A taste of “home” in Irkutsk

When we passed a few hours in Irkutsk before our bus to Olkhon Island, we happened to walk past this place……

Knowing we’d have one night back in Irkutsk before heading on east, we all agreed that we’d return here for a little taste of "home”.  We may not be “real” Belgians, but after 2 years of the boys attending a wonderful school in Belgium and all the friends and good memories we have there, Belgium definitely has a big place in our hearts.  So I may or may not have walked in giddily exclaiming, “Goedenavond!!” to every server I passed…..even though none of them appeared to speak Flemish or French.

Bob and I were very excited to see some of the Belgian beers that we know and love on the menu.  They didn’t have La Chouffe (my favorite), but they did have Grimbergen Blond on tap!

You know you’ve got some Belgium in you when the waiter shows up with your beer and your first thought is, “That’s not in the right glass.” (This was a Delirium Tremens, not a La Trappe.)  While I drank it happily, the Belgian in me couldn't help but think that would have tasted even better in the correct glass.

The food was OK, but it was definitely not true Belgian cuisine.  You know you’ve got even more Belgium in you when you critique the crispiness and cut of the french fries and find yourself shocked that they don’t have mayonnaise to go with them.

And when you realize that the Belgian waffles they’re selling have stuff like chicken and/or pizza toppings on top??  Dat is helemaal niet Belgische.

So while the food at this “taste of home” wasn’t authentic (at all), the Belgian beers tasted fantastic.  And with black, yellow, and red all around, we felt a bit closer to Belgium, as well as our friends and memories there, for a couple of hours.  And that alone was worth the visit. J

Off-road adventures & playing chicken with cows on Olkhon Island

One of Russian stops we were most excited to make was at Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia.  Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest and oldest lake.  It contains about 20% of the world’s freshwater supply; more water than all of America’s Great Lakes combined.  In all our research, we kept reading that Olkhon Island (about a 6-7 hours’ trek north from Irkutsk) was really a highlight of the lake area.  So that's where we headed!

(The arrow on this map points to Lake Baikal.)

To get to Olkhon, we took our third overnight train leg, from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk.  As we were waiting to get on the train, we watched a large group of men hauling bag after massive, heavy bag towards the train.  I’m pretty sure they were North Korean because they were all wearing identical red pins, with a face, right above their heart.  They were also carrying boxes and boxes of food, cartons of eggs, bags of rice…..and there was one guy, wearing dark sunglasses, who was clearly in charge of all the passports.  It was an interesting sight.

The train was definitely the oldest we’d been on so far, so we were glad that it was only for 17 hours.  We arrived in Irkutsk mid-morning and had a few hours to kill before our mini-bus shuttle to Olkhon.  We walked a bit, had something to eat, and Facetimed with my parents before we made our way to the bus station to start the trip to Olkhon.

The mini-bus to Olkhon was an adventure in and of itself.  We drove through beautiful fields, which passed by quickly…I’m not sure if our driver was trying to draft off other cars or if tailgating them that closely just allowed him to make tighter swerves as he passed them by moving into the oncoming traffic lane.  I decided to stop watching the road ahead and focus on the fields. J

At one point we stopped to pick up another passenger and Bob took this quick shot…

Some of the route was paved, but there was a long stretch of unpaved road during which we bounced and jostled around quite a bit.  I took this video from my cozy seat amongst luggage in the far back of the van…..

We got to the ferry point and had to wait about an hour until it was our turn to get on a boat.  While waiting, we had an ice cream and climbed the nearby rocks for our first views of the lake and Olkhon Island.

During the short ferry ride, Colin also contemplated one of life’s great mysteries…..his belly button.  We’re doing some deep thinking this year, for sure.

Olkhon Island is significant not only for its picturesque views but also because of its importance in the shaman religion.  Several of the most holy sites are located on Olkhon Island, which is sparsely populated by native Buryats and Russians.  We could see the signs that tourism is growing, but Olkhon Island is still quite rustic—there are no paved roads, cows freely roam the main village, and the island only got electricity in 2005. 

After the ferry, we resumed our speedy drive along bumpy dirt roads until we got to the main village of Khuzir.  The bus dropped us off at our hotel, which, while rustic, was comfortable and very well located.  We were only about 150 meters from a beach and also one of the most important holy spots of the whole island.

We told the boys they could spend a lot of time on Olkhon Island playing on the beach, which Colin in particular was very excited to hear.  We even got in a couple of hours of beach time on our first night…

Then we had a simple dinner in a Buryat café, where the boys eagerly ate a Buryat sheep’s meat soup and the local version of meat dumplings.

