Saturday, April 18, 2009

Not on a train, never again, feel like a drain

So, we got really drunk on the train from Cairo to Aswan. The night started fine; we went to the bar carriage and ordered a beer and had a chat with some Americans who were visiting the middle east. Nice enough people, about 18-19 years old. One of the girls, bless her, still thought that she could make a big difference in the world just by wishing it, and that she had all the solutions for the middle-east conflicts. I stand by what I've discovered this whole trip: When you're 18 years old, you don't know shit. Christian bought a bottle of red, and it was very bad. So I drank half of it. This was on top of the two cans of beer I had earlier. They serve the beer over here in 500mL bottles or cans so it's a bit different to home. The other glaring difference is that the beer here is quite bad. After I was half a bottle and two beers in the hole a swarm of english teenagers swarmed the car with their two teachers. Turns out they were on a 1 week tour of Egypt. 2 teachers for 14 kids aging from 14 to 16. Madness, but the teacher struck me as one of those dedicated enthusiastic types, so maybe he won't go crazy. Time will tell I guess.

I was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the train, beer in hand, floaty shirt moving around me, my beard occupying my face. For a split second I had a giggle - I felt like some wiseman or something surrounded by acolytes. I had 6 of these kids sitting around me on chairs asking me about Australia, my trip, and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was pretty cool having people hang on every word on a train speeding through the night. They were genuinely interested by what I was saying (and no I wasn't drunk, that bit came later), so I was happy to tell them anything they wanted to know. Made me think I should do that extra year of study (ack) and become a teacher. They left after an hour or so and I had a chat with their teacher and called him mad about 5 times. Those kids from Manchester were going to have a hell of a trip, I just hoped a few of them stopped dicking around long enough to appreciate how lucky they were. When the kids left I told a German couple that my ambulance was broken, that I had saurkraut in my leather pants and that I was a sausage. It's all the German I know. From here it gets a bit fuzzy since Christian bought me 4 more beers and 2 whiskeys. He didn't want to drink alone you see, so I was happy to oblige. We talked shit for hours and met alot of other travellers until the world went blurry. I walked back to our sleeping carriage, got to my chair and passed out. Woke an hour later feeling deathly ill and stumbled towards the back of the carriage where the banos was. The door was jammed shut so I stumbled on further till I reached the gap between carriages. I don't know which car it was, but I do know that when I left there was quite a bit of terrible beer, wine and whiskey all over the ground.
Hands up if you've got drunk on bad Egyptian beer on a train in the middle of the night somewhere in the middle of the desert, then thrown it all back up again.

*Puts hand up*

When I woke at 7am I felt quite bad really. 5 hours sleep, too much booze and no air-con made me hate life just a little bit. Compared to my travel buddy however, I was feeling rosy. He blew $150 USD on piss in a few hours and looked like he had been rolling in a gutter. When we arrived at Aswan he gripped my backpack and I led him through the crowds, across the streets and into the hotel. Our guide led the way for me and asked if we wanted to see the High Dam and Philae temple that afternoon.
'No thanks, we're quite sick at the moment'
'A cold, sir?'
'...something like that, yes.'

When I got to my hotel room I couldn't work out why I'd got so sick off of a relatively small amount of alcohol. I should have been buzzed but not sick. It was then that I remembered that I'd taken a couple of tablets to stabilise my stomach about 12 hours before getting on the train. I checked the box of meds and, lo and behold, saw this message: 'Do not consume alcohol for 48 hours after taking this medication'. Oops. There was my reason for feeling so ill. The meds, coupled with bad Egyptian beer (Luxor Brand) was a sure-fire way to make yourself feel as bad as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Aswan is where the wonder of Egyptian organisation was revealed to us. Back in Cairo we'd forked out $270 USD for the trip to Aswan/Luxor. This included all transport, a 2 night sail on a felucca and 2 nights in hotels. Sounded pretty reasonable. The thing is, they wanted us to share a room in Aswan. At this, Christian was suddenly awake with a loud 'Fuck that shit!' and we got separate rooms. The day was spent dozing. Important note: I didn't sleep, I just drank alot of water with re-hydration salts in it. Was right as rain by 6pm. I was told that we needed to be in the reception area at 3am to go to Abu Simbel by bus. I didn't sleep that night and Christian opted to stay at the hotel, so I went to the lobby alone at 3am and boarded the minibus filled with Italians and 2 americans. We drove for 15 minutes and stopped at a security checkpoint. We did not move for 45 minutes. We just parked the bus and the driver got out to smoke. So not only could I have stayed in bed longer, I also had no idea when we would arrive at our destination. After standing around for no reason we boarded the minibus and set off on the 3 hour trip across the desert to Abu Simbel.

