WorldTripping.net - Egypt travel writing and travel articles.

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"Glimpses" extracts from Leah's journal.

Cairo cycling.

Fume filled excitement. Adrenalin whizzed and I grew sick and giddy. It had been years earlier that we had visited this amazing place. We had been escorted by an Egyptian we had met on the train travelling through middle Egypt. We hadn't been able to get a ticket for the armed tourist train but instead were smuggled aboard the slow local locommotive, stopping at every town. We'd been taken to mosques and international football matches in the capital. Now we were back, skirting wonky buses and speeding cabs. Dodging fruit carts and horsedrawn carriages. Puddle splashed and breathless, we finally arrived at The Victoria Hotel, a grand affair. Early morning, we were woken by the prayers in the street below. Leaning from the window, I looked upon an entire street, free of traffic, lined with men kneeling on prayer mats. Goats on the rooftop opposite baaad and pigeons swooped and landed on the sill, begging food.

Simon Shouts "Oi Giza!"
Sudanese Stun Gun Running.
Our circus of a Visa day began well. We collected a 'Letter of Recommendation' from the British Embassy (this is essentially an exorbitantly priced photocopy). We procured a particularly ugly set of mug shots. The day then deteriorated.
We approached the doors of the Sudan Embassy and worked our way through the mix of applicants, loiterers and boys with guns. The queuing was typically Egyptian. No queue, a mass of people, shoving, pushing, people shouting, people ignoring instructions and men's business being of more import than women's.
In the eye of all this chaos was the guarddog. He was vainly trying to conduct the mayhem happening around him. Yesterday this man told us to be here at this time. Today he tells us that the Embassy is shut. His word is apparently not gospel and his Polaroid bedecked eyes do not register the visa-application clutching congregation trooping upstairs.
Once his attention was fixed elsewhere, and armed with our Embassy photocopy, we followed the crowd through the heavy looking doors that guard the inner sanctum of Sudanese bureaucracy and up the stairs. We asked for the Consul General and were escorted to a plush sofa decked office, where a stern looking man sat under an air-conditioning fan. He read our letters, scribbled in Arabic on their reverse, asked a few rudimentary questions, and told us to go and see the 'Head of Passports'. It was all looking perfectly straightforward. We found the 'Head of Passports' sitting behind a massive desk, holding court to two gentlemen. One was dressed in a dazzling white galabiya and headscarf, the other was dressed in what looked like full military dress, complete with oversized epaulets and peaked cap. The 'Head of Passports', Mr Moshi, was also flanked by the guarddog, who, on seeing us, rushed over in apoplexy and bundled us out of the room. He escorted us briskly and physically, with a vice like grip, down the stairs.
People were still being admitted so a few moments later, we were back up the stairs and heading for the Consul General's office. We never made it there and the guarddog ejected an increasingly vocal Leah and me once again. We were back where we had started, in front of the main desk and with no hope of sneaking in a third time. The stakes had also risen in the guarddog's favour as I saw him pocket a stun gun. The guarddog then produced a pair of forms, but proceeded to direct the shouts and cries of others with them. Eventually, we were handed the papers, and filled them out in the packed, sweat smelling room they call a waiting room.
We returned to the fray with completed forms, photocopies and photographs. The now armed guarddog insisted that we make an appointment for the following day at a time he would not divulge. We were stubborn and persistent, telling him that we had an appointment. He wanted us to leave, I wanted to take his name and report him. The boys with guns outside were getting edgy. We were instructed to retire to the waiting room, and hand the forms over the counter. Naturally the counter in the stinking room was shut. Two Spanish girls were in the same predicament - all paperwork, no visas. The four of us decided to make sure our presence was noted and loiter in the vicinity of the guarddog's desk.
Without warning, we were told to wait five minutes and then go upstairs.
In the sacred passport office, Mr Moshi chain-smoked and we answered all of his questions with a 'Sir'. With an instruction to return at three pm, we were dismissed. Naturally we had to pay in dollars. Naturally we had none. Surprisingly they agreed to change some local currency for us. I headed off to the cashpoint, only to be refused entry back into the building. My attempts at sneaking that time did not even get me up the stairs.
I waited outside smoking cigarettes until a Helper was engaged by Leah to collect me. Currency was exchanged; we were presented with a receipt and bundled down the stairs into the realm of the guarddog.
After an hour, we were summoned to the desk and the previously febrile guarddog softened, smiling. We collected our scrupulously checked visas, thanked him with smiles and left. We were off to Sudan. All we had to do was get there.

