Training Night
Our camel expedition
“This is no tourist bus” .I looked around me at the threadbare seats, the bare metal floor and hanging wires, breathed in the exhaust fumes and said “No”.
At the moment the bus is moving slowly backwards which is odd because the engine’s off. It’s a big bus so probably not people power, they’ve likely enlisted a couple of donkeys. Maybe they want to get it up a rise so that they can get up some forward speed to jumpstart it. It’s not looking good; the fumes are starting to pile up and we’re switching from bus to oven quickly. I’m going to have to finish writing about this when it’s over.
We got on our train from Cairo and with the comandeering hand of the conductor, into our rooms. The internet describes them as “couchettes”, a small room whose seats fold into two bunkbeds by night. It felt so...forties. Back then it was an elegant form of travel with fancy foldout sink and the like. It even had piped muzak. But this train hasn’t had any maintainance since the forties and to say it’s a little shabby is being polite.
There’s two beds per room and there’s three of us so we had two rooms. What we hadn’t considered is that they’d book someone else in with me. He was a Kiwi who was as unhappy sharing his room as I was and tried several ploys to squeeze me out. I got the commandeer to straighten him out but now he’s a wounded bear who’s used to getting his own way. Fuck him.
Our meal was an airline affair washed down with a bottle of wine I’d bought at the corner store in Cardiff. The wine was the best part of the meal so with a pleasant buzz rounding out the rough edges, I found the conductor to have the beds brought down and looked for the club car as She tucked in Luka. The party was just starting. I found a table, opened the laptop and ordered a beer. I tried typing but the chap from Northumberland was feeling chatty and insisted on sharing his opinions on immigration (too much), national benefits (way too much) and the new restrictive smoking policies (bastards!). She saved me an hour later just as the Croatians were kicking their singsong into high gear.
Kiwi claimed the lower bunk in my absence so I carefully took my drunk self up the ladder and allowed the train to rock me to sleep. When I woke up the lower bunk was empty and the sun’s height indicated we’d be pulling into the station soon so I clambered down and knocked on Her door. No answer. I better get more info before I panic so I grab the ‘puter and head for the club car hoping to score a cuppa and orientation. I’d make a lousy Indian. It was only 6:45, three hours from the station and there was Kiwi who was suddenly quite chatty. Shit. No typing this AM either but I got to hear his views on the state of the world and how things would be better back home when they cut back on immigration and stopped giving money away. Guess he didn’t smoke.
She saved me again and we retreated to her room for brekkie; four types of bread separately sealed in plastic and a cup of instant. How very continental.
When we stepped off the train in Aswan our new guide was there and says “You’re an hour late”. What do you say to that? Maybe he thought I’d been dragging my feet along the ground to slow down the train in order to savour the moment. Gerges (we called him George) is a nice young man with limited people skills but an extensive knowledge of Egyptian history. His English knowledge was as extensive as his Egyptian history but his pronuciation was as limited as his people skills and he was an interesting companion for our tour of Aswan and three day cruise on the Nile. He informed us that it was 41 degrees (it was 10:30am) and were we ready to see the sights or did we want to drop our bags first?
At the moment the bus is moving slowly backwards which is odd because the engine’s off. It’s a big bus so probably not people power, they’ve likely enlisted a couple of donkeys. Maybe they want to get it up a rise so that they can get up some forward speed to jumpstart it. It’s not looking good; the fumes are starting to pile up and we’re switching from bus to oven quickly. I’m going to have to finish writing about this when it’s over.
We got on our train from Cairo and with the comandeering hand of the conductor, into our rooms. The internet describes them as “couchettes”, a small room whose seats fold into two bunkbeds by night. It felt so...forties. Back then it was an elegant form of travel with fancy foldout sink and the like. It even had piped muzak. But this train hasn’t had any maintainance since the forties and to say it’s a little shabby is being polite.
There’s two beds per room and there’s three of us so we had two rooms. What we hadn’t considered is that they’d book someone else in with me. He was a Kiwi who was as unhappy sharing his room as I was and tried several ploys to squeeze me out. I got the commandeer to straighten him out but now he’s a wounded bear who’s used to getting his own way. Fuck him.
Our meal was an airline affair washed down with a bottle of wine I’d bought at the corner store in Cardiff. The wine was the best part of the meal so with a pleasant buzz rounding out the rough edges, I found the conductor to have the beds brought down and looked for the club car as She tucked in Luka. The party was just starting. I found a table, opened the laptop and ordered a beer. I tried typing but the chap from Northumberland was feeling chatty and insisted on sharing his opinions on immigration (too much), national benefits (way too much) and the new restrictive smoking policies (bastards!). She saved me an hour later just as the Croatians were kicking their singsong into high gear.
Kiwi claimed the lower bunk in my absence so I carefully took my drunk self up the ladder and allowed the train to rock me to sleep. When I woke up the lower bunk was empty and the sun’s height indicated we’d be pulling into the station soon so I clambered down and knocked on Her door. No answer. I better get more info before I panic so I grab the ‘puter and head for the club car hoping to score a cuppa and orientation. I’d make a lousy Indian. It was only 6:45, three hours from the station and there was Kiwi who was suddenly quite chatty. Shit. No typing this AM either but I got to hear his views on the state of the world and how things would be better back home when they cut back on immigration and stopped giving money away. Guess he didn’t smoke.
She saved me again and we retreated to her room for brekkie; four types of bread separately sealed in plastic and a cup of instant. How very continental.
When we stepped off the train in Aswan our new guide was there and says “You’re an hour late”. What do you say to that? Maybe he thought I’d been dragging my feet along the ground to slow down the train in order to savour the moment. Gerges (we called him George) is a nice young man with limited people skills but an extensive knowledge of Egyptian history. His English knowledge was as extensive as his Egyptian history but his pronuciation was as limited as his people skills and he was an interesting companion for our tour of Aswan and three day cruise on the Nile. He informed us that it was 41 degrees (it was 10:30am) and were we ready to see the sights or did we want to drop our bags first?
The Desert up way too close
An Oasis?
Napolean actually cut off the nose to take back to France
The start of an interesting train ride
posted by John | 8:35 am
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