Our Transiberian adventure Part 4: Irkusk and Lake Baikal

After spending 4 nights on a train we were very keen to get our feet on solid ground for longer than 20 minutes.Irkutsk, at first glance looked like a complete dump. Luckily we drove out to Lake Baikal which was absolutely stunning. The lake was nearly completely frozen and there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground.


We spent the day walking around, having a snowball fight and getting a chair lift up the top of a mountain. In the evening we had a sauna and were whipped with birch trees by our honcho, Dimitri (yes really!!)









The following day we mainly pottered about whilst the others went ice diving/ dog sledding. It was a very relaxing place and the scenery was just stunning. Our final adventure was to charter a hovercraft and go on an adventure on the lake!!




On our last day we headed back to Irkusk and wandered about. The highlight was a yuri gagarin statue, which just seemed to be there randomly- he's not from Irkusk!!

By the end I think everyone in the group was ready to leave Russia and were excited about Mongolia!!!