Month: June 2025

We were glad to get out of Sukhe Bator. The hotel might have been impressive 20 years ago but was very run down although the bed was comfortable and clean … Read more

We got a taxi to the bus station and booked tickets on a mashrutka to Khyagte, the last Russian city before the Mongolian border. The scenery changed from a forest … Read more

Today we went to see the open-air Ethnographical Museum located on a gently-sloping hillside among beautiful pine forests about 20 kms north of the city centre. We waited about 2 … Read more

This was basically a lazy day after a nice breakfast. We walked round Baikal Plaza (a massive square in front of the hotel), noting a massive statue of Lenin’s head … Read more

On 22nd June, Anna at the Ibis hotel in Irkutsk kindly booked us on to the 09.07 train from Irkutsk to Ulan Ude and, after eating an early breakfast, we … Read more

Our trip to Lake Baikal involved getting to Listvyanka, where the Angara River flows out of the lake on its way north to the Arctic Ocean via the River Yenisey. … Read more

After waking up at 11.00 am we missed breakfast but the hotel put something together for us: Kasha (porridge) and derevenskii zaftrak (village breakfast) consisting of a sausage, tomato and … Read more

The first day at Irkutsk was spent sleeping in the morning and then walking down Gagarin Street along the eastern bank of the Angara River in the afternoon The main … Read more

Days 23-28 (16th-20th June) Moscow to Irkutsk We got the metro to Komsomolskaya metro station and, having got lost as usual, found ourselves in the Kazanskaya mainline station. There are … Read more