Woke up at 9.30am for breakfast, this time we had a kind of flaky pastry filled with cottage cheese, which was nice but a bit sickly if you had more than one. Straight after breakfast it was Banya time again, this time I remembered to take my camera .
During my trip I want to try and capture all aspects to help people get a true reflection of out journey as a whole and not just paint a glam picture that isn't real. So to give an idea of where we were staying (bear in mind this is a homestay so the owners also use the same facilities). This was the toilet. Grim !
Then we set off for the hours drive to Irkutsk and then a few hours looking round the town.
When we got there we were greeted by our new host Galina. She showed us to our new home-stay which looked like it was in the middle of a very rough area. The building was like a very old block of flats with a solid metal door where you needed a key fob to get in. We then walked up 3 flights of very depressing-looking stone steps. When we got to our door there were three locks followed by a second door.
She did her best to draw us a plan of the area and explain where things were and also told us that even when we are inside we need to use at least two of the dead bolts. She told us not to take back packs out with us and to be careful of pick pockets. We had already been warned about Irkutsk by John and Denis so this only confirmed that it wasn’t a very safe area to be.
After a quick bowl of the usual noodles, we set off to have a look around. The city seems a lot bigger and more ornate than any we have seen so far. There are lots of statuses of various people (who’s names I can’t remember).
After a walk down to the lake we called in a local shop and bought some food for dinner and got home before it got dark. It feels like we are in a prison block rather than a homestay. And to be honest it's not a homestay like I imagined where you live with them you just basically stay in a house they must rent out. Galena lives just around the corner. She will be round at 4.15am with a packed breakfast as we get picked up at 4.30am and didn’t really fancy a proper sit down affair that early.
We get on the train bound for Ulaambaatar tomorrow and stay in Mongolia for a few nights.