Onwards to Mongolia

After our surprise dinner experience in Itkutsk, we decided to make like salmon and head to the water. 100km of some very tough hills (12% grade in parts) and hatsu held up like a champion, no clutch slippage a steady 60km/hr. Lake baikal turns out to be simply gorgeous, a 1200 km lake with the banks flanked by impressive mountain ranges still thankfully unlogged. Our attempts to camp along the river were less than successful, involving our finding the Russian equivalent of a resort catering to whistlin' dixie types and eminem's trashy relatives. Turns out our instincts to leave are spot on, as a woman who speaks excellent English tries to make us a "second offering", letting us know that we could have a room with hot water, if we liked. When we waver, she lets us know that the "accident" that happened with the German tourists was a one time thing, and won't happen again. Besides they have a good fence. Goodbye, is all we can say in return.

Find ourselves a nice litle gastinitsu and have ourselves a dinner of pot noodles and wine that can only kindly be compared with manischevitz. Next day it's off to the mongolian border. Just about 120km off of lake baikal the scenery changes, with valleys opening up, and trees thinning out. As we've noticed it's the rainy season so everything is a tropical green, and the scenery rivals that of the best of wyoming. Definitely cowboy country, a la Russe. We decide to camp out just short of the border, and manage to find a great spot about 2 clicks away from a Russian military base. Is the campsite a training ground, guess we'll find out. No suck luck. Instead we have great night out and a good nights rest. But not Anthony, who spends the night counting sheep, chasing mosquitos, and praying for some shut eye. Good thing we've gotten up at 6:30 to get to the border early.