Hyde Park Corner tube station in London just after six o'clock in the morning on Saturday 21 July 2007. This is where RT07 started...
	...and went with Aeroflot from Heathrow via Moscow (the domestic terminal at the Sheremetyevo airport pictured)...
	...in an old Tupolev across the endless uninhabited, unexplored, wild Russian taiga to eventually land at Sunday dawn in Irkutsk (Ирку́тск), the gateway to Lake Baikal.
	Russian roads are dangerous. By Russian law drivers must wear a seatbelt, but I was probably the only one who did so east of the Ural mountains. Nonetheless, travellers tie ribbons in trees...
	...or on simple monuments by the roadside, and leave coins, as a testament and tribute to fallen victims on the roads and to bring good fortune on their onward journey.
	Just outside the Baikal fishing village of Sakhyurta (Сахюрта) is the ferry connection to Olkhon island. Olkhon is the largest island of the lake and is a popular holiday destination for its terrain and steep cliffs, for its flora and fauna including the nerpa (Baikal seal; pusa sibirica), and for being the heart of much Baikal folklore and legendary Siberian tales. In the summer, like this weekend in July, waiting times for the undersized and unhurried ferry can however be quite long...
	...so after a few hours without really any progress at all (the queueing system was somewhat random), I actually gave up on visiting Olkhon and made my way back to Bayanday (Баяндай) and the main road 235 northbound.
	After RT05 in East Africa and RT06 in Iran, I was looking for something cooler and less crowded. However traffic congestion was apparently unavoidable even in Siberia... On the plains north of Irkutsk southwest of the lake, cattle are not enclosed but roam free.
	By the town of Kachug (Качуг) I caught up with the river Lena (Лена), and followed her toward Zhigalovo (Жигалово). From here onwards the next 4-5 days would be on gravel roads.
	Thousands of swallows mingled in the air by maroon rocks by the river basin where they lived.
	Have you ever been in "Whatever"? Actually, this is the village of Shishkina (Шишкино). Despite a six-week intensive course in basic Russian before RT07, and a roadmap with names in Cyrillic letters, the language barrier (including pronunciation) was one of the biggest challenges.
	In Siberia many wooden houses are built of pine, cedar or larch. Blue is a symbol of hope and green is for long life.
	Decorative wood carvings and painted shutters frame the exterior windows of many homes.
	Empty gravel road by Lena, moving slowly and majestically from its source in the Baikal Mountains 4,400 kilometers toward the Arctic Ocean. Further down I stopped for a swim.
	No roadtrip without some macroeconomic and geopolitical observations. Having left civilization behind and headed for the dirt roads through the Siberian taiga, I came across this pipeline that was being built straight through nowhere. It wasn't possible to tell its exact origin and destination, but a world map shows that the sensitive Lake Baikal region is right between western Russia, Kazakhstan, the Middle East, China and Japan. Siberia itself is also extremely rich in natural resources.
	A cache of forest vehicles and heavy machinery by the side of the road out in the woods. To avoid transporting all this back and forth between the nearest towns or villages several hours away every day, there were depots like this one.
	Countryside driving, solitary beauty. But according to the map this road didn't even exist, so hence a bit of a gamble.
	Thousands of rivers and streams cross the landscape. Wooden bridges, sturdy and reliable like the Siberian soul, help travellers through.
	These pure, untouched rivers and lakes offer what must be some of the best fishing in the world. This is the Montana, Idaho and British Columbia of Asia, but even better.
	The name Siberia comes from sibir, a old Asian tribal word for "sleeping land". Siberia makes up about 77% of Russia's land mass. After a long day of driving just straight through the wild on roads mainly used by forest vehicles, as the sun was setting in the distance beyond layers of shadowy mountain ranges, one begins to realize the vastness of it all.
	Transportation of oil by railway on the Transsiberian link north of the lake. The train went on forever. The railway is the nerve system for the economy and existence in this vast land. Even longer car journeys between bigger cities sometimes go via car trains. Only very stubborn people take on the long distances in a town car on their own.
	Typical design of a Siberian railway bridge.
