That time I caught the train from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia to Irkutsk in Russia to go to Lake Baikal and had to hire a car because the cabin I’d booked was 300 kms away 🤦🏻‍♀️… so I drove myself to the famous Siberian lake.

The guy at the car hire place was so sweet and told me in his thick and Russian way how beautiful it was, especially Olkhon Island.

Then warned me not to go there (Olkhon Island) cause the roads were really bad and his car was almost new.

But when I saw the sign to the island, I couldn’t help myself.

I queued with between two 4WDs and drove the tiny, shiny Kia onto the ferry, watched the seagulls from the deck flying like fairies through the mist above the lake.

He was right, the roads were rough, but I got to eat hand-made Halva and coffee on some rocks beside the water and wrote from a room with a view and read about the wildflowers and the shamans…

Back on the mainland I assessed the dirty car and thought and thought while driving 300 kms back to Irkutsk what charming thing I’d have to say when I returned it covered in mud and gravel.

The I spied with my little eye a poster of a girl in short shorts and cowboy boots covered in soap suds, strewn across a bonnet, and it must have meant something to my programmed brain because it sent a reflex to my hands and feet to turn off the road and into … a carwash!

None of the ethnic Tuvan women working there wore cowboy boots but they did wash the car spotless and I got all my US dollars bond back without saying a word.

I wrote him an excellent Google review from the airport while waiting for my flight to Vladivostok.

He was happy with that.

And thanked me with emojis.

A few weeks later I got an email from him reprimanding me, also with emojis,  because he’d just read the excellent review I wrote about Olkhon Island.