Trundling South.
We were up early, and stepped out into the strangely deserted Cairo streets. The normally hectic dual carriageway between our hotel and Ramses Station had quietened to a level of traffic comparable to London at rush hour.
We boarded the 7.30am train and after piling the bikes in a doorway and precariously balancing the luggage in the overhead string sacks, we purposefully sat down in the wrong seats so that we could observe the bikes. We pulled out of the station exactly on time and rumbled slowly past decaying architecture; piles of discarded rubbish; slum housing of various constructions and material; hordes of people and vehicles at level crossings; and the occasional cow or goat.
	Finally we were on the tracks South and the view changed. Verdant green surrounded us. Water buffalo tilled the land. People squatted to harvest the abundant yet unidentifiable green plants that horses and goats munched on.
	We zipped through 'Middle Egypt', which had been sarcastically described as 'Egypt's Best Kept Secret'. It was here that we had reason to be fearful if the police warnings were to be believed. True, once upon a time the ground within a musket-shot of the railway line was razed to prevent snipers hiding in the long grass. But this was a long time ago and we both wondered just how dangerous this area really was for travellers.
	Finally, as the panoramas of palm trees, distant mosques, fleeting glimpses of the Nile and rustic life became shadows in the fading sunset, we pulled into Luxor.
After the hassle of the station stairs, the town of our memories did not confront us. That Luxor was full of hawkers desperate to sell whatever wares or services they had and our Arabic then did not progress past 'la shukran'. The Luxor we were greeted by was dusty, well lit and the only salutations we heard were lazy sounding 'hotels' or 'lucky man'.
We navigated the narrow sandy streets, in search of lodgings. At the 'Little Garden Hotel', we found immaculate rooms, jovial and welcoming staff and drinks on arrival. We booked in. We sneaked our bikes inside our room. We had beer in the roof garden.

Extortion!
We struggled to locate the correct train to Aswan; the filthy grubby one on the left or the less dirty one on the right. We boarded the cleaner looking of the two. The train conductor eyed us suspiciously and remained inactive as we loaded our bikes and toiled with our luggage. Again we settled into our unalloted seats to observe our bikes safety.
Shortly after departure, I got nattering to two casually dressed policemen and I was invited for tea. It would have been rude to refuse.
	An hour into the journey, the train conductor called me into the space between the cars. We engaged in idle chitchat and he looked at the Arabic phrasebook that I had been reading. He asked me if the bikes were mine. He knew they were. He asked to see my ticket. This was the same ticket that he had examined and initialled an hour ago. I smelt a rat. He proceeded to tell me that the fare for a bicycle was the same as the fare for a person. Now he was lying. He then told me that this fare was due to be paid to him and to be paid now. At first, I pretended not to understand. He mimed some more. Then I pretended that the penny had dropped. He seemed relieved. I told him that I did not have to pay anything. He told me that I must. I told him that he was mistaken. He told me that he was not, and refused to return either tickets or phrasebook. I was still not playing the 'part with cash game'. The amount kept dropping; it was half the price it started from but it was still due. I was still not paying anything. After about ten minutes, Leah opened the sliding door and left it open. She inquired in a very loud voice as to whether there was a problem and why had that man got our tickets and phrasebook. Now the rest of the carriage was curious. With an audience that the guard could not ignore, Leah took back the tickets and book and we returned to our seats.
On arrival at Aswan, the shared tea with the policemen came in useful. We were the first next to the door, showing unusual preparation for Leah and myself. The extortion guard was making an obvious drama of writing out a 'ticket' or 'fine' for us. One of the policemen idly showed his gun and stood between us and the backsheesh miscreant, who vanished into the grubby finger smeared plastic covered woodwork (but not before he had tried to pilfer from my luggage).

