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Over the last couple of days I've been trying to make sure that I didn't forget to tell everybody about the first thing we saw when walking by Lake Baikal. I'm not quite sure how to put this but as we were walking down the large (very icey) hill to the lake, Sarah and I stopped to let a lada (!) past. I have neglected to tell you that Listvyanka (the town that we are staying in, on Lake Baikal) is full of dogs, both stray and domestic (so much so that you are followed everywhere by a chorus of barks!). The Lada was approaching fast as a group of dogs (or should I say pack) were in the street, most of which ran to the side. One dog just ran away straight down the street, at which point he accelerated (I'm told although didn't seem that way to me). He hit the dog (which rolled under the car and thankfully got up and ran away) and as they drove away smiling I noticed they had all gold teeth. Bloody Russians!!
Well that out of the way I can now catch up on the events since my last entry. The day after our recuperation day (Sarah's mainly but I wasn't complaining!) we spent the day in Irkutsk. The first two hours were spent in an internet cafe, updating our blogs and catching up with e-mails. Then we (Rolph, John, Adam, Sarah and me) did something I'm not proud of! We went to subway for a sandwich. We should have been submerging ourselves in a culture and our last proper meal on Russian soil was a subway! And to make matters worse it was horriblle (and that's being polite).
We did do a couple of cultural things in Irkutsk but it was like any other city, with it's statues and parks.
We were all so tired by the time we got on the train that we all just went to bed. We were awoken by Sarah telling us all that the toilet was only open for 10 minutes and would then be closed for at least 5 hours while we crossed the border. The next stop was the Russian border so we had to hand over our passports and have our cabin searched. We then set off for a total of 10 minutes (after 5 hours stuck on the train in one place) to stop again at the Mongolian border in which a more thorough search occured.
After both searches we realised that it had taken 8 hours to cross one border, but I guess that that is part of the experience!
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