	Much of this part of the railway, called the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), was built around the end of World War II by German and Japanese Gulag prisoners. 150,000 are said to have died. Part of it was built with special, durable tracks since much of it went over permafrost. The Baikal-Amur Mainline, the northern railway link between Tayshet (Тайше́т) and Sovetskaya Gavan (Сове́тская Га́вань) by the Sea of Japan, has more than 4,200 bridges
	The car took a beating and I had one full breakdown on the trip before even reaching Severobaykalsk. Perhaps Toyota Camry was built for suburbia rather than Siberia. The chance of coming across a wild animal was probably quite small (unfortunately), but nonetheless there were an estimated 4,000 brown bears in the Baikal region at this time. In terms of the Siberian tiger, this species is critically endangered and by the time of RT07 there were only an estimated 500 animals left in the whole world.
	Authenticity and freedom.
	Crossing another bridge...
	...and another.
	Semi-abandoned mining town.
	This picture is from the road across the Baikal Mountains (Байкальський хребет), highest peak 2,588 meters. It was July and +30 degrees Celsius outside. The temperature here in January is -25, on average.
	Behind those mountains would be the northern part of the lake, according to the map. Aside from a cooked meal for the driver, the car needed service and at least one tire fixed.
	Bridge broken or unsafe, road closed...
	...but the show must go on, sometimes offroad, and the Toyota Camry managed through mounds and waters.
	Small military installation up in the hills, but fully equipped with barracks, artillery, watchtowers and barbed wire. Perhaps there to secure key Russian energy and commodity transport links, or to keep watch over Gulag workers. The area looked deserted and there seemed to be nobody around, but as I walked closer to the main building dogs started barking rather aggressively, so I left it there.
	A bit further down in a valley, 70 freight cars loaded with black pipes.
	River Goudzhekit (Гоуджекит) merging with river Tyya (Тыя), streaming down toward the lake.
	Северобайкальск.
	The town had about 26,000 people at this time. A restaurant by the lake had a patio on stilts high up on a steep hill by the waterfront. Hot food and cold soft drinks, catching up on travel diary notes, sending all-is-well messages on the mobile phone. The tiredness from the rural driving for days was turning into relief and pleasure...
	...and wonderment at the Pearl of Siberia.
	A beautiful day. In the distance on the other side are the Barguzin Mountains (Баргузинский хребет). Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, a gorge where the crust of the earth is pulling apart about 2 centimeters per year. It is 1,637 meters deep (the deepest lake in the world) and holds the largest body of fresh water on earth, approximately 20% of the world's total surface fresh water. Lake Baikal was declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The ship on the picture, maybe from the northernmost town of Nizhneangarsk (Нижнеангарск), would travel the whole afternoon and the whole night and most of the following day to reach the southern end of the lake.
	Little boy hesitating, the surface water by the shore was only 14 degrees Celsius.
	The lake is 25 million years old. Lake Baikal long ago became famous for the purity of its crystalline blue-green water, transparent to a depth of 40 meters. Pure, and thirst-quenching as well.
	Main street Severobaykalsk; a car wash, a few shopping barracks and other stores, and further down (outside the picture) a bank, a street bistro, and a tourist agency (!) in a hut just outside the passenger terminal for the railway.
	Old Soviet-style apartment blocks in the center of town. Severobaykalsk is a very young town. It was founded in 1970 as a settlement for workers on the Baikal Amur Mainline.
	Stretch of sand beach, popular with the locals...
	...and one or two western backpackers. Otherwise this corner of the world was rather undiscovered by the time of RT07. Lonely Planet had at this time almost nothing on the Baikal region (just a few references in write-ups on the Transsiberian Railway), and when I checked with the Lonely Planet headquarters after RT07 they confirmed that no publication covering the Lake Baikal region was being planned at that time. RT07 was completed with no guide books, only a Russian large-scale roadmap and scant background facts retrieved beforehand from the Internet, and a review of the region with Google Earth.
	After recuperating for a couple of days in Severobaykalsk, and preparing mentally for the most difficult part of the trip around the northern tip of the lake and across the mountains on the other side (where the streets have no name), I set off one morning in the Toyota Camry. Like others who were leaving the safety and comfort of Severobaykalsk for the outback, like this man, I made sure the car was tanked up on fuel.
