Lake Baikal and My Siberia Experience
For those who are unfamiliar, Ulan-Ude is a city in Russia’s Buryatia Republic. It is traditionally a stop on the Trans-Siberian railway [all three routes] and it is referred to as the capital of Buddhism in Russia. Located in Eastern Siberia, this Asian-influenced city was my first stop in Russia.
As I had to hitchhike my way to Ulan-Ude, I managed to experience a different side of the countryside coming from Mongolia. Cooped up in a 4WD jeep with 2 Mongolians [or Russians, I wouldn’t know as a lot was lost in translation] who offered me a ride from the border to the outskirts of Ulan-Ude, I spotted tanks driving alongside ordinary cars on highways and tried traditional homemade buuz which I don’t think I would’ve experienced in my original bus ride.
It is peaceful as I stare at the world’s largest statue of Lenin’s head in the heart of the city. For the longest time, I have been dreaming of going to Russia and today was my first full day. You can imagine I was overwhelmed with new and curious faces all around me in a city where I was one of the few foreigners crazy enough to travel to Russia in March, where temperatures were below freezing [-7°C to 0°C].
Although it is a small city, it is a perfect place for you to do some walking about and relaxing. I took a long walk along a river [Selenge River] and wandered through Russian Orthodox churches with amazing architecture and history, before ending off the evening with dinner at a nice classy restaurant in the city centre with my two newfound friends from France (who were actually just a year older than me and travelling together).
I stayed in an amazing hostel at the heart of the city and ate amazing Buryat cuisine in my short 2 days here and I will highly recommend this underrated town if you are stopping by on your own Trans-Siberian journey.
It was time to move on to the next leg of my journey — Irkutsk.
I caught a 3rd class ticket on a local train to Irkutsk [6-hour journey], which was my first time experiencing travelling on a Russian train. The journey took me around the mighty Lake Baikal, offering an extremely scenic few hours.
Irkutsk is also another underrated town as most travellers stop here as it is the most popular starting point to Olkhon Island, where you can come face to face with Lake Baikal.
It is a bigger city and one which has a green line which runs through most, if not all, of the main attractions of the city. This makes it really convenient for tourists to navigate their way around as all they need to do is to follow the painted line on the ground. Additionally, there are signboards which give a brief backstory to each location you stop by along the route in both Russian and English.
Irkutsk was cold when I was there [mid-March] and the streets were covered with puddles of water and mud with some stretches in ice. Not really a good combination for me, having never experienced snow or icy streets in my life :”) So come prepared, or you will look ridiculous with your hands flailing around while you try your hardest to keep your balance while Russians brisk walk in heels all around you with their eyes closed.
After 24 hours in Irkutsk, I was headed to Khuzir, the biggest town on Olkhon Island. Of course, I was excited, I mean it is the deepest lake in the world and it holds 20% of the world’s freshwater. How insane is that? Furthermore, the minibus driving us [other travellers as well] might have to drive across Lake Baikal and depending on the situation of the ice there was a chance we could have taken the hovercraft across instead. It was sufficiently frozen when I went, and it was the most unique experience in my entire life. We drove a good 15 minutes on the frozen surface of the deepest lake in the world to reach Khuzhir!
However, other than a couple of small cafés, diners, a local supermarket [a must-visit for a throwback Soviet-style establishment] and a lot of Russian vans there isn’t much going on in the town [at least during the winter-spring season]. The real beauty lies right outside the town, where I was taken aback by the sheer beauty of nature.
I took off to the Northernmost point of Olkhon Island, Cape Khoboy. Incredible rock formations and historically charged monuments paired with the undefeated backdrop of Lake Baikal completely frozen is enough to make your knees weak. It certainly made my knees weak and I spent the next couple of hours taking it all in. A fine creation by Mother Nature, I cannot recommend it enough.
It is hard not to fall in love with nature, as every time you think you’ve seen the most incredible natural wonder this world has to offer another one comes along and takes your breath away. ‘一山还有[比]一山高’, while probably not the best context for this saying, is what I feel perfectly describe my feelings.
I have arranged for a minibus to take me back to Irkutsk for 24 more hours before I embark on my next leg of my journey towards Yekaterinburg.
Accommodation I stayed in
Ulan-Ude: Ulan Ude Travellers House
Irkutsk: Rolling Stones Hostel
Khuzhir, Olkhon Island: Guest House Natalia
These were originally posted on my blog, which I found more tedious to manage than Medium. These are stories from a trip I embarked on in March to April 2019.
