Eastbound

Irkutsk & Lake Baikal

Current location: Tokyo, Japan

Seems like it's about time to start bringing this blog up to speed. So here goes.

I spent a week in Irkutsk, walking around and admiring the old buildings, which for some reason brought to mind Vientiane and Phnom Phen. For a while this seemed odd to me, but then I learned that when the city burned down they brought architects from Europe to rebuild it, and as it happens, when the French were laying down the law in South East Asia, they liked to build the cities in the way of the Old Country.
I think they even call Irkutsk the Paris of the East, but having never been to Paris, I can't say if there is any resemblance. (Though my host Phillip ventured that the people who coined the name had probably never been to Paris either.)
Not that the town is all European. Large parts were spared by the fire, and these parts are still mostly original wooden houses, which seem to grow out of the ground.

After a week in Irkutsk I made a trip to Listvyanka, and went scuba diving in Lake Baikal.
The lake being pretty damn deep, and my license only allowing me to dive to 18 meters, I mostly just hovered by this seemingly never ending slope.

I also made a two-day trip to the island of Olkhon, where I rode a mountain bike in the woods, checked out one of the holiest buddhist stupas in the world, and drank from a revered spring.