I think my eyeballs are freezing

A Pre-warning before reading this... it may be long because I may get too over excited and tell you stupid details you don't need to know. I've fell a month behind writing my diary so this is our only records now apart from memories and of course I'm writing it and not Harri. Please switch on the kettle now.

So I'll start with Olkhon Island on Lake Baikal- out nearly deserted paradise. We arrived after a normal russian bus journey with a flat tyre, a dead engine and towed by the bus in front. We were then swept into the nearest babuska's house where we spent 3 days trying to speak russian! Olkhon Island was such a good break from the Russian cities we'd visited along the way and it was fantastic to be able to breath again :) except for the frozen snot. We also met our first big group of travelers at Nikita's a local hostel. We even met a couple who went to Brum uni and studied Physics- but a little older than us. We toured round the Island in an old Russian mini bus that I swear defied gravity and I fell out of my seat and rolled across the floor. It was definitely the coldest weather we had experienced- I had only my eyes showing and thought they were going to freeze. I found some natural sponge.. but its now stinking out my bag!

Back in Irkutsk we picked up our Mongolian Visas without any problems – very happy. We met up with a few people we met on the Island and a local girl we met on the train. She showed us a bit around the city and took us to try local Buryati food. Late at night we caught a train to Ulan Ude and slept.

Ulan Ude is west meets east. The town wasn’t too different from most cities we’d seen but the people were changing and the gers had started to pop up everywhere. We stayed in the outskirts with our cser Vlad, who lived in a classic wooden russian house… with no running water and an outside toilet. I forgot to mention we had an outside toilet ( or hole in the floor) for our time on Olkhan too- its an interesting experience going to toilet at – 25 ° , things freezes very quickly. We didn’t do too much in Ulan Ude as it was too cold so spent our time doing the essentials, food, internet, coffee, museum.

We were up at 6 to catch our bus to Ulaan Bataar in Mongolia, annoyingly not one bus would stop for us, so we ended up walking/ jogging for 40 mins to get there. I’ve found out I don’t deal well with jogging at -25 at the side of a polluted road. Anyways.. we made it :).
The bus was quite comfy but all the windows were frozen on the insides for the whole day so we made a peep hole to see the beautiful landscapes we were passing. 14 hours later we arrived in the capital, met some other travelers and got to our hostel, golden gobi. This hostel is pretty cool, lots of vodka and musical instruments. We are now planning our tour around Mongolia we just need to find other people who are crazy as us to spend a few weeks here.

Also mum don’t worry about korea. We had a email from EPIK and they said it wont effect us.. the media blows things up a lot more…

Lots of frozen love.

p.p.s i forgot that we saw a truck dragging two dead carcasses horse/cow... only in russia.

written by  harripix on November 25, 2010 from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
from the travel blog: harripix's Travel Blog
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