February 23

Sarah, Sacha and me- a drunken drunken evening

An early morning. I went to the bus station the day before but they had sold out of bus tickets for MRS, the town closest to Olkhon. I decided to just go and see if I could pay a driver to stick me into the minibus even though there were no tickets. Michael & David (Austrian guys who told me that The Sound of Music is NOT populat in Austria) and Yann & Jerome (French guys in the first month of a 10 month backpacking excursion in Asia) all had tickets so we went to together and I found a nice driver who let me squeeze in. 300 rubles and 5 hours later, we were in MRS, trying to find a ride to Khuzir, the main town on Olkhon. After a few hours of trying to communicate to people, we finally got a man to stuff the 5 of us into his tiny car and take us to the town. We were completely smooshed into this tiny car as this man takes us careening off the road straight onto the ice, where he sped across it for about 15 minutes and then up onto the island, where we had some near misses but arrived safe and unharmed.


view from the backseat

We were headed for Nikita’s Homestead, the famed lodge in Khuzir with stunning views, communal meals and a great reputation. It is a little community on the cliffs of Khuzir run by Nikita and his wife. The houses are all handmade out of wood and additions were being added. Rustic and peaceful. We weren’t disappointed. The 5 of us got a big room complete with our own wood stove and green toilet. There are no showers at Nikita’s, only banyas, which are steam rooms with basins of cold and hot water that you can mix to douse yourself. Meals are included in the price of the room and at 600 rubles (roughly $25) it was a great deal.

It is stunning here. The coldest I have ever been in my entire life times 10 for sure. Frigid.

We arrived for dinner and had smoked omul fish, rice and a root vegetable salad. Apparently all meals will be a variation on this and that they pride themselves on having at least 33 ways to prepare the omul, which is indigenous to Lake Baikal. A few guys played an accordion and a guitar as we finished eating and everyone had broken out their vodka bottles and were doing toasts. We lingered at dinner and met up with Sarah and Aaron, a couple from the UK in their first month of a journey to Oz, where they would work for a year on working visas. We were invited to join into a group of Russians there on a holiday (this weekend is some sort of Russian Veteran’s Day) and passed around shots of vodka and sang songs in English and Russian. The Beatles were all we could come up with that they knew so we did some singing. Someone proposed a singing competition, with each nationality having to sing a song. Aaron, Sarah and I lumped together as the English group and performed a rousing rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes as we stood on the benches and had everyone join us. We got points for group participation for sure, since the French, Austrian and Russian songs were all of the slower variety.

It was a late and drunken evening, but new friendships were made and good times had by all.

view from Nikita's