Sunday the 19th July.
We waked up early because there wasat02h30Mt* (7h30Rt*) a stop in Irkoetsk. A beautiful station. There were a lot of people waiting for our train. All the wagons were full except ours, what was very nice, we kept our "privacy" for the wagon and special for 'our' toilet.
We were leaving Irkoetsk at7h53Rt* Direction lake Baikal.

Lake Baikal is almost a sea, with a length of 260 km and a depth of 1600 m is it the biggest reservoir sweet water on the world, 2% of all the sweet water on the world.
It was a fantastic drive on the site of the lake. The weather was fantastic, a lot of Russians were camping on the small and stony beaches. Nobody was in the water, its to cold. In the winter is there a ice deck possible from three meters, the lake is only from June till begin October open. We were driving five hours till Ulan-Ude on the side of the lake. It was a wonderful part of our trip.

Ulan-Ude is the place were we going to the South. The name of the line is from here "The Mongolian Express".
Here is the end for the electricity, so we changed from locomotive. It took a 20 minutes, very efficient but also with a lot official rules. The Russian locomotive was leaving and the Mongolian arrived. First were the Russian technicians controlling the connector and when the new locomotive arrived, came the machinist out and controlled the same things again, everything was okay, so in one minute was de connection there.

The landscape is beautiful, but here around the city is it one big mash. The houses outside the centre are al small wooden houses. The roads are sand roads. Only in the centre and the important roads are with bitumen.
The ground get more and more sand. A sign that the ground is less god as the ground around the Lake Baikal.

At14h45(Mt*) we arrived on the boarder. We stopped a long time for the grand control de Russians. Luggage, cabin and papers, everything by other specialists. We drove from Moscow till the boarder of Mongolian 5907 km.At22h50Rt** were we leaving to the Mongolian boarder-post.

The boarder was also again a time zone, we were driving againat midnight.

* Mt Moscow time
**Rt Real time, local time