The next day, we had breakfast and immediately made our way to the beach.  With wildfires burning west of us, there was unfortunately a lot of smoke in the air which made it hard to see much.  The boys were OK breathing-wise (I was keeping a close eye on Emmett, who has mild asthma), and they were thrilled to play in the water and sand.  The lake is about 9 degrees Celsius (about 48 degrees Fahrenheit), so it was a cold and quick swim.

About 1 PM, a light breeze turned into a fairly stiff wind……while it was a bit cold, it started blowing the smoke away, which was fantastic!  We were also able to easily fly Emmett’s pocket kite.

As we walked up to the top of the cape nearby, we chatted with a German couple who had been on the island for 3 days already.  They said this was the first clear moments they’d had yet.  While the skies still weren’t crystal clear, the views from the cape were pretty impressive…

The posts with ribbons are a tradition in this area.  The colored ribbon (any color, except black since that’s the color of death) are tied to the posts as prayers.

From the cape, we walked back to our hotel, cleaned up, and then walked into “town” to explore Khuzir and have an ice cream just off the main "square".  That's the square behind Bob and the boys (as well as the side of the island's only grocery store).

Then we headed to Baikal View Café for dinner overlooking the cape and Lake Baikal.

The next day, we got up early with the boys so that we could get in a few hours at the beach before taking a tour to the north part of Olkhon Island.  Both our guidebook and the hotel staff said it was the most picturesque place to visit, and they were both definitely right.

We spent the day driving along bumpy dirt roads in an old Russian van….our guide kept referring to our van as the “foreigners’ van”.  Out of the approximately 80 people on the tour everyone was Russian except for 2 Germans, 4 Chinese, and us.  This was our van for the day....outside, and in (cozy).  The picture of the road really does not do justice to how deep the ruts were!

We took in the beauty of Lake Baikal and different capes and cliffs of the island. 

We hiked out to Cape Khoboy, the northernmost point on Olkhon Island.  While we hiked, the drivers made the group a soup with omul, a relative of the salmon that is native to Lake Baikal.

We also stopped at this point, which was called the Rock of Love.  Apparently childless Buryat couples would come to this point, and if they wanted to ask the gods for a girl they would go sit on the right rock....if they wanted to ask for a boy, they'd go the top of the left rock. 

We found this fun fact out after our whole family had already climbed to the top of the "girl rock".  Another child is definitely not a souvenir we intend to have from this trip, though.

At our last stop, a guy in his mid-20’s bounded over to us with a huge smile on his face and asked, ‘Where are you from?!?”.  When we said “America”, his smile got even bigger and he said we were the first Americans he had ever met.  I hope we made a good impression....I had just sort of yelled at Colin to take his shoes off before putting his feet in the lake, so the jury's out on that. J

We returned to our hotel, and the boys went back to the beach to finish off an exciting soccer tournament…of two teams, with one player each.  Emmett was particularly happy to switch out players on his team, calling out, “And now #27, Emmett, is switching out with number #13, Emmett”….the options are limited when you’re traveling in a small group.

We ate dinner in the village, where we all had more omul in different forms (omul meatballs, omul and chickpea soup, and omul medallions stewed in milk). 

We also tried, unsuccessfully, to pay for our hotel, something we’d been trying to figure out since we first arrived and realized that there had been a slight miscommunication/mistranslation with our hotel.  We did not fully understand that 1.  They did not accept credit cards at the hotel; 2.  There were no banks or ATMs on the island; and 3.  Their PayPal account, linked to their office 6 hours’ away, could only accept Russian cards.  We have some emergency funds in alternative currencies, but that still was not enough to cover our total bill.  Oops…….fortunately we were able to stop by their Irkutsk office after returning from the island to take care of our bill.

In order to get back to Irkutsk, we took another shuttle van.  Everything was moving along just fine until……..

It's definitely an adventure when your beater Russian shuttle van breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Siberia……25 km from the nearest tiny village.

We spent about an hour on the side of the road while the driver worked hard to get our van up and running again.  While he did that, the boys and the Chinese girls played together.  We played “Simon Says” in Chinese, English, and Flemish….

And the kids all played Parcheesi in the back of the van.  It was so cute to hear the giggles and cheers as they played together….it’s always heartwarming to see how children can play together, despite language and cultural differences.  Wouldn’t it be a great world if we adults could all do the same?

With the van up and running again, we continued on our way back to Irkutsk.  We passed a lot of cows roaming freely along the highway and through the fields.  The “cow crossing” signs were amusing…..

The cows who would not move out of the road, however, were not so amusing.  Playing chicken with a Russian cow as you barrel towards it in a barely hanging on Russian van is not an experience I’d suggest for the faint of heart.  But it does make for a great travel memory!