We decided to take advantage of our included breakfast in order to fuel ourselves for our Siberian Trek - a 4km walk along a well trafficked road to the town of Listvyanka. It may sound so intrepid but in Siberia everything becomes a bit more epic. We felt sorry for the new junior waiter who was thrust our way as the nominated 'English-speaker' who had to decipher our garbled Russian.
The path of our walk took us along the shores of Lake Baikal which proved to be considerably more ice covered than we first thought. The white crust stretched all the way to the horizon where it merged with snow capped mountains on the opposing shore some 30kms away.
The only part uncovered was the never-frozen mouth of the Angara river. Being quite unaccustomed to large frozen bodies of water this was a novel new plaything. Cautious approaching the edge of the lake (in case we were swept away by sudden glacier or fell through into 3 inches of cool water) we noticed the unusual formations of frozen ice (unlike unfrozen which looks just like water). Fortunately we both had seen the Superman movie so were better to articulate our impressions of this natural phenomenon up close - it looks like kryptonite. Where large blocks of ice had bent, buckled and broken revealing it's inner surface it proved to be composed of many individual slivers of ice compressed together. These, having presumably been unnoticed by mankind before our discovery, where termed either 'Spicicles', spikey icicles; or 'Chickles', cos of the noise they made. This new, foreign, other-wordly looking piece of nature obviously had to be played with.
After overcoming our distraction we continued on towards Listvyanka and passed a group coming the other way. It was the 'Sundowners' tour group from the train. It seems that even in Siberia you can't get away from people. They smiled, waved and asked if we'd been to the museum.
"Not yet" we lied. No matter how good looking an Omul fish preserved in formaldehyde might be could never be as much fun as walking along the lake of it's origin and crooning it's name into the ice. Omuuuuuuuuuul. Nor as satisfying as painfully deciphering Cyrillic street signs - that town is called nn, ei, ka, oh, ll, ah. Nikola. Mmm, yummy satisfaction.
We arrive at Listvynaka at 13:01. The banks, post office and information centre we had come to patronise were closed from 13:00 to 14:00. So instead we wandered the forshore and pebble beach watching the far more daring local families scramble a few more metres out onto the ice for photos. I could imagine that some of these photos would eventually be referred to as "That was the last time we ever saw Boris, now he sleeps with the Omul". We also had a chance to observe some of the cultural elements of Russian society - sports wear, more particularly track suits are very, very popular.
Into this cultural soup who should walk by but our train-mates Simon & James. They were helping themselves to local fare, rice & carrots with pork, at the outdoor market. Following their lead we too took a helping from the outdoor BBQ that seemed common to the district. Outside various shops and Omul vendors these guys were cooking up pork for whomever wandered by. It was served with some great spicy sauce that might (who knows) be Georgian.
On the two hour walk back to our hotel we stopped regularly to appreciate the unique, to us, views of the frozen lake in the changing light. Having gathered courage from the Russian famiilies on the ice and our street kitchen meal we took to our chances at walking on the water. There was a warning sign but as it was in Russian, and not English, we assumed it wasn't directed at us.
And lo, like Jesus, we trod on water.
Our next miracle was to once again meet people in Siberia we already knew - the Dutch couple. These two were the quintessential back-packer types. Never changed their clothes, never seemed to have accommodation booked yet were constantly charging around trying to visit every possible destination in the area. As they overtook us they explained they had spent little looking at the ice as they were in a rush to catch the ferry to Port Baikal. I don't know why. As far as we can tell the only thing of significance at Port Baikal is the ferry to Listvyanka. But at least they can check it off their list. It all seemed terribly uncomfortable and rushed to us. In fact, as though to push the boundaries of discomfort, and prove how 'real' a pair of travelers they were, they had booked themselves onto a 3rd class trip to Moscow. On the slow train. This is the essentially a rolling prison. Six bunks to a 'compartment'. No walls, no food and 50+ people to a bathroom. For 4 days. Mental.
We however, being the cushy doughboys of the Trans-Mongolian travel fraternity, retired to our comfy, convenient hotel for a very nice, hearty, Russian dinner with a couple of vodkas thrown in. The Dutchies were, no doubt, swimming back to their campsite.
