Irkutsk to Chita

Distance: 1206km
Had a cruisy start to the morning in Irkutsk, loaded some photos to facebook, enjoyed the breakfast buffet, complete with Vodka Orange! On the way out of town accidently ended up heading down a bus only street and inevitably got pulled up. Got away with it because the policeman eventually got fed up with us not being able to speak much Russian and being non-plussed when he went to put Matt's drivers licence in his coat pocket.
From Irkutsk the scenery really starts to improve, much less industry spoiling the landscape. We drove around the bottom of Lake Baikal, which, to use a phrase from Gavin and Stacey which we have just finished watching from start to finish, hilarious, is 'immense'! More like a sea than a lake. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast and very windy and cold so didn't go in for a dip, and didn't get much of a sunset.
There's still very little tourist development around this area of the lake, and there's a large area of nature reserve so was difficult to find somewhere to camp. We ended up staying in a basic soviet-era hotel near Babushkin, a couple of kilometres off the main road. It was 1740 for the room plus 100 for parking, so wasn't expecting much. Pleasantly surprised that we had an ensuite bathroom, with a cast iron bath, though the cold water wouldn't stop running so had to turn it off at the tap. 2 single beds that we could fee the springs of the mattress through, and a full-sized fridge. So, basic, but did the job. It was a nice little area with quite a few jetties, stalls selling birch bark boxes, a few kiosks, but getting into the hotel carpark was more like getting into Fort Knox! Least we knew the car was secure.
Had to get some yet more welding on the exhaust done, rear muffler mount, then had to get some brake pads replaced in Ulan Ude... Fingers crossed that's the end of the car complaints, though that split in the tyre wall from Morocco has gotten a touch bigger....
On the way to Ulan Ude, we took a bit of a detour off the main road to stay along the lake shore for a while longer. Glad we did, the villages along this route were really pretty and well-kept, and there was a great long sandy spit where people were fishing and kite surfing, just a pity it was so windy!
Just South of Ulan Ude the scenery was absolutely beautiful, lush, green rolling hills, meandering rivers, really really pretty.
Saw lots of overloaded vans on the way to Chita. The roads have a pretty good surface but are pretty bouncy, even the new bits! There was no room at the inn in Chita, so we had a nice meal in a Kafe with old wooden benches which was quite nice, but then started the trek out of town towards Khabarovsk, and the unknown quality of roads!
Went to the Supermarket to stock up on a few supplies, but found it quite difficult to find much veg and meat, and the food markets had all closed for the day... So for the next couple of days we're eating some kind of frozen rissole things and tuna pasta. Can't wait for a change of food in China!