Part 17: Second Day in Listvyanka (Lake Baikal)
Hotel: Mayak Hotel, 29 EUR/night incl. Breakfast
After a good night sleep it was time to check how the Mayak is for breakfast. While nowhere near as good as for example the Radisson earlier in the trip, it was for sure adequate enough for the price. Some breads, cold cuts, eggs, berry cakes, decent coffee and even some bright red caviar (which wasn't that good). It also included some downright weird items for breakfast such as chicken nuggets, which other people seemed to enjoy a lot.
After breakfast I retreated back to my room as I had some work to catch up on. Somehow I was still so tired from the last days that I also decided to take a nap. In the end, I did not have the time unfortunately to do as much as I initially planned to do (taking a 4WD ride on Lake Baikal to see
spectacular turquoise ice formations.
As I only had a few hours left until sunset, I decided to just take another stroll on the ice and perhaps get a beer somewhere. Of course, views were again amazing over the lake.
4WD car driving over the ice
The shoreline along the boulevard of Listvyanka
In the far distance I could see some parked cars on the ice and some people doing some work, so I decided to check it out. It turned out to be some locals cutting huge chunks of ice with chain saws to create some cubes and some ice statues/letters.
No idea what he is about to write.. something with Baikal I assume!
There was also an ice rink created here on the ice with chunks of ice. As it has been quite some years the last time I skated, I asked around if I could rent some skates somewhere. Like cycling it's just something you never unlearn – and Lake Baikal is definitely a fun spot to skate for a while.
I didn't skate for too long as it was absolutely freezing cold due to the clouds and strong wind today. As Listvyanka is quite spread out all along the main lakeside boulevard I checked Google Maps where the nearest pub was to warm up.
Nope, not today!
I managed to find an underground dive which seemed to be completely deserted except for some teenagers – who turned out to be actually running the place.
An hour and two cold beers later I was warmed up again. As it was almost sunset I decided to walk back to the hotel over the ice, hoping that there might be scenes as beautiful as the day before. It didn't look too promising though in the beginning as the sky just became only a bit more darker blue.
Walking on the ice..
When I was nearing my hotel, it did became quite spectacular again in a whole different fashion than the day before. While the day before was more of a classical sunset with the sky turning in all shades of red and orange, today was a full spectrum of clouds and sky turning in all shades of blue and purple.
As the sun was completely setting and I was fully exposed standing many feet from the shore on the ice, it was really time to walk back to the hotel.
Not wanting to walk much further in the cold, I decided to give the hotel restaurant a try. I was happy to find out that one of the two hotel restaurants is a Georgian one (serving food from the country, not the US state). I do love Georgian food – a lot! As I did not have lunch and was starving, I decided to just order all my favourites as I couldn't make up my mind to select just two.
Khinkali – Georgian dumplings. I never seen them black before – so they definitely looked weird. The taste was quite good. It was missing authentic spices, but they were very juicy from the inside (you suck out the juice inside during your first bite).
Adjaran khachapuri (cheese bread) – you mix the runny egg and the butter inside the bread by cutting it from the inside. Given the fact they used local cheeses instead of what the Georgians would normally use it was also quite good.
Pork shashlik – very nice as well.
I don't think the three dishes and the two beers were more than 15 EUR combined. Great value. Staff was excellent and the restaurant seemed to be very busy with Chinese tour groups.
I bought two more beers in the next-doors shop (gotta keep up the score on my Untappd account!) and called it a night as the next day I would again head back to Irkutsk for a last day in Siberia.