Deepest lake in the world at 1642 Meters
Holds 20% of the unfrozen fresh water in the world
636 Km Long and 79 Km Wide
Is a Rift Lake hence the depth, ( like lake Tanganyika in Tanzania)
Water Volume is 26 615 cubic KILOMETERS, (yes not a spelling mistake, not cubic metres but kilometers)
Average depth 745 meters
Largest lake by volume in the world
Deepest lake in the world
Oldest lake in the world 25 000 000 years old
Holds more water than all of the Great Lakes Combined
2500 animals and fish species, two thirds endemic to the lake
1700 plant species, two thirds endemic to the area
150 types of snails found in lake… Read More

We always try to het to know the people of the country we are traveling through, getting to know their culture, eating the food they eat at the local places they eat. We went to see a show with traditional music played on traditional instruments, dancing as well as throat singing and contortionists.

We went out for dinner with all the paragliging guys in Ulan Bator and ate in a private dinning room, these guys arranged a place for us to lock-up our bikes.… Read More

We rode into the capital of Mongolia with the rainstorm that has been chasing us the entire day finally catching up and the wind whipped-up a huge dust cloud and for the tenth time today I tasted sand and wiped the dust out of my eyes.

The days ride was a lonely one as I spent most of the day at the back of the pack, I stopped for photos several times before I realised I had no memory card in my camera, then the wind started blowing sand storms and for an hour the visibility was so bad it reminded me of riding in the mist.… Read More

Lots of re-arranging and packing.

 … Read More

Yesterday while Tex won a trip to the local pannelbeater to have his pannier bracket welded we visited the church in Ulan-ude which was the only Anti Religion Centre which was opperated from within a church during the time religion was banned during the Soviet era, (we are told that during that time different religions would help one another by hiding the other church’ religios items, so how I understood the person telling us, Buddha Temples whould hide Christian Crosses for the christian churches and they will in return hide symbols of other religions.… Read More

This morning before we left when we were waxing our bike chains we discovered that Tex’s pannier bracket had broken from all the vibration and abuse and the panniers had to be loaded in the Land Cruiser

Irkutsk is a very nice city and still have many of the same wooden-framed houses we see in the rural villages. It also has beautiful buildings.… Read More

The sun sets at 22h00

Last night we went for a stroll along the lake (Sergey and Tex went for a 15km run before our little walk, they are making us feel very guilty.) We stopped at the local fish market and bought some smoked fish found in the lake, Omul & Grayling, Sturgeon is also found in the lake but may not be caught.… Read More

Our Motel of last night

Today we stopped at a village along the way where I bought some honey and jam from the forrests, there was also lots of flowers on sale for the people to go and put on the graves, it is big thing to do this time of the year.

I forgot to comment last night on the one photo of a green statue of a soldier, it was at the end of a small village with 70 houses in the village, and on the monument and statue were the names of the soldiers who died from that village in WW2, and there were 58 names, almost one death per little house.… Read More

Yesterday we took a stroll along the river in town, the wooden carved window frames from the villages were also in this city, Irkutsk, very traditional of Russian houses. You could see the city was ready for the summer rush, but the people have still not arrived, (but maybe they will not arrive this year,) times are tuff in Russia, in spite of most people we speak to feeling very united and “in-step” with their leader, Puttin, and his vision and actions in Ukraine.… Read More