So, here I am eating divine fish and very unusually drinking wine in a restaurant 10 metres from the shore of the famous Lake Baikal, in the incredibly touristy Listvianka and the forest is right there behind me. You can see the huge pines clinging to the rocks above. They weren’t planted and aren’t managed, it’s just that Listvianka is squeezed between the forest and the lake and the forest is there waiting to reclaim it’s own.

You’re never far from the forest in Siberia. Small towns are just clearings in the forest and even the big cities simply peter out at the edges with the trees ready to encroach back onto their territory.

I’m being a tourist for a couple of days break from the train and untypically have visited 2 museums – they are housed in beautifully restored wooden town houses that belonged to Decembrists who were exiled to Siberia for, basically, trying to establish human rights in Russia in 1825. Absolutely fascinating. I learned a lot – and it all puts Tolstoy, who I am still reading, into context.

Staying in THE most delightful place in the world! It’s a real homestay – a flat where I’m like one of the family with the girl who lives here (she’s just finished university) and her little sister who’s staying with her during the school holidays. They are delightful and I’ve loved being here. Budget travel isn’t all about the money – without exception all the ‘best’ places I’ve ever stayed at have been small, simple, homely places where you get to know the people and are, incidentally, always cheap.

Everyone in Listvianka smokes fish from the lake by the roadside