	Nizhneangarsk at the northern end of Lake Baikal.
	The landscape became more hilly. It was almost August and some rivers were dry, with just a broad trail of pebbles stretching far up into the mountains.
	In springtime, however, rivers like these must be roaring. Hydropower provides a fifth of Russia's energy, but with the many thousands of rivers across Siberia there should be scope to expand this without too much impact on nature.
	Slightly offroad again as the bridge was closed. Across the boulders by necessity, not by first choice.
	Closer to the mountains and looking forward to soon head south on the east side. But something very unexpected happened just by the town of Novy Uoyan (Новый Уоян) that changed the course of the entire roadtrip.
	The RT07 expedition, cruising slowly and heading for the outskirts of the village, was stopped by a Russian police brigade - and what must have been one of the most bored police brigades in Asia. After interrogations involving the only school teacher in English within a 150 kilometer radius acting as interpreter, the police officers made clear that my Toyota Camry was not suitable to cross the mountain roads. There weren't any proper roads at this time and even heavy-duty machines were struggling, they explained. I clarified that I would be willing to take the risk anyway, but the police insisted that that would result in a rescue operation later and wouldn't accept it. I regret that I didn't capture the (somewhat comical) scene with the police cars, the Russian police officers and the English teacher on a photo. Anyway, as I was escorted back again to the road toward Severobaykalsk my disappointment was great. The plan to circle Lake Baikal had failed.
	So therefore change of plans. Racing back on the taiga roads, but careful enough in the turns to avoid erosions like this one. The crack in the way dropped 30 meters down into a ravine.
	Another Siberian natural resource transported in immense volumes eastbound on the railway (toward China and the Pacfic Ocean ports) is timber.
	Should have brought fishing gear.
	The potential for wildlife tourism - hiking, fishing, hunting, bird-watching, anything - was without doubt absolutely enormous. An almost completely untapped resource. Irkutsk is only a two-hour flight from Beijing. The rest is obvious.
	Quiet forest mirror lake.
	Virgin.
	Heading back toward Irkutsk on the western side again, past iron bridges...
	...and following endless roads toward the horizon. It was almost like the long distances in the American Midwest during RT02 but with two important differences - the quality of the roads, and the nature.
	Infinite. I hoped one day to come back to this "sleeping land" (Siberia) and hike by foot for weeks through the real wilderness out there, one of the last unexplored and unexploited corners of our planet.
	A forest fire had destroyed an area, perhaps a few hundred square kilometers, but it's part of the cycle and nature was repairing itself.
	Occasional Kamaz (Камаз) trucks in clouds of dust, maybe owned and operated by Russian state-owned infrastructure or commodity companies, were almost the only ones I met in Nowhere.
	Back on the edge of civilization. Siberian farmers making hay at the end of July near the village of Grechovo (Грехово). The summer is short.
	Driving all night, on the gravel roads with millions of night flies, mosquitoes and other nocturnal insects in the headlights in front of the car. Following Lena in her misty valley southeast through Siberia after midnight after a long hot day, with no radio station in reach, just the background humming of the car engine. The moon, almost full, like a giant copper coin above the hills on the other side, followed all the way. These hours was the most unforgettable driving experience of any roadtrip till that point, almost unreal and spiritual.
	By every town near the south of the lake, babushkas and other locals were making a living selling fresh local fruit, berries (especially strawberries and blueberries), mushrooms (mainly yellow chanterelles), meat and fish by the roadside.
	On the hillside by the very southern tip of Lake Baikal near the town of Kultuk (Култук)...
	...smoked omul fish was sold by the bulk. I bought a few for dinner, which I intended to spend by the lakeside somewhere on the southeastern shore. As always on a roadtrip, no advance reservations hade been made for accomodation. Pre-programming a roadtrip would take away some of the unpredictability, excitement, challenge, adventure and freedom.
