30 Hours

30 Hours. That was how long it took us to reach our accommodation in Listvyanka, Irkutsk. The route as going to be, Ulaanbaatar to Ulan Ude to Irkutsk to Listvyanka.  We were saying bye to the lovely Mongolia and hello to the land most of us never thought we’d ever visit, Russia. We started the morning early as our lovely Zaya hostel host prepared breakfast for us early at 6am and arranged transport to the bus terminal as well as helped us reserve seats on the bus. By 730am, we were off. It was a pretty gruelling 12 hour drive. The longest bus ride i had ever sat in was maybe, 7 hours? So a 12 hour ride was a challenge. Much to my surprise, the bus didn’t have strong enough heating, meaning our jackets and boots were on the entire time. After about 7 hours into the ride, we reached the border of Mongolia and Russia. We passed the Mongolia border with ease, but we had an almighty scare at the border to Ulan Ude. My friends and i were the last group of people to get our passports checked. The ladies at the immigration counter had an issue with our visas and our passports. They seemed confused that our surnames and first names were reversed on the visa when compared to our passports. They took a long time, continually checking and typing stuff on their computer.  Meanwhile, we had started a mini-panic because we were afraid that the bus would simply take off and that we would be stranded. I was getting slightly angry because this was not a problem we had brought on ourselves for negligence. Our group had followed the instructions and provided all necessary details for our visa. If there was any issue, it would be at the fault of their immigration system. Worst-case scenario planning started to begin in my head but luckily, the woman at the counter chopped my passport and let me through. To my even bigger relief, the bus driver was waiting there for the group of us and had not just taken off (which would be in his self-interest). So after this debacle, it was another couple of hours till we reached Ulan Ude. A stroke of luck that we were blessed with was a Russian-speaking Mongolian lady travelling in the same bus. As the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, we had no clue on how to reach the railway station. Luckily, this kind lady called us a cab (the distance was far), which could only be done in Russian. After about 25 minutes, we reached the train station. After about another 45 minutes of queuing, we found out that our 10pm train was fully booked and the next available train to Irkutsk was at 5am. So we had a, 9 hour wait on our hands. Fortunately, there was a lounge available that we could stay in and keep our luggage safe (for a nominal fee of course). So we headed out to look for dinner (it was late so we had no intention of going far). We found a small business just outside of the railway station. It was a decent meal for a decent price. After which we cafeteria playing cards and talking in the began lounge (there was literally no one else there). The staff there became very interested when they learnt we were from Singapore. They requested to change their Russian roubles with our Singaporean dollar. I ended up changing my 2 dollar note while Sid changed his few dollar coins. Soon we all took a short nap and the 5 am train ride was upon us. For a business class seater, i was delighted with the train ride. It was comfortable to say the least. We took a good nap and we were all awake for the last 2/3 hours of the ride. An interesting part was that we met some Russian soldiers on transfer! It was pretty cool meeting and seeing them (intimidating as well). Once we got of at Irkutsk, we decided to take a cab and this was a big mistake. We initially turned down some crazy prices and accepted one form a man who said 600 roubles. In hindsight, 600 to transport 4 people to an area that was 1 hour away seemed folly. After the hour ride, where we mysteriously smelled vodka from time to time, we arrived at our accommodation. Suddenly, our cab driver said 1000 roubles per person. Not being able to speak the language , the exhaustion of the travel on us as well as the fear of such an imposing Russian (with tattoos all over his body), caused us to cave and pay the fee. The total rip-off accommodation dampened our mood. To make matters worse, our accommodation had mislead us as there was no wifi available. They said that wifi was “available in public spaces”. That led me to believe that there was wifi in some kind of common room in the accommodation. However they meant public area such as other restaurants and eateries. The double whammy of being ripped off and being misled about wifi both infuriated me as well as upset me. It took awhile for all of us to move on. I guess this are lessons learnt for novice travellers such as ourselves. Listvyanka was a pretty decent city, mostly because Lake Baikal was just next to it. We could have a walk on the frozen lake any time we felt like. We started the stay with trying Omul, the fish native to Baikal. It was nice, with a delightful taste. The problem was the smell. It got all over my wool gloves and neck warmer. Even after repeated washing for days, the smell persisted. I just have to hope when i reach Moscow that the washing machine there wold be able to remove the stench 😦 After some extensive walking we found a decently priced restaurant about 20 minutes walk from our house. The food was delicious inside and the wifi was strong. The people inside loved us as once again they had never seen Singaporeans before. Once again, they asked if we could provide them with some dollar notes to put on the wall, which we were happy to do. We took our time to use the wifi as it was 30 hours and more with no data. Soon we headed back, after taking in the magnificent sunset at the lake, to prepare for our much anticipated snowmobile tour of Lake Baikal.