visit Mongolia so hopefully we will meet him there.

But the next day, most of the people from the night before had moved on, so things were much quieter. Everyone who was left joined together to play table tennis and I successfully lost every game, and on the other hand Peter beat nearly everyone! We then tried out the banya i.e. Russian sauna, but we didn't really get it. The room wasn't that hot and then when we thought we had found the cold water to throw at each other it turned out to be really hot. This nearly gave Peter a heart attack.

One day we woke up and all we could see was clear blue sky. It had been decided. We would go into the lake that day. We waited until around three o' clock, set up the camera and made a run for it. It was freezing! All the air escapes from your lungs and you feel like you're suffocating, we had to quickly dash back out again. But it was definitely worth it; some say it's 10 years of extra life and others say 25, who knows...

Basically all of the days have merged into a blur of walks to the beach and around the village; playing table tennis; watching people come and go; and eating fish (always omul which is only found in the lake) twice a day without fail. The food is really delicious, we both feel so healthy living on fish and rice and potatoes and soup and salad and cabbage and sometimes chicken or beef... For breakfast we have pancakes and homemade jam and fried eggs and a really interesting porridge. We could live here forever and ever and ever.

We swear that there's a great heroic Russian ex-table tennis champion living here who plays with Nikita faster than lightning and teaches the kids to move. He invited me to play with him once, when I was waiting on Peter, and I shyly accepted. He made me hold the bat completely differently and showed me how to swing the bat, so that now I am improving dramatically and I don't feel so hopeless. Then when we were having lunch he presented us with some cake and said "birthday!" We were so appreciative of being given some of his birthday cake!

People have never ceased to come and go, but one guy, Gael from France came and fell in love with the place and begged to stay and volunteer for a couple of weeks. He has been great fun, almost like a jester and one day I look forward to going to France to see him so that he can feed me the chocolat chaud that I crave! He took us on a bike ride the other day (which was quite a feat considering that everyone here tries to hire bikes and fails miserably) using bikes borrowed from people here and giving chocolate in return. Peter managed to fall off in less than two minutes as his back brakes was disconnected so the front brake sent him tumbling. The dogs that live here that bark throughout the night and tend to follow us into the village for walks, also joined us on our bike ride. As Gael is much fitter than us he soon sped off ahead of us and we got separated. The path got so sandy so we couldn't cycle any longer, we walked until we found another paths we could ride on. On the way back I managed to fall off my bike as well, falling into a ditch in the road and breaking in fear. I came out of it with only grazes on my palms and bruises on my knees.

Yesterday we put up our tent to spray it with some anti-mosquito stuff so that I would no longer have to carry it around with me. As the tent was up we decided we would try and camp for the night. We had to cuddle up very close but we managed! The tent was covered in frost when we woke up and then the dog tried to get in... it was a long night and we look forward to sleeping back in our cosy room tonight.

And tomorrow morning we leave this wonderful fairy tale and make our way to Mongolia!

P.S. If anyone would like to send us a free text message would would love to hear from you! You can do this by going to http://www.gosim.com/index.php?page=send_sms&ref=320 and our number is (372) 59991656.

Source: travel pod. Peter and Hannah.

Tim, Anika and Children

These two professional videos are in German and Russian and with Russian subtitles. Tim speaks about his experience on Olkhon Island in German. Also videos don't have many speaking, but nice views and music.


Part 1





Part 2

Olkhon Cats

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