This was another unplanned part of the trip. When planning the route, I was considering visiting the Eastern side of Baikal, but as this was quite a detour, I decided to excluded it from the itinerary. As we talked to people locally, they advised us that this part of Baikal is very picturesque and the guide book read "You can't claim you've visited Baikal unless you've been to Olkhon and the Sacred Nose peninsula". We've already been to Olkhon, so not visiting the Sacred Nose was no longer an option.
July 19, we drove to Ust-Bargusin, where we went (quite a long walk!) to see the Baikal and its long sandy beaches. We ended up in marshlands as we were trying to find picturesque walks and had to trace back our steps: less than 10 meters of water made us go back almost 1 km.... We thought taking off our shoes and walking through the water, but it required a proper swim.
July 20, we went to Monakhovo located at the Chivirkuy Bay of the Sacred Nose peninsula. It was packed with tourists. This area has the warmest water in Baikal. I finally took a dip in the Baikal. We also went up the cliff to see the bay from above. The area was covered with spider webs - it was all over trees and rocks. After lunch at the shore, we drove back to Ulan-Ude.
This is when we say goodbye to Baikal, which was also a wonderful host to us: the weather was nice and the Lake showed us all its beauty during the three visits we had to its shores (Olkhon, Listvyanka/Bolshie Koty and Ust-Barguzin/Monakhovo).
It is also time to bid farewell to Siberia. Very recently, Buryatia and Zabaikalsky Kray (Chita) were administratively reclassified from Siberia to the Far East of Russia. Had we visited this place a year ago, we would be still in Siberia, but we are now technically in the Far East of Russia... So the Western part of Baikal is Siberia and the Eastern part is the Far East. How convenient!
We will now be driving to Khabarovsk. We estimate to take 5 days for it. The original plan included two options: 1) going to Magadan in the North East, 2) going to Primorye at the South East. Magadan is no longer an option: a 6000-km detour from the main road. We already drove 14000km and still need about 3000km to get to Khabarovsk... so another 9000km seems a bit much. Primorye is closer to home and we can go the seaside!
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