	Entering Buryatia, the Buryat Republic (Респу́блика Буря́тия). As is evident from the sign, this is a Russian republic with very strong local patriotism. Some reference sources go to some lengths to highlight the distinctiveness of the area. Both its geographical location (bordering Mongolia in the south), culture, religion (Buddhism is becoming increasingly prevalent from here and eastward), and the increasingly Asian appearance of the population, strike a first-time visitor.
	The lake never ceased to mesmerize.
	Campers on the shore before sunset near the town of Tanchoy (Танхой).
	Another group of friends making a fire for the night.
	I had my smoked omul fish on the pebble beach. After the delicious meal a Buryat-Mongolian family offered fresh strawberries for dessert.
	Continuing eastward inland on the paved road M55 across the Mongolian steppe, following the Transsiberian Railway and the river Selenga (Селенга). The landscape was different from west of the lake...
	...and so were the people, the food, to some extent the language, and certainly the atmosphere as I reached Ulan-Ude (Ула́н-Удэ́), the capital city of the Buryat Republic. Almost 360,000 people lived here by the time of RT07. The place is a major crossroads for commerce between Russia and China and Japan. For the first time during RT07 it now felt that I really was in Asia.
	The Lenin head in the central square is the largest in the world, six meters tall.
	Once a symbol for communism and totalitarianism - but perhaps also for creating a free universal health care system for all, championing the rights of women, and for teaching the illiterate Russian people to read and write - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin at this point, almost 20 years after the cold war ended, seemed to have become more of a nostalgic retro-character that would be more likely to lend his name and silhouette to 21st century discotheques and t-shirt prints. There is no reason to remove icons like this one, they are not politically controversial any longer. And the Transsiberian tourists like it!
	Modern shopping, fast-food restaurants, banks, museums, cinemas, cafes and advertising along Lenin Street. Located in the middle of the Asian continent and far from any lake or ocean, temperatures in Ulan-Ude can reach +40 Celsius in the summer and below -50 in the winter.
	Beaten minibus, but a vital part of the local transportation network.
	The town was founded in 1666. Here is an old merchant's mansion, richly decorated with wood carvings in the historical center of Ulan-Ude not far from the river bank. A beautiful example of Russian classicism.
	Waiting for the bus after a day's work near Sovetov Square.
	Genghis Khan (1162-1227) once ruled here. By the time of his death the Mongol Empire encompassed the northern part of present-day China, Mongolia, a large part of Siberia in Russia, Kazakhstan, and stretching across central Asia to the Caspian Sea and even into northeastern Iran. This modern dual railway bridge over Selenga is symbolic of the 21st century in the same region - an important part of the world at this time in history, that is united not by common government and rule but through accelerating international trade.
	321 kilometers left to Irkutsk on the final leg of the tour. Proud and relieved.
	The focus of this roadtrip was, partly for obvious reasons, to learn to understand the significance of this region geographically over the coming decades. Without any doubt whatsoever tourism will increase exponentially (as mentioned Irkutsk is only two hours by plane from Beijing), and so will real estate prices, even though most of Lake Baikal and the surrounding areas are nature reserves and therefore protected (well, at least in theory). Another aspect is of course the significance of the railway system as a critical trade link between east and west. A third point is that Central Asia, including parts of Siberia, is extremely rich in various natural resources in itself.
	Trainspotting. Trains, some with up to 70-80 cars, pass by on the Transsiberian 24 hours a day. Sometimes there are only 10-15 minutes between enormous freight trains. Oil, metals and timber going east. Machinery, cars and consumer products going west. Trains loaded with tanks and heavy artillery going in both directions. I spent some time observing the traffic on the Transsiberian, and even camped not far from the tracks one night. It was certainly a live show of macroeconomics and geopolitics.
	And here come the tourists on the passenger train!
	A final glimpse of the deep pool.
	Back in Irkutsk I visited the small company that had helped with the rental car arrangements. They were busy and expanding, and had even hired a person who spoke Chinese to be able to handle the rising demand from China. I was not surprised.
	After more than a week of pressing sunshine, finally a cool summer rain. A stroll through central Irkutsk, checking out the architecure and heritage, souvenir shops and restaurants.
	The freshest produce available.
	Leaving Siberia behind, boarding the old Tupolev 154 back to Moscow.