Lake Baikal

Again, at least a month between articles.  Sorry guys...

The Baikaler Hostel in Irkutsk was one of the best so far.  It was clean, the rooms were spacious and the staff were friendly; it was also practically empty so it was perfect for us because we needed a rest.  The shower was also fantastic and when we arrived I couldn't resist a long hot wash.

A short stroll around the town was enough.  Irkutsk has a kind of edgy, uneasy atmosphere, if not quite a sense of lawlessness.  The roads are dusty and potholed, the cars drive on the right but half of them seem to be right-hand drive; and many have blacked out windows.  Crossing the road, even at traffic lights is always fraught with danger as the vehicles scream - or clunk - past with little regard for pedestrians.  The fleet of small buses was bought from Korea and the Korean script still hasn't been removed from the windows.  The trams rattle and screech noisily along their rails lurching from side to side as I'm sure they have done for many years.  I never felt quite safe walking the streets of Irkutsk, even in daylight, though the danger was only ever perceived and never real.

I am told that there are a few mildly interesting museums and churches to visit in Irkutsk.  I can't comment on this because we made no effort to see them.  Most people go to Irkutsk for only one reason - and that is to organise trips out to Lake Baikal, the 'Pearl of Siberia'.  Baikal doesn't look like much on a map, a mere sliver of water just to the north of the border with Mongolia.  However, Baikal is the world's deepest lake and in fact holds more water than all of the United States' Great Lakes together.  The waters, as we learnt, are the second clearest in the world and it is apparently possible to see down more than forty metres into the vertiginous depths.  It also has a unique ecosystem with many of the species found in the lake not found anywhere else on Earth.  This lake was the only reason we didn't take the train directly to Mongolia.  Once we were rested from the journey from Moscow, our next job was to decide on the best way to proceed to the lake, situated around 70km from Irkutsk.

In fact, the trip to the lake organised itself for us in the end.  A French couple, Amandine and Benoit from Lyon, were also staying at the Baikaler and, like us, were trying to find their way to the lake.  They had decided to try for Olkhon Island, a large rock jutting out of the lake about half way up on the west side with a population of around 1000 .  The hostel owner, Jack, had agreed to drive them to Baikal; but for the price he offered, they needed another two passengers to split the cost.  As we were also trying to find our way to Baikal, it seemed fairly logical that we would make up their party.  We settled on a ten o'clock start the next morning.

After an early alarm and a slightly delayed departure, we began our journey to the lake.  For the first three hours Jack hardly said a word to any of us and we sat in the back of the old Soviet vehicle chatting in French.  I was horrified by the state of the roads and the way the Russians drive on them, but Jack seemed competent enough so I relaxed and placed my life in his seemingly capable hands.

We stopped for lunch.  I ordered dumplings and a 'fish salad'.  I expected something like tinned tuna and some lettuce leaves but instead I was served a bowl containing slices of raw fish in vinegar.  After my initial surprise, however, I found the 'fish salad' to be quite palatable, similar to Japanese sashimi.  After the brief pause we were soon back in the car and on the road.

After lunch, Jack opened up a lot, giving us all kinds of information about Baikal, Olkhon and life in Russia in general.  He is an intelligent man and had lots of insightful comments to make on everything he talked about.  After another hour or two, what passed for roads disappeared and we found ourselves driving over nothing more than a dirt track.  Jack annouced "end of good roads!" and I realised that this would be the the last we would see of what we think of as 'normal' driving conditions for some time.  Sitting as a passenger on these tracks was something of an ordeal so I could only imagine what it must be like for the driver wrestling with his vehicle, expertly choosing the best tracks, avoiding the holes and generally fighting to keep the vehicle upright and moving forward.

I remember staring eagerly out of the window, trying to catch my first glimpse of the lake.  I imagined our car clearing a ridge to expose a majestic expanse of ice lying below.  I was so hoping for my first aquaintance with Baikal to be something profound and meaningful that it was only natural that I would be let down.  We rounded a corner and I remember seeing a small pond with some solitary cattle dotted around its edges.  I wondered if it was the lake but it was not.  Then another corner and another pond.  This time the pond grew in size as we wound our way through the hills down to the muddy shore and finally I knew I was seeing Baikal with my own eyes for the first time.  Nothing more than that.  Not love at first sight but this was understandable; from certain viewpoints, the lake continues as far as the eye can see - but from here most of the lake was obscured by mountains on either side and Olkhon Island in the centre.  This was simply not the best place from which to view the lake.  For the stunning vistas that had drawn me here, I would have to wait.

During the drive, Jack told us that throughout the winter months there is an official ice road which closes in the second week of April when the ice begins to melt.  We would be fine to drive across the ice to reach Olkhon.  He also said that it shouldn't be a problem to come back a week later, either.

