Olkhon Island

Olkhon Island is situated just a six-hour minibus ride from Irkutsk in Lake Baikal, but it feels like a different world altogether.



As we left Irkutsk on a bumpy road the scenery started to get more and more rural, with little villages here and there. After a short ferry crossing onto the Island the road pretty much disappeared and the last few kilometers were more of a dirt track. We were really out in the back of Siberia now!



The Island itself is absolutely beautiful. There are some impressive hills covered in forests, grassy plains, and even some sandy beaches. Where ever you walk you can see cows wandering about (this is true of the villages as well as the fields, I nearly fell over a cow when I opened our door one morning) and sometimes a pack of dogs chasing them.



This was the first time we both really felt like we were traveling. Before here we had only seen cities and trains, but now we were really experiencing something new. The relaxed atmosphere was a welcome break from city-life. The traditional folk song concert (two ladies and an accordion in a cafe) organised by our hostel and a couple of rounds of local fire water also helped us to get into the truly shamanic frame of mind!



The only problem was that our camera broke (luckily only on the last day of our stay on the island) so we will have to find a new one either in Irkutsk or in Ulan Bator where we will be stopping next. But that's still a couple of nights train ride away...