Nikita's Homestead on Lake Baikal (Andrew)

As I write this Im sitting in the dining hall of nikita's hostel on the edge of lake Baikal. The building reminds me of a swiss ski chalet. Everything is made of wood and the walls have old photos of a snowy lake baikal and a braid of fake corn hang underneath some antlers . An elderly Russian man is playing the piano and outside it is pouring rain. It is very cosy inside though, everyone has big cups of tea and there are some kittens huddled around one of the wooden pillars. There's a faint, but unmistakable, odor of omul, Baikal 'salmon', (but its more like a Herring).

Nikitas has about 30 closely built wooden buildings. Some look better suited for a european ski town, others look like wild west saloons. All the pillars have smiling faces carved into them and the pathways between buildings are edged with sunflowers. its a bit of a Potemkin village (is that a term i should avoid?), but its really nice.

The scenery here reminds me of newfoundland. There are small pine trees in places but most of the land is rolling green hills and the coast is very rocky.

The people here in the dining hall make a good cross section of the kind of people who do the transsiberian. There seem to be two kinds travellers.

Young people, sometimes travelling solo, sometimes in twos, in their 20s or early 30s are one group. You often hear these people talking about what they 'used' to do. For example Im sitting behind four Americans , two travelling solo and a couple. The couple were lawyers in DC, another guy used to do mergers in New York and the fourth was an IT specialist. These are the same people who talk about "trying to get into Tibet" when you're in China but they're hardly hippies. They're all wearing gortex and have digital slr cameras. Somehow I think the guy currently complaining about the "high ping" he's getting from the wireless might still have mergers in his future.

Then there are older european couples, pairs of 'Ritas' only less adventurous. Some of these couples are really roughing it, as Rita is. Others are having quite a relaxing time. At Nitika's, for example, there is a free 'banya' (traditional sauna), and a pay one where you get massages. There's also one Cameron and I found a ways up the beach, but I'll save that for another post.

other stuff:

People love Putin. You can even buy creepy cult of Putin souvenirs like statues and fridge magnets that show Putin at one angle and Medvedev at another angle. 'To Putin" goes over big when you're drinking with the locals.

The military fatigues with sandals look is really popular, as are track suits, for men. Men wear their hair in a either a mullet or buzz cut. Women wear high heels at the grorcery store and smoke a lot. I constantly feel like Im on the set of Rocky V.

Hitchhikers have it even better here than in Mongolia. In Cameron's post on the 16 person van trip he failed to mention that at least one person was a hitchhiker. At one point the van even stopped and waited (engine running) while our hitchhiker friend ran into a fish store.

An excerpt from the book of short stories im going to write after our journey, 'adventures on the bristol scale '(working title), . This is from 'Cameron finds tp rock'


Cameron galloped into the lake laughing and spashing the water high into the air. "The waters of lake Baikal " Cameron yelled to Andrew, drawing cupped hands to his lips and drinking deeply, "Is so clean and so clear..that swimmers are said to get vertigo ". Unfortunately for Cameron, it is also said (and not just in russia) that people who drink near 'tp rock '(or poo rock as it has sometimes been called) get very ill.

Is this another peanut fiasco? Will this Cameron character ever catch a break? I guess we'll both have to wait for the full version.


In closing.. Google analytics is showing a sustained spike in readership coming from india, so we'd like to give a special shout out to our readers in Bangalore and Mumbia. Keep it real guys.

Sushi, sumo wrestling, deflationary pressure, Hiro Hito, Pokemon! Let's see if we can't up those numbers from Japan Google!