Breeze Hotel, Listvyanka, Baikal
By Dave • February 25th, 2008LOCATION: Good. It’s about ten minutes’ walk from Lake Baikal, albeit at the top of a treacherously slippery hill. It’s about the same distance from the nearest shop, and an irredeemably tacky souvenir market.
INTERNET: No. There doesn’t seem to be any internet access in Listvyanka at all. To get online you’ll need to go to Irkutsk, about 60km away. Taxis cost between 400r and 600r per hour.
KITCHEN: No.
CLEAN? Yes.
TURN DOWN SERVICE? No. I’m dropping this one from now on. We’re just not high-class enough to get hotels that clean up after us.
TOWELS? Yes.
TV? Not in the rooms. The lounge gets Russian TV, which is useful if you’d like to know the secrets of cooking with cling-film, showing when we were there.
SECURE? Seems it. Two to a room and you keep the key with you all day.
FRIENDLY? Pretty much.
WARM? Yes.
COMFORTABLE? Yes.
ENGLISH SPOKEN? None at all. Not a major drama; just practice your miming.
BREAKFAST? Yes, a very thick, hot and filling porridge, along with hard-boiled eggs and bread. There’s dinner as well, although this is a little less satisfying. There’s only one choice per night (in our case it was liver and lentils), and it’s astonishingly expensive at 350r (about £7). The cafes in town will serve a main course for about 200r (about £4). When we asked for a beer the woman in charge laughed as though we’d just asked for a donkey that could sing I Will Survive.
VERDICT: Nice. Lake Baikal is bally well freezing, and the rooms in the Breeze are warm, bright and comfortable; perfect for ending a day spent traipsing around the hills and lake. Amenities are short on the ground, but isn’t that what being so far from home is all about?
Tags: 350r, 400r, amenities, bally, bear in mind, cafes, donkey, hard boiled eggs, hotels, internet access, lake baikal, lentils, liver, market internet, nice lake, porridge, Russia, russian tv, russians, taxis, towels
I’m enjoying these immensely, Mr S. You may have fucked up on this post; in my feed reader I can see that the post originally continued “the secrets of cooking with cling film…” but now it just plain ole stops with a %. Sort it aaaaht.
Thanks muchly.
Not sure what happened with the whole percentage sign thing. I’m going to blame it on the vagaries of WordPress having to do battle with a slightly unreliable Chinese internet connection.
Ta for the heads up.
D
May I also join the ranks of ‘enjoting this immensley’
As a Yorkshireman it is my duty to be unimpressed by travel. Why go to Ulan Bator when you can go to Rotherham? What use the Trans Siberian Railroad when you can take the Hull to Bridlington train? Why bother going all the way to Xian when there?s a perfectly good Chinese supermarket on Vicar Lane in Leeds?
That said this whole shebang of yours is really great. Post more. I don?t care that there?s no Internet for 100 miles I have needs. If it?s half as amazing as you make it sound it might just get me to cancel my weekend in Skegness this year? Pictures are wonderful too.
Without the typos obviously….
Thanking you muchly.
There are times when a weekend in Yorkshire sounds great. None more so than when we’ve tried six restuarants in one evening only to find that none has a vegetarian option.
I’m trying to post more. There’s more in the can, honest. Our current Chinese internet connection doesn’t seem to like uploading though, so more when I can get somewhere, um, that works.
Take care,
D
I laughed at the Mario rearrange that someone did. Oh those insolent gamers!
Regards, Josh
Check - my age as well
There you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo3AB7-cDy0
Enjoy!
There you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzGxmKy5WlM
Enjoy!
There you go buddy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zZGtizyddc