Lake Baikal and Olkhon Island

Lake Baikal has been a key feature in planning this trip and we dedicated 3 days to exploring the lake and the beautiful island of Olkhon. It’s the main tourist attraction in Eastern Siberia, but also an important religious area for the Buryat Shamans, the local indigenous people. Lake Baikal holds one fifth of the world’s fresh water and is approximately the size of Belgium! It is a lake that’s still forming and lies between two tectonic plates. There are about 3-4 tremors every day in the depths of the lake that can’t be felt on the surface. 

We booked a tour with Baikal Explorer (www.baikalex.com) and our tour guide Leonid picked us up from our hostel in Irkutsk on Saturday morning in a rather comfy Land Cruiser, in which we started the 7 hour journey to Khuzir, the main village on Olkhon. On the way we stopped at 1200 year old rock carvings depicting hunting in the Republic of Buryatia, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. We also stopped for some tasty lunch at a road cafe where Leonid ordered some Omul for us. Omul is a fish endemic to Lake Baikal, which, in this instance, was served cured. Despite Graham’s reservations about eating what looked like raw fish, it was really tasty! We then boarded the small car ferry to take us to Olkhon and had our first glimpse at the vast expanse of water, which looked rather chilly! 

Our guest house was wonderful, and toasty warm thanks to the wood burner in the hallway. That evening we drove to see holy Bukhan cape, which is a sacred site for the Shamanic people. Believers come from all over the world to visit the cape and to tie a colourful ribbon around the pillars and pay respect to the spirits. As long as the wind blows the ribbon, your wish will come true. We then returned to a wonderful home cooked meal at the guest house with fresh veggies from the garden. Had we visited before 2005, it may have been a different experience as the island didn’t have electricity before then. 

The next day we explored the east and the northern parts of the island, with some impressive 4wd manoeuvres from Leonid! The entire expanse of water freezes in the winter and you can do ice adventure tours with snow mobiles and ice diving! The lake is also home to the world’s only fresh water seals. The island has a beautifully varied landscape with steep cliffs, sandy beaches, forests of beautiful larch trees, whose needles had turned yellow, giving a lovely warm glow despite the freezing temperatures! We had more great home cooked Omul for lunch and later shared some travel stories with fellow travellers from China and South Korea at the the guest house. 

The island was wonderful, and our tour was the highlight of our trip, so far. We would love to see the island in Summer and Winter too, but I think we’ll fly to Irkutsk rather than the epic train journey next time! We headed back to our hostel in Irkutsk and prepared ourselves for our trip to Ulan-Ude, the capital of Buryatia. 

-F xx