Lake Baikal, Siberia

Imagine flying eight time zones away, then boarding a train and watching the countryside as you travel past it for four days, through five more time zones, stopping for no longer than 20 minutes at a time, to arrive just three fourths of the way across the vastness of Russia. It's an awesome experience just to be aware of those distances, and I sat or stood wide-eyed at a train window for most of my Trans-Siberian Railway journey from Moscow to Irkutsk, past grainfields being worked with hayforks and scythes, villages with wooden houses and sometimes concrete high-rises in the distance, train stops where track-side vendors sold fruit or buns or milk to passengers, or even to the dining car's cook.

Lake Baikal is awe-inspiring, too: the world's deepest fresh-water lake - one mile deep! - containing 20 percent of the Earth's fresh water. Russians revere it, and started an environmental protection movement when paper mills brought pollution to the area.

I have to think carefully to recall that our village hostess spoke only a few words of English; much was communicated with demonstration, gesture, phrases learned by repetition, and a dictionary passed back and forth. I have vivid memories of meals in her restaurant - a deck on top of a freight car box festooned with a parachute sun shade; lilacs in July beside log houses with carved and painted shutters; a steam bath ("banya") in the bath-house; a hike up a steep goat-path on a hillside overlooking Baikal; and very real people struggling and celebrating as they went about their daily lives.

Arrangements made with a culturally sensitive tour company can include round-trip rail/air travel out of Moscow, lodging in a village or the nearby city of Irkutsk, meals served by your hosts, a local tour guide, and transfers to and from the train station or airport.