We left the hostel as soon as we could before the lady could ask us for more money. We were soon in Irkutsk and went to sleep in the van on the roadside. In the morning we went to find the hostel where our friend worked. Russians do not do signs! We went down some dodgey alleyway and into a building which we could only assume was derelict! One shitty little sign for the whole thing. After speaking to our friend she advised us to head up in the van as it would be cheaper than a tour.
The road was terrible! But he scenery was so good it more than made up for it so moods where still good, as we drove he four hours to the ferry. The que for the ferry was pretty big and not many boats on each time so I took a walk up a hill nearby overlooking baikal, wow! The view was incredible! The hill was a cliff on the other side down to Baikal, with cliff birds of some type living in it and I spent an hour chilling with my feet over the edge and the birds flying right past.
When I asked the price of the ferry the guy spoke no English but another man did and asked for me, he just said the answer was no... Where we not alowd on the ferry? Back to he van and once we were at the front we found it was actually a free ferry! Tidy!
Tarmac has never reached Olcon island! The roads where mud tracks that had a similar effect to rumble strips for the next 15km, slow progress but perhaps the most beautiful scenery yet.
The main village on the island is tiny and most traffic was 4x4's. We headed to the beach to sleep by Bailkal, the road deteriorated further until... Yep we were stuck deep in sand! A school trip came past and tried to help us out but no luck. Beers in hand, we jacked the van up, found wood and dug until we could get the wood under the wheels. Finally Nobby managed to drive us out, we strapped e planks to the roof thinking how lucky we where to have wood easily to hand.
In the morning we went for a bike ride and ended up at the view point that is on all the guides of Baikal. Peaks like three cliffs bay, birds swooping round our heads, Buddhist pillars tied in ribbons and the crystal clear Baikal beneath us. This was amazing, an hour of soaking it up and we had to make a move.
We where going to have to make good time to get to the border so we chose to drive shifts until we got there. We made slow time on the poor roads and it wasn't long before we decided just to head to ullanbataar rather than go to our preferred destination for nadaam, Gengis khans birthplace where we were hopeful to be aloud in the wrestling tournament. Ullanbataar would be awesome though, a much bigger spectacle. 20km from the border and Big Sal had enough! She stopped working...
After turning her off and on we would get a couple of km out of her then nothing... This happened a few times then we (Nobby) decided to have a good look. He was not hopeful as he'd already had a look, he tried everything electrical and oiled all the connections, boom! We where back in business!
The border was surreal! A ladies car was leaking petrol, a bloke was explaining this to her, as part of his explanation he threw hai fag on the petrol! Obviously it set on fire and luckily the car had rolled far enough forward that it didn't follow in flames! After this we had to collect about a dozen stamps and then we were through... Nope we got sent back for more stamps, I lost shotgun and went in to find stamps a tough looking official was looking through my papers, then his phone went off, ringtone Evanescence! Couldn't not laugh. After being given then run around one of the younger workers took pity on me and sorted it then shushed me and came and jumped into the van so he could see his mate out of the checkout border control.
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