Listvyanka is a small town in the middle of Siberia alongside Lake Baikal, the world's largest fresh water lake.
The small town is made up of a mere few winding streets. Different coloured cottages are scattered across the hillside with picket fences, shutters on the windows and stacks of chopped wood on their doorsteps.
After arriving in Listvyanka late afternoon, we blissfully showered four days of dirt, dust, sweat and god knows what, off of ourselves. Then, while dinner was being prepared we were treated to a traditional Russian banya experience!
A banya is a type of sauna. The temperature spikes at a massive 90 degrees Celcius making you feel like you're roasting alive. Breathing is hard and you have to wear felt hats and mittens to protect your head and hands from the intense heat. Then to top it off, people hit you with branches of leaves, soaked in hot water that are supposed to improve your circulation. After about ten minutes inside, its out to the plunge pool for a refreshing dip before repeating the whole process all over again! In our host's particular banya, the ritual is finished with a rough sponge scrubbing from head to toe rinsed off by a rather unexpected bucket of freezing cold water! The whole process though is pretty refreshing!
After dinner with our host family, we settled in for a well needed sleep in a real bed, rocked to sleep by the lingering vertigo of the long train ride!
Day 48 began bright and early. Ben and I headed out on a run to get our bearings of the town.
After breakfast with the group, we set out to explore. We all walked into town Ben and I, Sophie, Sarah and couple of the others in our grounp, hired a boat to take us out on the Lake for a couple of hours. The fog had set in so thick over the lake we could hardly see ten metres off shore however as we sailed up along the coast, it lifted, giving us some beautiful views of the lake's coastline and the clear waters that stretch as far the eye can see.
All along the coast, people were out in boats, fishing, swimming, sunbathing and enjoying their 'summer' weather. It was way too chilly for me to even consider swimming, however Ben remained determined to take the plunge at some point that day, dressed for the occasion in boardshorts carting a towel!
We spent the afternoon wandering the town, checking out the local markets, watching a seal show nearby and strolling up and down the shoreline picking our way around all the locals out sunbathing.
On our way home, Ben finally made his move, ending the day with a VERY brief dip in the rather brisk water of Lake Baikal!
Early on Day 49 the bus collected us and took us back to Irkutsk, a fairly uneventful city of about half a million people. The highlight of our day was a bride riding a runaway segway during a wedding photo shoot! We wandered the streets and browsed the markets then walked up to the Decembrists' Museum - two manor houses from the 1820s that housed the Volkonsky family, exiled from Russia following the Decembrist revolt.
We stopped by a local supermarket to stock up on supplies for our next Trans-Siberian train leg. Here we discovered several delicious delicacies, Super King Size Kit-Kats, and something I like to call 'sporse'. If ham in a can is 'spam', then horse in a can is 'sporse'!
After picking out a selection of powdered meals and junk food, we trooped to the hotel our luggage was being held at for a shower and a sit down. We met up with the group for dinner then headed over to the train station, climbing aboard the train for the third section of the Trans-Siberian railway, a two night journey to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia!
No comments:
Post a Comment