Leaving Olkhon and lake baikal almost frozen

We left Olkhon on Friday morning, as it was bright out we could see some of the island as we traveled to the ferry. We got there early, well maybe not as we didnt know what time the ferry was leaving at but we had to wait for about 30 minutes before we got on the ferry.

It wasn't too bad as we were entertained by some locals who were trying to take a boat from the lake. They had their boat trailer in the water and the boat mounted on it but they could not get the trailer out of the lake. The edge of the lake was frozen but not strong enough to hold the weird of their van so they had the boat trailer tied to the van by a long rope. The van appeared to have two speeds, full speed or stop. So he'd go full speed and the boat trailer would crash into the ice at the edge of the lake but it wouldn't get to the shore. This continued until the boat engine fell into the lake. I didn't take any photos as I figured they wouldn't be too happy about that.

Martin and I were saying to each other that they should get two planks of wood and use them as ramps to get the wheels of the trailer out of the ice. Eventually someone of them thought similar and arrived with two planks of wood but rather then use them as ramps he used them as wedges and tried to lift the trailer using them. It looked quite funny but after a few attempts it did work. Once the boat was out they celebrated with Vodka and then came over to start the ferry and take us to the mainland.

View from the boat of the frozen lake

The lake had frozen considerably over the past few days so I took a short video of the ice breaking as we traveled across the lake but I can't upload it because of this proxy..

More frozen lake

Shaman Rock on Olkhon

Olkhon is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world. We were staying in Khuzhir, a small village on the western coast. They don't have running water but they do have electricity which they only got in recent years....

Khuzhir on Olkhon Island

There were no tours and the mountain bike hire guy was on holidays so we had to walk everywhere. This meant we were restricted in what we could do. Khuzhir is closed to Shaman rock so we went in that direction. We soon discovered that we had a pack of dogs following us. They were quite friendly and kept us company for the day.

One of the dogs

 More dogs

We climbed up Shaman rock, well Martin did, I gave up after about 20 minutes and took some pictures instead. If you look closely at the following picture you can see martin at the summit.

Shaman Rock on Olkhon Island

After about 4 hours we went back to the village to see if we could find a Starbucks, surprisingly they didn't have one but they had a coffee shop which like everything else was closed for winter.

Cafe on Olkhon Island is closed for Winter

We inquired about Internet access and wifi also but it turns out that was closed for Winter too. We thought it was very funny so when I decided to start a blog I thought it was a suitable name. Finally here is one of my favorite photos from Olkhon island.

View of Lake Baikal

I'm writing this post from China where youtube, blogger, facebook and so on are all blocked. I'm using a proxy to access them but its painfully slow so I'm only using small versions of the photos as the upload is very very very very slow via the proxy.

A guided tour without a tour guide

Here is how the conversation went when we were checking into the guesthouse on Olkhon Island.

Martin - Do you have any rooms available?
Guest House - Yes
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Me - Are there any other tourists here?
Guest House - Yesterday 11 guests, today just you.
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Guest House - Would you like to go on excursions?
Martin - Yes
Me - What are the excursions?
Guest House - There is one excursion, a guided tour of the island. You go in a bus around the island with a guide and you visit scenic areas and have a picnic before you return in the evening.
Me & Martin - Sounds good we'll do it.
Guest House -  there is no tour guide in winter
Me - thats OK we'll still do it
Guest House - I book it for you for tomorrow?
Me & Martin - Yes


We went to our room. 5 minutes later there is a knock on the door and the lady comes in to explain that there is no excursion as there is too much snow.