Lake Baikal

The day started with some excited Russian airhostesses, who found Tim's big bike particularly exciting;

Once the excitement had died down, we headed off for a quick day trip to Lake Baikal - holder of 1/5 of the worlds fresh water, we were very quickly out of the city limits of Ulan-Ude, and were rewarded with great views over the feed rivers, with dense silver birch forests onall sides;

Enroute, we passed the local 'Territorial Army' out on their rounds;

We chose a more interestijng route to the lake, along some farm tracks;

The lake itself provided an excellent laundrette for John, who seemed to have found a muddy puddle to wallow in on route;

After the obligatory swim, we headed to the largest town on the south shore of the lake, but instead of some sort of lakeside resort, we only found a small ramshackle town, where the railroad had the prominent postion overlooking the lake. Nevermind, I guess the Victorians were not around to build piers for the Russkis !

At least we found a suana (banya) for some lunch;

So tomorrow, we start an 8 day trip through Siberia to Vladivostock - so no more updates for at least a week.