Egypt trip, Dec 2008 - "Training it", Egyptian tourist style.

Since the terrorist attacks in Egypt a few years ago, the Egyptian government has put restrictions on which trains foreigners may take between Cairo, Luxor and Aswan, allegedly so that the government can assure tourists' safety (The sleeping train is guarded by armed police). These days, foreigners are only allowed on the special sleeper train or 2-3 other ordinary train.

It is 9 hours trip so I am glad that we took the overnight sleeper train.

We arrived at the Giza (there is some engineering going on so the train is temporarily departing from Giza station, instead of the Ramese II station) station with plenty of time.

The tour leader, Teefa, has organised porters to carry the luggage for our group. These special trolleys can accommodate about 10 pieces of luggages at any one time.

Here we are, before boarding.

There are 13 sleeping carriages, each contains 10 double cabins. In addition, there is an exclusive "Club Car". In our cabin, there is a little sticker that invites us to the "Club Car" for a belly dancing competition. No wonder Teefa strongly recommended us NOT to go there ;-P

The cabin is set up with 2 seats during the day. There was a small sink with running water and a luggage compartment is on top of the doorway. There was a toilet at the end of each carriage, but the toilet was definitely not the nicest.

Our group had the entire carriage to ourselves, so the corridor has become the meeting place.

Not long after the departure, dinner was served in our cabin (dinner is included but drinks are extra). What is the quality of the food like? Well, to put it in Teefa's words, "If you like the food, you can have mine as well." We didn't eat the dinner on the way out. On the way back, I accepted a dinner tray and tasted some of the food. It is really not that great.

After dinner, we watched a couple episodes of Chinese TV and then, we went to sleep. The attendant (or Teefa!) folded out the beds, which is already covered with fresh linen.

We didn't sleep that well though. The journey were actually quite bumpy. There were a lot of stop-starts and some people were chatting in the corridor all night (you know who you are!!! hehe)

The next morning, the attendant came back to fold up the beds and bring in the breakfast tray. The breakfast tray is not much more exciting, as it only has "bread, bread and bread" (as Teefa put it)

We didn't peek out of the window that much so I don't have any photos to show. I wished I peek out more.


For more information:

http://www.sleepingtrains.com/