Lake Baikal Is Huge!

I don't know about you, but I'd never heard of Lake Baikal before a few months ago when I started planning to take a train from Beijing to Russia. Apparently, though, it is by far the largest body of unfrozen freshwater in the world. Seriously, by far. You could fit all five Great Lakes in it with room to spare. And, you can drink it, no problem. It's really tasty.

This was our second and final stop before getting on a train for three days and four nights to Moscow across Russia. Our first was in the capital of Mongolia, which we cut short in order to not be rushed for the last part of our trip, and the second was a two day stint by the lake and nearby Irkustk.

While there, we sampled the local fare:

These were seriously our only two options, meat skewers or smoked fish. We did not complain.

We checked out the local boat scene:

The "Bond" movies seem less fictional with each passing day.

And even took a speedboat ride of our own to check out the mountains and feel the wind in our hair.

Mountains

Windswept

This is all after a night of fraternizing with local Russians in a great bar in a tiny coastal town. They did not speak English, we do not speak Russian, this did not stop them from pouring us obscene shots of whiskey (I don't know why, maybe they were too drunk to remember to order vodka?), challenging Andre to arm wrestling matches and patting Jake's curly hair. We had no fear of sleeping the next day away, though, the sun stays up here until near 1am. It's bizarre and we love it.