Off The Beat: Lake Baikal, a Siberian land frozen in time

Lake Baikal presents visitors with many picturesque views. Photo: Cliff Lai

I wasn’t good in both Maths and Science subjects in school. I recall one infuriating teacher threatening to banish me to Timbuktu or Siberia, as punishment. At that point, as a squirming student, I had no idea where these strange-sounding places were, but they certainly sounded far.

Indeed, they were far and isolated when I later looked them up on the world map. One is in Mali and the other in modern Russia.