Nasser'ty.
We were eager to leave Egypt, and get to the station in time for the 9.15am departure. It was nowhere to be seen. At 10.00am we boarded our first and only local Egyptian train. It had no windows and precious few doors. It was great for hanging out of as we trundled along to the Aswan High Dam and the ferry to Sudan.
We had a few hours before the ferry departed and already the exterior of the port was filled with heavily laden trucks, people wandering aimlessly, moneychangers and hawkers. There was an air of confusion as people, vehicles and cargo mingled and slowly progressed through the various barriers and checkpoints. We showed our tickets, bundled our machines with their panniers still attached through the x-ray machine and after about fifteen minutes we were at passport control for our exit stamps. Suddenly, I am summoned over by a stern looking guard, only to be called Ali Baba yet again, told to shave off my beard and grow a moustache.
Now we could board. Now the fun really started.
We weaved our way through the huge crowd of man-ants loading their queen with sugar. Anything that was not strapped down was bundled and barged past us. We were in their way and were told so. We were determined to share our cabin with our vehicles. Leah went to locate the cabin and report its size. I stayed with the bikes and the impression that soon I would be blocked between a growing pile of washing machines; apples; plastic chairs; ovens; packed bags; boxes of clocks; a ton of cheese; and an open doorway. Leah returned with good news. As she manhandled her bike up the steel stairs, we had an ongoing argument with a man who seemed to be in charge. He was stressing that the bikes must not go into the cabin. His shadow inferred that it would be possible, for a small fee. We stated yet again that the bikes must stay with us and we paid no-one. Leah took hold of her handlebars, I lifted the back, and fifty percent of our posessions were in the room. Next, I ran the gauntlet of idlers, interferers, interpreters and general nosy parkers and managed to get my bike parked next to hers. We shut the door. Sanctuary. The cabin smelled funny, and we opened the porthole onto the hullabaloo of the loading of the ship.
Leah guarded our unlockable room, and I wandered around, amazed at the growing piles of cargo. Boxes were being forced through the portholes, carried around the ship and piled in any available space.
After a protracted conversation with a moneychanger about the fact that you drop the trailing zero when talking to some people and not to others, and how much a cup of tea will cost, I thought I had got my head around the numbers.
Several times I wandered past what was loosely called the kitchen, to see the man who was nicknamed chef, preparing vegetables. His kitchen did not look sanitary.
	I wandered back to the cabin just in time to be greeted by our special 'First Class Meal'. It looked terrible. The scooped aluminium tray, the kind you see in prison films that the 'food' had been carelessly dolloped onto, looked as if it had never seen water. The cutlery had oxidised around the dirt that remained from its previous users. The food itself was a red and green salad surrounded by a liquid of unknown origin; a stew that looked like a combination of gravel and snot in a viscous foul smelling gravy; a murky soup with a layer of floating fat, in a plastic bowl that looked like its previous purpose was to collect engine oil and a dirty round bread topped off with two cold lardy looking chipolatas. I was starving, and for a nanosecond I was tempted to tuck in. Then my brain registered once more the 'food' before me. Neither of us wanted the shits on this ship. Small cubicles that reeked of diesel and faeces, with walls that were covered with unidentifiable smears and floors splattered with very identifiable stains, were not the place that we wanted to spend more time than was necessary. We ate our faithful bread and cheese triangles.
After brandy mixed with mango juice fuelled conversations, we retired to our diesel stinking cabin. By now the stench was unbearable. Naturally the air-conditioning did not work.

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Before here we were in Tunisia. After here we were in Sudan.

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