Until a week before in Saint Petersburg, I had never so much as walked on anything more than a frozen puddle.  We pulled up to the shores of the frozen lake and with very little ceremony at all, we drove out onto the ice.  Sitting in a small minibus on a frozen lake is a strange experience.  Because the ice is so thick, the danger is quite small, almost insignificant and at times one forgets that there is no land beneath the tyres.  However, if one allows the mind to dwell on the fact that one is suspended above the icy waters of the planet's deepest lake with only a layer of ice preventing the vehicle from sinking slowly down into the dark abyss below, one finds oneself inadvertently clinging to the handholds and peering nervously down out of the window.

Jack must do the trip many times each winter, but he was thoughful enought to realise the novelty of the situation for us and once onto the ice he stopped the van and allowed us out onto the lake for some photos.  As it happens, we were only a few weeks too late to witness the lake at its most impressive.  In the coldest months of winter the ice freezes so perfectly that one is able to look down through the glass-like water into the black depths.  When we arrived, the temperatures were already beginning to rise and the ice was beginning to change, turning white and frosty so that one could not see below the surface.  During a short period of around three or four weeks each year when the ice is too thin to drive on but has not melted sufficiently to allow the passage of boats, the island is completely cut off from the mainland.  When we drove across the ice to Olkhon island, this time of year was fast approaching.

I was amazed to see that when Jack told us about the 'ice road', he really meant it.  It was literally a real road of ice complete with signposts and even a speed limit.  The road is checked for safety every day of the winter while it is officially open.  In fact, it was probably the best stretch of road we had seen for some time. 

The place where we crossed is know as the 'Little Sea'.  We drove for 30km across the ice; not the shortest distance across the ice, but where the island comes closest to the mainland a strong current flows under the ice weakening its integrity.  We were told how the locals often take risks driving across this stretch; we were also told that locals are more likely to die on Baikal because they lose their fear and become reckless.  Visitors respect the lake more and so have fewer accidents.  While Jack was telling us this, we could see several other vehicles going 'off road' in the distance.

Back onto land and still another lengthy drive awaited us before we finally arrived in Khuzhir, the island's largest settlement with a population of a thousand, a figure that hasn't changed since Russian Cossacks discovered Olkhon 500 years ago.  We were now in a place like no other that either of us had ever seen.  For the first time we felt that we were really a long, long way from home.  The town, or perhaps village, had no concrete roads, just wide tracks separating rows of traditional Siberian wooden houses on either side.  I was amused to dicover that these tracks nevertheless all had names like in any other town. 

After the gruelling drive, the car finally rolled to a stop outside of Nikita's Homestead, possibly the most original place I have ever stayed in my life.  Nikita is a Russian ex-table tennis champion and, as we were informed, he is the man who more or less single-handedly brought tourism to the Olkhon.  His homestead is essentially a compund of  wooden cabins decorated with all manner or carvings and murals.  At first glance I found it charming, but after a while I had to agree with Jack's assessment: 'a bit kitsch'.

Florine and I shared a cabin with Benoit and Amandine.  We had separate bedrooms, a small shared living area with some stools and a table, a kind of porch and a small lavatory with a chemical toilet and no running water.  Perhaps for those used to a higher standard accomodation, these conditions might seem rather basic - but amazingly, for less than we paid for our other hostels in Russia, the price included three cooked meals a day.  It wasn't until we received our first meal that I finally beleived that it was true.

After a full day of travelling, the four of us had no intention of doing anything that required any effort. I think everybody was thinking more or less the same thing and after dinner when I asked Benoit if he would be interested in finding a shop to buy a few beers for the evening he readily agreed. The idea was just to relax and unwind and to recover from from a day spend on the road.  These things don't always go as planned, though.  During the course of the evening we were joined by an English girl named Candice and her friend Phoebe and before we knew it, our quiet night in had extended to four o'clock in the morning which inevitably led to us missing our first breakfast on the island.

Once we were up the next day, Florine and I, along with Benoit and Amandine, decided to explore the immediate surroundings.  From Khuzhir village we walked up to the top of the hill from where we could see the famous - but rather pathetic-looking - Shamen rock, one of the five centres of universal energy according to the Buryat religion, and then we descended down to the shore of the lake, which, to our utter surprise turned out to be stretch of perfect yellow sand.  The day was actually quite warm and facing away from the lake one could easily imagine sunbathing on a beach by the sea on a summer's day; but in the other direction, one was met with a vast expanse of ice reaching out to the horizon.  This strange juxtaposition was hard for the mind to reconcile.

