Been there and done that - Egypt P.2

ON THE WAY

2nd day in Cairo was kind of long visiting day. The later itinerary was going to the train station for the trip to Aswan. From that city, we then took a Nile river cruise to Luxor. Then, we took another train back to Cairo.



The trains (back and forth)

We reached Giza train station about 1.5 hours to departure time (as on tickets). However, we had to wait for about more than 3 hours because the train was late. As we waited for the train on the station, I watched around and had that thought. If we didn't have a tour guide, it was more than difficult to find out the right gate of the train. I didn't see any of instruction board (or I didn't notice them?). There was a couple who finally gave up after a long searching time and asked us for help. Fortunately (for them), I can speak English and my guide at least knew a little bit about the gates of station.

There were many types of train going by the station. Most of them looked dirty. Many of those trains seemed over-crowded, and noisy. Luckily, when our train reached, we instantly recognized it. The tourism train was much more better than we first thought. It was clean and neat. The sleeping car had only foreign tourists. The air-conditioner worked well and the soundproof was better than the tourism train I once experienced in China two years ago.

Still, there were some problems. Some people of our group couldn't eat the on-train food. Fairly, the rice was alright but the food was too dry and after a tired day it was not a surprise for me. However, the croissant was not bad (I actually liked it). The dinner excluded drinking but the breakfast included one hot drink (tea or instant coffee).

Our train reached Aswan about... 5 hours late in comparision with the initial schedule (OMG!). Then the train back to Cairo was 3 hours late. However, I had an explanation from the Cairo guide that there was a fire accident on one of the train and the railway was blocked for solving problem. (I had not a word from the Aswan-Luxor guide about the train). When I told my guide that 3 hours late was much more better than 5 hours late so it was not a problem. He shrugged and somehow seemed stunned by my reaction. He finally uttered "So... you seemed familiar with being late". Oh, yeah, things were exactly the same as it was in my country just some years ago. Life is still beautiful, rite?

Tips:

1. Just choose tourist train for your traveling. It's just a matter of safe-feeling, especially in case you're a female. However, if you don't mind being mingled with the local crowd on other trains, just give it a try.

2. Actually, if bread and cheese is enough for you, the food problem is basically solved. In case you need something better, buy it on the way to the station as some tourists did as I saw. McDonald, PizzaHut, KFC is easy to find in big city (Cairo, Luxor, Alex, etc.) Drink is not actually a problem. The on-train drinking price was reasonable. It was about 1USD for a hot drink or a bottle of water. (Same price with station stalls).

TBC