From Russia with Love - A Month in Siberia Part 1

I've been home for just about a month and I'm still shell shocked. Wow...I love Siberia ! It took a long time to get there, just about 36 hrs but it was worth it. My flight took off outta LA just past midnight and I spent around 11 hrs in the air on a Korean Airline's 777. The flight was smooth, the service excellent, and the beers plentiful :) The only setback was they didn't fly my kayak. I checked it they just didn't load it so I had to borrow 2 different boats which worked out okay but never had me feeling the confidence you want when you're wild and free. It did however give me a great opportunity to compare boats and designs.

Hanging out in Incheon Airport, South Korea

So I landed in Incheon at 4:30am and had 19hrs of layover time to chill. Phew that's a long layover. What I did find out about that airport is that they have a "Rest and Relaxation Area" which is totally awesome. I had a hot shower complete with great toiletries, a massage, and I managed to watch some sports on a leather recliner. I also found a sweet twin bed/sofa to crash on. So Incheon has my vote for awesome airport :) When my flight was finally called late in the evening, I was tired and thrilled...Siberia here I come !!

Incheon Airport

I boarded the plan excited and tired and settled in for the 5 hr flight to Irkutsk. Man...seems like I'm destined to arrive into airports on this trip really early in the morning.

Tomass and Sasha were not at the airport to meet me and after a few messages and no response, I settled into a backroom to sleep and wait for them. They showed up around 7:30am happy and smiling. "Hey America" was what I heard first. We laughed a bit and I corrected them by letting them know I'm a Canadian. The Irkutsk International Airport is a shoebox...meaning it's pretty small.

We loaded up Sasha's Subaru and headed off to our hostel where I would meet the rest of the crew. We were staying at the Baikal Hostel in the western part of Irkutsk. Our hostel room had beds for 10, a communal kitchen and living area, and a drying patio which was really great for our gear. The crew started showing up and then the stories began...then plans were laid to go out to a German restaurant and then out to the disco! Pretty much standard fair for kayakers. We packed our gear, stored everything in the front of our room, then went out for a bender.

Sorting out the gear

Chillin in our hostel room

I love going out when I'm in a new place and this crew of paddlers made it even that much better. After a long night out we settled in for what we all knew would be a short night of sleep. Waking up the next day sucked...thankfully we had a 7hr van ride and didn't have to rally for anything. We stopped at a grocery store to get stuff for the trip and then we were off. We ended up getting a bunch of beer and vodka for the drive. You can imagine what that was like :) So we drank and sang songs the whole way, until we passed out.