After some days traveling alone only meeting russians with speaking hardly any English, it was good to find some backpackers in Baikaler Hostel in Irkutsk again. Here I met also some Austrians, which I should meet also later on Olkhon Island as well. Here I recognized once more, that I have definitely no problem speaking English or Italian, but when you can speak in your own dialect, that‘s something completely different.
Some guys told me that they had the same experiences as me and didn‘t really meet any backpackers. Traveling Russia in May might be too early.
On my first day in Irkutsk – two others should follow later, I took it quite easy. After a first walk through the city, I went back to the hostel and waited for my sister to get online and talk with her via Skype. Later in the afternoon, I went through some other part of the city center.
For one night I went to Listvyanka, an other village at Lake Baikal, only one hour away from Irkutsk. It was a nice place and I had a whole hostel for me alone, but actually there was not much to do there. Originally I wanted to make a hike to the neighbour village and then take the boat back, but as my knee made some problems the day before, I decided not to do this. Therefore I was sitting on the shore of the lake with a book and returned to Irkutsk in the afternoon. As my knee is ok again, I think the decision not to make the hike was a good one.
Last day in Irkutsk will only be hanging around, doing nothing special and wait for the train to Mongolia leaving tonight.