Overnight Train to Luxor

Morning blog…

Tonight, we will leave the Holy Sheet Hostel and take the Ernst train to Luxor so …. we have a free day to just hang out in the sun on our balcony, catch up on our blog if the wifi cooperates, pack up our bags and maybe go out for a walk to the Tahrir Square and the old museum. There are a few options for travel from Cairo to Luxor but we opted for the overnight train. It is more expensive than the day train but offers a new experience.

It’s windy yet warm today so the sand will blow in from the desert. Our clothes haven’t really stayed very clean in Cairo. It’s a fact of life for the people here. We were able to send our clothes out to be washed, courtesy of the hostel, and we have hand-washed some of our clothes and we have only been here for 5 days!

In the hostel’s common room, we met a runner from Boston who paid a lot of money to run a 60km race yesterday around Giza. He didn’t have a very good experience though. The hotel he was put in was filthy that he decided to move to the Holy Sheet. Good move. During his race, gangs of kids threw rocks at him and even tackled him to steal his phone and any money he might have. Once he fell to the ground while hanging on to his things with the kids on top of him, until the police showed up. The police used whips on the kids to break them up. What a horrible experience for him!

Afternoon blog…

We packed up and realized that we had time to walk to the old museum. No easy feat with the traffic but we did it. I wrote a footprint about it.

Early evening blog…

We had heard that because of the incredible traffic at rush hour, the 1 km trip to the train station may take forever. Knowing this, we decided to take Uber an hour earlier. The train was going to leave at 7:45 pm. S we left at 6:30 pm. We have never used Uber so the manager at the hostel have Chris a very good lesson and watched as Chris booked our first Uber ride. It all worked out well but now we had to deal with a very busy train station.

A tourist police took us, and an Australian family of 6 (Melbourne), under his wing and put us in a special waiting room. He said that he would take care of us. And he did. At the right time, he picked us up and led us to the sleeper train waiting area. Then he made sure that we got on the right car. Chris tried to tip him but he wouldn’t take the money. We were all so relieved. Remember that everything is in Arabic here.

About 30 years ago, my mother and I took a sleeper train from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The trains here are Russian-made so they are very similar. It is an experience to say the least!

Our clean room is about 2m x 3 m, a tight squeeze for 2 people. Haha. We have bunk beds, a high rack for our bags, a sink with soap but no towels, a mirror, a window, and a few handy hooks. The washroom is at the end of the car.

At 8:30, the porter brought us a piping hot dinner of rice, boiled potatoes, zucchini, and carrots,
beef chucks, peppers and onion as well as a salad, roll and orange. We had brought drinks, snacks and a sandwich just in case the food was bad but it was all good!

The porter returned to put up a ladder and make up the bottom bunk. We were surprised that there was a charging station for our phones.

Anyways, we’ll see how sleep goes tonight. The porter said that he would wake us up at 5 a.m. for breakfast. I think that we get into Luxor at 6:30 a.m. Our hostel is letting us come in early.

The next morning…

We didn’t get a lot of sleep. The train kept stopping along the way. Haha. We haven’t had much sleep on this trip. We got in to Luxor at 6 a.m. and walked a short distance to the hostel through a garbage strewn area and the market as people were setting up. Egypt has not dealt with plastics at all. It’s everywhere!Read more