We spent several hours walking along the shore.  The girls stayed on the beach while Benoit and I strolled out onto the frozen lake.  Each time we would find ourselved drifting further out until Florine and Amandine were almost reduced to distant spots.  Most of the time it was hard to appreciate that we were standing on a lake; it felt more like walking through a frozen snow-covered field.  Now and then, though, we were reminded of the reality of the situation when we heard sinister cracking noises echoing around us as the giant body of water readjusted its position.  Each time we found ourselve hurrying back towards the safety of the beach; and each time we laughed at our completely illogical fear - in the near distance we could see more cars driving on the lake and we knew that there was absolutely no chance of us falling through the ice which must have been over a metre thick.  This simlpe knowledge was not quite enough to reassure us completely though, and eventually after a particularly load crack right where we were standing, we tacitly left the ice comletely and spent the rest of the walk on dry and solid land.

After a long walk, tired but invigorated, we made our way back along the beach to Khuzhir.  After dinner, Baikal fish, of course, Florine and I had booked an hour in the Banya.  For those unfamiliar with the term, the banya is the Russian version of the sauna.  According to the traditional ritual, the banya involves several stages.  First of all, the banya user enters the sauna area where they stay until they start to sweat.  After this, he or she lays down and is then beaten with birch or pine branches by a partner.  Following the beating the banya user runs outside and jumps into the snow or a freezing cold pool of water.  The whole process is repeated several times and is supposed to be very good for one's health.  In the banya at Nikita's, we had the sauna and were provided with various branches with which to hit each other - but for the cold pool we had to make do with a bucket of icy cold water which, it has to be said, did more or less the same job.  We had to pay for an hour but we realised after that the banya is not just a tourist attraction but is in fact the way that people wash on Olkhon island.  There is no running water and the island was only connected up to the electricity grid five years ago.  Anyway, after the day's exertions it was the perfect way to relax, although I have to admit to finding the heat in the sauna unbearably oppressive.

During the day the bus had brought a new group to Olkhon from Baikaler, other backpackers who had arrived in Irkutsk the day after us.  As it turned out, none of the other cabins had a living area like ours had and everybody ended up spending the evening in ours, drinking beer, sharing crisps and peanuts and exchanging stories.  One of the nice things about the Irkutsk area is that everybody is doing more or less the same trip in one direction or the other.  Half of the people were travelling from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar and then on to Beijing while the other half were doing exactly the reverse.  Those coming from Asia gave us tips and advice about what to do and where to go when we left Russia; those of us making our way to Mongolia and China shared our tips about hostels and transport in Russia; and, of course, introduced the uninitiated to the secrets of vodka and gherkins.  This time the last of us to sleep finally went to bed at six in the morning.  For me it was a perfect way to spend an evening, with people from Britain, France, Germany, Holland and others all crossing paths in a particular place, chatting, making friends and sharing experiences before moving on to their numerous different destinations in the coming weeks.  Maybe it's a travelling cliche, but it was exactly the kind of moment I had been looking forward to before we left and I enjoyed every second.

The next morning brought something more original.  Again with Benoit and Amandine, we organised a trip out onto the lake with a couple of locals to try our hands at ice fishing.  We wrapped ourselves up in our warmest gear and left the hut to meet our guides for the day.  They were both dressed from head to toe in specially designed ice fishing clothing, heavy-looking waterproof coats vaguely similar to what one might wear on the skiing slopes only much more rugged, matching waterproof trousers and of course great big rubber boots.  These two giants were real hardened Siberian fishermen who would clearly think nothing of sitting outside in -40 all night and who probably ate raw fish for breakfast.  Next to them, I felt like such a pathetic...tourist.

They spoke very little English beyond 'good', 'ok' and 'lunch' - so they had the receptionist from Nikita's translate the programme for the day to us.  We were to drive out to the fishing spot where we would have to help drill the holes into the 1.40m thick ice.  We would spend the morning fishing then it would be time for lunch.  Following lunch we had the choice; if we were too cold we could spend the afternoon thawing out driving around in the car visiting some of the island's scenery - or if we weren't yet freezing to death and wanted to carry on fishing, then that was also possible.

The drive out to the spot they had chosen for us to fish involved another uncomfortable journey over some more of the island's dirt-track roads.  We saw the fishing area from some distance as there were already a few cars on the ice with fishermen already sitting at their holes, rods in hand.  We drove out onto the lake and our fishermen seemed to disagree over the location which made me laugh; to me a frozen lake is just a frozen lake!

Finally they settled on what was apparently the perfect spot and we all stepped out again onto the lake.  As the fishermen had explained, the first job was to create the holes so they passed Benoit and me a large manual drill about a metre and a half in length.  They started us off and then left us to our task.  After about ten minutes of sweat and hard labour we had descended about a metre into the ice.  Out of breath but determined, Benoit and I took turns to drill down further and further.  At this point one of the fishermen came back to check on our progress.  He glanced at our hole and didn't seem too impressed.  He pulled the drill up and examined the sharp end.  It was broken.  So he took our hand drill and walked back over to the van where he pulled out his electric version.  In the space of about two minutes he had drilled four perfect holes next to which he placed small chairs and called us over to sit down.  I think this was their idea of a joke.

