Siberia, day 2

SO. I stumbled bleary-eyed off the train in central Siberia at 9.45am local time, having moved over a three day/four night period through time zones GMT+2 to GMT+8. So it was something like 4.45am in my poor, battered circadian rhythm, concealed in my poor, overstimulated brain.

There was a taxi waiting to transfer me to the hostel by Lake Baikal (vital statistics: biggest freshwater lake in the world, 20% of the world's freshwater, thousands of endemic animals, frozen over by ice 3m thick from December to March when you can drive/sled over it - but not build traintracks and transport coal over it, as they found out one winter recently.) Taxi driver was a cheerful Russian (somewhat of a rarity) with a penchant for racecar-style driving. When we reached 100mph in a 40 zone, we were met the unfamiliar sound of a Russian police siren. The taxi pulled over, documents were produced, an agreement was made, money changed hands, and we were off again.

Lonely Planet's fairly sparse section on the lakeside village of Listvyanka included a complaint that the traditional houses would soon be hit by 'ugly gentrification' - we passed a gaudy, plasticky hotel and a lot of mock-original architecture, but then made a sharp turn into a very 'real' street. My room is at the top of a farmhouse structure, and I know it's 'original' - if not by all other signs - by the outhouse. The outhouse that you access by a ladder. It makes nocturnal peeing much more of an adventure.

So Lonely Planet also told me that 'you haven't genuinely been to Russia if you haven't experienced a Russian banya', and my 'budget accommodation' includes an innocent-looking little corrugated iron hut that turns out to be just that. Tempted inside by promises from a resident Siberian and the presence of willing and similarly aged peers, I ended up in an oven. That's all I could possibly describe it as: an oven.

Gasping and coughing and sat in a pool of my own sweat, I provided ample entertainment for the Siberian who knew that 'stupid English tourists' have only ever experienced British saunas that he eats for breakfast.
'And now,' he announced brightly, 'we hit you with sticks.'

Sticks. Seriously. He had a bucket of birch sticks. And he was going to hit us with them.
'IT'S CLEANSING!' he shouted as the birch connected with my bikini-clad body in hideously boiling repetition. 'You OK?' every now and then.
Unable to lose face, I replied: 'Carry on! More birch!'

I've never been more glad to feel cold water in my life than when that Siberian man pushed me out the Russian banya, post-birches, and pointed me towards a bucket of freezing cold water. So screw you, Lonely Planet. I've 'genuinely' been to Russia.