So one morning we woke up in Ulan Baatar Mongolia, less than 24 hrs later, after a 12 hour bus ride and 4 hour train ride, at 4 in the morning, we arrived at a snow covered wood cabin next to Lake Baikal, Russia, with a man named Federov.

Federov was the host of the cabin we found on Airbnb. After a few hurried last minute messages back and forth, we gave him our train schedule but had no idea when we were going to be picked up, certainly didn’t expect him there at the ungodly hour of 3:30 am, but as we got off the train in the midst of a heavily snowing night at a tiny closed train station, half wondering if we were going to be spending the next few hours freezing in the snow, there he was! We could not be more surprised and grateful. What service! I have to say after a few days in Russia that people may not smile much here, but most are extremely kind and try to be helpful when it comes down to it. Even after we explain that we don’t speak Russian with mime they would keep talking to us as if we did. Maybe it has to do with the 17 hours daylight?

Lake Baikal is the second biggest lake in the world and also the deepest. I was hoping the lake was still frozen enough to walk on – in the winter time the ice can be more than a meter deep and they actually run public buses over the ice to an island in the lake – but when we got there it was mostly melted already. It was very pretty anyway.

Most of the traveler tales about Baikal we heard about usually seem to involve a car getting stuck in the ice or mud. In our case it was no different. Here is a man digging his car out of the mud.

It looked like he’s done this before.

Next day we ended up in Irkuskt. We got to our pink birthday cake of a cheap hotel and pressed the elevator to go to the fourth floor, unknowingly the door opened at third and surprise! We stepped into a floor entirely covered in thick carpet glue, with no warning sign. After a few expletives in our now glue-covered shoes we get to the correct floor and open our room, surprise again! The room was filled with so many huge house plants that it looked like a jungle. So turns out the hotel is under renovation and things are a little disorganized, Russian style.

The day was Victory day in Russia, one of the biggest public holidays here honoring the Russian defeat of Nazi German forces during WWII. The streets were filled with an electric energy and flag waving people, most of them drunk.