Day 8: Are We There Yet?

IRKUTSK/LISTVYANKA — After four nights in a city hostel then three on a train, Kristina and I were at last looking forward to one of the two nights we'd booked in a proper hotel. Privacy, quiet, and hopefully laundry were just around the corner. We needed only to get ourselves from the train station in Irkutsk, to the village of Listvyanka, about 50 miles away on the shores of Lake Baikal. I required coffee in a desperate way, and Kristina was describing herself as "hangry" — except when one is in need of a shower. 

Adeline and Lorelei, who did not speak any Russian, were also headed to Listvyanka. They were using a Lonely Planet Trans-Siberian guidebook, which we could not read because it was in French. It advised them to look for bus 1. We were using directions emailed to us by our Russian travel agent. He said to look for bus 64. We did see a small, rusty van with the number 64 drive by, but it never returned. The bus numbered "1" was a firm no. 

Transportation in small cities can be difficult even with directions, particularly where one is less than proficient in the language, and ignorant to local custom. Here is a list of events that transpired for the four of us, as we attempted to get to the lake.

— We stood outside the train station for 40 minutes, looking confused, saying no to dozens of eager taxi drivers, then finally went inside and asked for help.

— We got on a TRAM numbered 1, and went to what we were pretty sure was the town center. 

— We stood on a street corner for 20 minutes, looking confused, then finally asked three different people for help. We understood very little of their words, but they all pointed in the same direction, and said the number 4.

— We went across the street and got into a large van with the number 4 on it, paid the driver, and got out at what we were pretty sure was the bus station. The driver sounded mad about something. We left.

Figure 1.0

— We chartered a minibus to Listvyanka because it was supposedly faster than the city bus. Then sat in the minibus for 40 minutes, while the driver smoked in the cab of another minibus, looking mad about something, waiting for the seats to fill. 

— Just before leaving, the seats directly in front of us were filled by two extraordinarily rank-smelling young men, their tattered bags, and their dog. 

— We drove to Listvyanka at about 100 miles per hour, eyes watering, then got out at what we were pretty sure was our stop, stepped over the dog with some difficulty, and waved goodbye to Lorelei and Adeline. 

I am still confused about how we arrived at each of those navigational decisions, feeling completely strange and lost between and through each new mode of transportation. But there we were nonetheless. Standing between a hillside and the shore of Lake Baikal, the town still a mile up ahead, we reviewed the rest of the directions that had been emailed to us: "At the stop four stops from town, hop off. It is up the hill a little bit. I hope you see the sign."

Lakeside.

It should have been even more confusing from here, but instead, we walked up the hill a little bit, saw a sign, and found the hotel. Our joy at this discovery was significant. 

The lodge, amid aging cottages and new construction. 

Baikalskaya Terema is a lodge made up of several log buildings, perched on a hillside over Lake Baikal. It is tucked just slightly into a narrow deciduous valley, so that a person can lean over the wide log of their balcony and see immediately below a few dozen gardens and neat homes, a small store and the golden spires of a church. Steep hills of birch ringed three sides of the village, which seemed to be expanding, the smell of new timber rich in the air. Just below the hotel a man worked all day putting in a new foundation, scraping on cement and placing blocks until the sun went down. 

From our room. 

Church under reconstruction. You can see the old timber toward the front, and the new, lighter timber they're installing in the back. 

Fish smoker.

We took a few hours to explore town that afternoon, but mostly we were content to stay on the hill, enjoying the seafood at the lodge restaurant, the very patient staff, and the beautiful view. For lunch we shared raw, lightly salted omul, a small whitefish. Kristina had dumplings — yes more dumplings — and I had borsch, all followed by coffee. 

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, this is so great how first we learned about standard local transportation, and now she is yet again telling us what she's eaten. Well, you're welcome. Next comes basic housekeeping. 

Guess which bed is Kristina's? (I'll give you a hint. The NOT disheveled one.) 

After a week of travel, we required laundry of some kind or another. When we saw a sign to this effect at reception, we rejoiced, and gathered our wilted belongings. The following ten minute conversation with the receptionist ALMOST ended with us paying fifty dollars for a load of laundry. Just before final decision time, we realized that the cost was per item. Four dollars for a pair of pants, three dollars per shirt, and two dollars PER SOCK. I didn't care if they were licked clean by unicorns, then dried delicately by the breath of a hundred kittens in tiaras. It wasn't happening. 

But the shower was piping hot, and a quick stir in the stall with the laundry soap I'd brought got the worst of the grime out. Soon we had our balcony properly draped, and when our clothes weren't dry by nightfall, we took them inside. We spread them on the heated bathroom floor, which was actually too hot to stand on in bare feet. 

I couldn't help but remember the time a few years ago, staying at a condominium in Moloka'i, when I'd gotten a formal written warning for having towels drying on the balcony for longer than the allotted four hours. And at no point were you allowed to dry clothes outside in this particular complex. Thank goodness for Russian people, who are very sensible.

 Too hot to stand on, perfect for drying jeans. 

When our exploring was done, when we'd eaten the food and hung the laundry, we walked to the hillside garden outside the banya for a sunset view of the village. Upon leaving the restaurant, Kristina waved to our kind — and also very attractive, I just have to say — waitress and said, "Dosve-later." This is a combination of the Russian goodbye, "do svedanya," and of course the English colloquial goodbye, "later."  

"Did the girl with a degree in Russian just say 'dosve-later?'" I said. Kristina just laughed, accustomed to the mix of English, Russian and Spanish that usually decorates her speech. 

Sometimes we joke that we know just enough Russian to get ourselves in trouble. We can ask some basic questions and exchange pleasantries, but this only leads to the very troublesome assumption that we know more than we actually do. But, regardless, we knew enough to get ourselves here.