We did not leave Irkutsk until around 7 in the evening. We had a bit of a lay in after the offroad experience, had a look around and then tried to find an internet cafe at around 2pm to do last blog. First 2 listed in lonely planet, on opposite sides of city centre, were now shut down, finally found one with the slowest connection imaginable. It took 4 hours to upload the pictures.
Leaving Irkutsk was rather difficult, we followed sign for Ulan Ude and other places and then you arrive at a sort of roundabout with 4 exits and no signs. Should be straight on then hey? No. We started heading heading out of town westerley on the road we came in on. Where's LNAV when you need it most. Drive back and pick another exit? still wrong. Third time lucky and we are on the right road.
Irkutsk is also another city that is blessed with really nice hilly and forest surroundings. As we left the city to head down to the southern tip of Lake Baikal, it was like driving in the swiss Alps, tight roads, up and down between thick pine forest. It was great to be driving here though we had a slow average speed. After a couple of hours we rounded a turning and saw Baikal, what a magnificent sight, It was approaching twilight and it is one of those moments that no camera could ever capture.
With still around 600 miles to go at this point, we were starting to think that Dave wasn't going to make it, he struggles to turn right and there was this funny burning smell coming form the engine to add to the blowing exhaust pipe note. We tried to deal with this as with all things by boyish humour and hope. We laughed about setting up a small memorial that said "Dave from Chesterfield dearly loved, 1989 - 2007" or erecting him in some town square alongside other great Russians "Peter the Great, Lenin, Yuri Gagarin and Dave".
Pressing on around the huge lake we lost the light and with a considerable distance to Ulan Ude, it was going to be another late one. We had decided as with many places before to try and get a hotel in the centre so we could have alook at the place in the morning briefly before leaving. We hit the town at around 3am and after a failed attempt to get a room in the best listed hotel in town (which is listed as best of bad bunch) we ended up in the Hotel Odon, listed as lacklustre. Lacklustre? it was the biggest hole either of us can remember staying in, certainly on this trip, it makes the moscow dump seem like the ritz. We had driven 392 miles and our reward was this disgusting scratchers gaff.