I had never seen an ice fishing rod before.  They are nothing like normal river fishing rods; they are only about a foot long and obviously don't use a float.  Instead, the rod has a highly sensitive tip which twitches when a fish bites.  When the tip moves one has to stike by pulling up sharply then, placing the rod to one side, one pulls the line up hand over hand until the fish pops out of the hole.  The technique is much less subtle than course fishing but it is a very effective method of catching fish.

When we booked the excursion, the staff at Nikita's had tried to dissuade us saying that we would be cold and we would get bored and might not catch anything and so on.  Not catching anything was our greatest fear; I think we expected to catch maybe one or two each if we were lucky.  We just didn't want to go back to the compound with empty hands.  I was delighted, then, when almost instantly after lowering my line into the water below, I saw my rod twitching.  I struck and pulled the line up and within seconds I had my first fish.  The fisherman who was still setting up the other lines grabbed the fish, pulled the hook out of its mouth and simply threw the fish onto the ground next to where we sat.  There was no humane blow to head to put it out of its misery.  It was just left to flap around on the ice until it slowly suffocated. 

We continued fishing and we continued to drag up more victims.  In the meantime our guides had considerately thrown a tent over our heads and in a short space of time the pile of flapping, dying fish at our feet had grown considerably.  Apart from being slightly cramped, we were quite comfortable in our tent and so we continued, sometimes pulling fish out at the rate of one a minute.  From time to time I would step outside to stretch my legs.  One of our fishermen friends spent most of the day also sitting by his hole steadily increasing his catch.  He had no tent and was completely out in the open, exposed to the biting wind and numbing temperatures.  I could understand why they had brought the tent for us because without it we wouldn't have lasted half an hour.  Within minutes of leaving our shelter I was shivering violently and beginning to lose the sensation in my feet; yet there he sat, patiently pulling up one fish after another. 

Lunch time arrived and suddenly the fishermen were setting up a table in our tiny tent.  They passed round cakes, buscuits and, of course, fish and, needless to say, the ubiquitous bottle of vodka, just large enough for a good sized shot each.  We struggled with conversation, Russian dictionary in hand, but they were good natured and even seemed to be enjoying themselves.  We were glad that they weren't just sitting out here, bored, watching the Wesern tourists playing at being fishermen.

After lunch we carried on fishing and by the end of the day we had caught maybe fifty or sixty fish.  At the end I began to feel slightly uneasy about size the massacre lying around our feet.  By late afternoon I was almost willing the fish not to bite because we had already taken too many.  Finally, I stopped altogether.  I suppose I was never really meant to be a Siberian ice fisherman.

We gathered up our catch, posed for the obligatory snapshots (see photo album) and drove back to Khuzhir.  On the way back the fishermen took us to one of the island's peaks for a stunning view and some more photos (again, see album) which made for a more poetic way to end the trip after the day's violence.  Finally, again tired but more than content with our adventure, we pulled up in front of Nikita's homestead.  We thanked the fishermen and paid them.  They took our money with laughs and smiles and slaps on the back.  They also kept our bag of fish; we didn't really mind, though, as Nikita's cooks served us fish at least twice a day and we wouldn't have known what to do with another sixty.

After the fishing trip, Florine and I had no more plans for other excursions although there were plenty more on offer.  We spent the next two days exploring Khuzhir, taking photos and chatting with other travellers.  One evening we were treated to an evening of traditional Russian music after dinner; and everybody invariably ended up in our cabin for drinks every night.

After four nights on the island it was time to leave so we booked our tickets for the minibus back, made our way down to the bus stop, threw our backpacks onto the top of the bus and embarked on the dreary, cramped six hour journey back to Irkutsk.  We had an excellent time on Olkhon and we were happy to have had this opportunity to see Baikal for ourselves after all the stories we'd heard.  Our only regret was that we couldn't see Baikal in the depths of winter.  And Baikal in summer must be stunning.  There's always next time, though.  And next time.  And the time after that...

As an epilogue to our stay on Olkhon, I received an email from Candice a week or so later.  It turns out that a day or two after we drove across the lake for the last time in the minibus back to Irkutsk, the Buryat minister for transport was killed on the lake when his car plunged through the ice.  Jack's tales of locals dying on the lake through lack of respect came back to our minds and here was shocking example.  It made me wonder if we had ever been in any real danger on the lake, crossing the ice so late in the season.