August 27, 2015 Listvyanka to Arshan

Today dawned quite foggy and smokey.  The air smelled like a campfire.  We had 280km (175 miles) to travel. We gathered at the top of the hotel's driveway before setting off, backtracking around the southern end of the lake.

Visibility was an issue all morning, but we still enjoyed the hills...

and curves.

We retraced our route through Irkutsk...

...passing the airport...

..and Aeroflot planes.

and tractors on the expressway in town.

Air quality in Irkutsk was also poor.

But it got much worse an hour later when we started riding down the west side of Lake Baikal.  What should have been a fun, twisty ride was significantly slowed due to fog and smoke.

We came to a rail crossing and waited for a train to show up.

After 10 minutes, this guy on a scooter managed to get around the steel lift plates, and puttered across.

We soon noticed the cars that were taking a dirt side road and then reappearing just beyond the tracks.  We decided to join them.

It was a rough dirt track through a small tunnel, but Boz and Dave manhandled the bikes past the trucks.  The last of the train went overhead as we were traversing under the tracks, but the gates were still down as we reached the highway on the other side.

Back out on wide open roads...

being careful to avoid the livestock...

We were headed for the Tunka Valley near the Sayan Mountain range.  Svetlana promised us that it was very veautiful.  What she and Janis forgot to mention was the need to stop and pay a park entrance fee.  When Boz was waved to the side of the road, we thought we might have to talk our way out of another speeding ticket.  After a tense 5 minutes of not understanding what the officer wanted, we finally heard the word "passport" and he pointed to the building.  We also noticed that almost all the cars were being waved to the side of the road.  What's up with that?

The three of us trudged into the office.  It soon became evident that this was a park office.  After a little back and forth pantomining, we finally understood she wanted to know how many nights we were staying.  Boz's communication skills are improving.

Finally free to go, we continued down the road in scenery that is similar to Colorado.

The large valley was home to several neat, maintained Siberian villages...

with the mountains in the background...

...and cows, except in Colorado the cows don't roam the roads.

Something else we don't see are...

camels.  We are clearly getting close to Mongolia.  Not just because of the camels, but the facial features of the locals are more asian, and we are seeing Buddhist shrines.

Let's play "Find the Boz"

This particular shrine has prayer cylinders on three sides, prayer ribbons and...

...a small Buddha statue encapsulated at the top of the shrine.

Our hotel, Maryina Roscha was only a few kilometers away from the shrine, and

the ride was gorgeous.  A great day of motorcycling.

The small, private hotel is located back off the road.  The beautiful gardens were hidden until we pulled into the courtyard.

Enchanting scrollwork covers the sides of the building and roof tops.

It took a few minutes to locate reception at the end of the garden path.  As our guides were back with the main riding group, Boz once again pulled out his communication tools and tried to get the clerk to understand we wanted to check in.  At one point she offered us the keys to all the rooms (we only needed two, as we were about an hour ahead of the main riding group).  She evenutally resorted to google translate to ask a question.  Great idea!  Until Boz went to type the response and was stymied by the crylic alphabet on the keypad!  Boz took a deep breath and  was about to go in for another round when Svetlana and the rest of the group showed up.  She had things sorted out in no time.

In our rooms, we discovered some other surprises our hotel had for us.

Like - plugging the bathroom exhaust fan in while standing in the shower.

or draping the plug for the hot water heater over the mirror - and why bother putting the plumbing inside the walls?

and just drill holes in the window frame to bring in the cable that is draped across the outside of the building.  I don't think there are building codes in Russia.

The hotel did have other more pleasant surprises,

Lots of ducks, chickens, turkey, and rabbits, plus all the vegetables in the garden assured us of meals made with fresh ingredients.

And this little cat snuck up on the bench and kept us company during lunch,

After lunch a group of us went with Janis and Svetlana for a hike along the Kyngyrga River.  The day had turned quite warm.

By the time we reached the waterfall, the cool misty air was a relief.

Once cooled off, we faced the long climb back up to the path.

The local Buddhists consider the water and area around the river to be a special place.  Many trees and branches are adorned with prayer ribbons.  

There's a little Buddah near the start of the path to the waterfall.

Again I was puzzled by Russian engineering.  This water pipe traversing a ditch is supported by rusting 50 gallon barrels.  Why  not create a more permanent solution?

The path begins/ends at a large market.  Vendors sell everything from trinkets, to sweaters, slippers, tea mixtures,

and ice cream.

It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon and get a little exercise.

Dinner at the hotel featured a lot of fresh produce and was very good.  Svetlana has worked to create a system of pre-ordering our meals, so we do not spend hours every night just waiting for them to be prepared.  It's a lot of extra work for her, but does get us away from the table a little quicker.

The hotel had one last surprise before we went to bed.

The roof lines are lined with neon.  Tomorrow we will ride back to Lake Baikal, on the other, Eastern side.