Australia does not have desert. Jordan does not even have desert compared to Egypt. This Egyptian desert is like the surface of Mars, just yellow. Remind me to tell conspiracy theorists that there is no *real* Mars Rover, they just spray-painted Egypt red and sent the robot there instead. We arrived at Abu Simbel later than expected (because of the dicking around at the checkpoint) so we missed the sunrise there. Abu Simbel is a nice place, but to be honest I was disappointed. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the crowds, maybe it was the lack of sleep. I'm not sure. It was impressive for sure, and the statues were beautiful, but I wasn't filled with that sense of wonder that has been so familiar this trip. I think that I've imagined visiting Abu Simbel alone on a cool day, which is completely unrealistic. The heat here is baking - it's about 35 degrees every day this far south, and the tourists SWARM over the place. It's nice, but it would be infinitely nicer to be there on my own. The other downer is that the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities is hell-bent on setting up light shows at all of the major monuments. I have no problem with a few spotlights on the ground pointing up at the statue - it would look impressive at night, but it would still be simple. What the dickheads have done though is mount spotlights on Ramses' knees. His fucking KNEES. As your point of view scrolls across you see untouched statue, untouched statue, untouched statue, ancient statue with two large spotties on his lap. Doesn't seem too respectful to me.
Still, I'm glad I came, because it's something I can tick off my list.

The bus ride back was interesting because we were driven through a small sandstorm by a dickhead. He nearly rolled the bus because he tried to swerve nothing at 140km/h. If I were in a Lotus Elise, this would have been simple, but since he was in a minibus packed with tourists, it wasn't as simple a feat. Got back to Aswan, packed my stuff and joined Christian in the car for the ride to the felucca.

For those of you playing at home, a Felucca is an Egyptian sailing boat. What we were told in Cairo is that we'd spend 2 nights and 2.5 days on the felucca and sail down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor. There would be no more than 8 people on the boat, there would be proper toilets along the way and we'd see temples on day 2. What actually happened was this:

We arrived to find 10 people on the boat already, plus the three crew. So 15 people on a boat designed for 8. Of these 12 passengers there were 5 separate pairs/groups, including a family consisting of Mum, Dad, 7-year-old son, 10-year-old son. Each group had a different itinerary, none of which were followed. It turns out that the travel agents in Egypt tell the customers any damn thing to get their money, then whack them on any old vehicle and push them into the river. The first day was cruisy. We were relaxed, the wind was good, and there was an air of relaxation over the boat. We stopped for an hour so the captain could pick up beer and water. I did not order beer, just the water (to be safe). This transaction should have taken 15 minutes, but we were there for an hour. We sailed further down river to our campsite where they parked the boat and served us dinner. Lunch had been bad falaffel and a salad which we'd seen them rinse with river water. Dinner was some sort of tomato stew type thing. It was not filling or nice. Still, it was food. It was here that the captain told us we'd be visiting a camel market the next day. No we bloody weren't. He wanted us to pay to go in, clearly so he could get his kickback. We all argued with him alot and he was defeated. Everyone was tense because we had no idea where we were actually going, and had got the definite feeling that we'd been screwed.

I put on Christian's spare Galabaya (Arab man dress), wrapped my scarf around my face, and settled down to sleep, crammed between Chinese Phillip and English Tom. A boat designed for 8 does not sleep 12 very comfortably.

As an aside, I'd been awake for 38 hours and I wasn't feeling heavy-eyed or drained. I was running on fumes, and it was fun. No floaty feeling, not sickness, no 'oh god I'm so tired' feeling, just a state of ultra-awareness. It's the longest I've ever stayed awake in one stretch.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fuck, break that shit down a bit, on different days, I need to pace myself.

Either way, you need to learn more German from me and I need to know how to say "My Ambulance is broken".

Here's a few phrases for you:
Triten Shide - Literal translation "Kick Cunt", so it's like you've taken a kick to the cunt, and by cunt I mean vagina.

Tunter Ficker - Literal translation "Transvestite Fucker", so to use it with "Du Bist Eine" (Your are one/a) "Du bist eine tunter ficker".

Side note, I ran into some German tourists down here the other day, and got to use all of these sayings, including "Ja wol mein heir ici habuer sauer kraut in mein ledor houssen" (no idea about the speeling).

Either way, your post was TLDR, I'll wait for the audio book (when you get back).

Sam said...

You're so lazy man lol. At any rate I was gonna break it down but the net is sketchy here, wanted to get it down all in one go. Can spread it out later when I'm at a reliable bit of kit.

Sam said...

Fixed