Aswan by Train
On third class

You might think that you were quite lucky not to have come on this trip. Poor tour management secured tickets for the wrong day, and there were no vacancies. Sold out days ago. Fortunately though, this was a matter of little significance. The train had already left.

Knutsen tours & adventure thought the train was leaving at 11 45, but this turned out to be the seat and car number. The real Aswan express was in Asyout by the time this information was dawning on the tour company's only customer.

There was, however, another train leaving for Aswan. No tickets, but ask on third class. I leave the ticket office for rail 8, and first car I see has has a big two on it. I gather this is the car for people with tickets. I overlook the dirty grey train, with broken window shields of green-painted wood, and think that yes, this might indeed qualify as an experience. Wonder where third class is. I walk alongside the train until I see people scrouging boxes, carts and children to fit into plate-sized spaces.

Looks like third class, allright. Only a few are lucky enough to sit down, and even these have elbows in their eyes and last years harvest (neatly packed in Baraka-boxes and plastic bags) at their feet. In a feeble thought that this was an exceptionally bad car I continue walking, but realize soon that Knutsen tours & adventure are going for a Farafra incident. 12 hours of standing. Yes thank you and fuck me. I think, aparently for the first time in this disgrace of a tour organisation, maybe I can squeeze into second class after all. Just a no-comprende tourist. You can't throw me off. Think about the fundamentalists. Would you want christian blood on your hands? When i reach the second class car I verify that the train is indeed going to Aswan - where else can a train go in Egypt? -and enter. Ahhh. Im not the only one who has eyeballed the situation down at class three. The seats are all taken , as is the passageway between the seats. Somebody with a malfunctioning nose has even occupied the toilet.

I put my bag down, and try to get a ticket from the conductor. He just looks at me and continues to ask people to show their tickets. As he didn't throw me off right away - nor laugh inhumorously- I think this just might work. When the conductor finishes fifteen minutes later, I wonder what price I can afford. Forty pounds? Fifty? I've no ticket, and he can demand anything. Nobody cares about a stupid tourist. They're loaded. The conductor does some writing when I utter Aswan, and follows up by asking for tamantashar gunieas.

How much was that again. I don't even know the difference between thursday and friday, so how am I supposed to know numbers (that have no limit?) I feebly give him a twenty pound note, and waits for his reaction. He puts it happily in his pocket and grabs for change. I'm even going to get money back? It turns out to be an eighteen pound trip, and in the excitement and relief I forget to wonder what's wrong with it. 20 hours. From eleven at night until eight the following night.

One. Yes I study in Cairo. Sahaffa. Journalism.

Two. No, I'm not married, but I do have a girlfriend.

Three.Yes I study in Cairo. Sahaffa. Journalism.

Four. Ahh, I have space for my feet now.

Five. More people are leaving. Maybe I'll get a seat soon.

Six. Sun is rising but still dark.

Seven, not even half way.

Eight. Ahmed, my new-found friend who works at the Nile hilton offers me a cigarette. No I don't want. No. La shukran. La. Ok. Thank you. We sit there and smoke our fifteenth sigarette while his friend Mohammed the boxer finds a seat. Soon we are seated aswell, and we light up a celebrationary smoke.

Nine. Mohammed wants to marry me off to a five year-old veiled girl. She's a little shy, and her no less veiled mother says I can marry her for free. I say that's a little cheap, and go on to offer fifteen camels. Father comes along, and is not amused. Ahmed ushers his wife away and takes her seat. He wonders how he can marry a norwegian girl. I tell him to ask one, and he smiles mischievously. He was more thinking in the lines of me fixing him up. Right. I reply that sorry, norwegian women like to be the only one. Since he is already married, this won't work. Ahmed understands straight talk, and reconciles himself with his faith.

Ten. Finally some sleep. When I wake up two hours later, the train is half empty. Ahmed, my new-found friend and his friend Mohammed the boxer are still there. They're going to Quena. Quena is just outside Luxor. How long until we get there? Around four hours. It is now twelwe. Aswan is another four hours down from Luxor. Am I never finishing this train ride? At least now the sun is shining, and I can sit beside the open train door. Might aswell work on my tan when I'm sitting in the slow breeze created by the slow train.

One. I start doing some studies - broadcasting in the Arab world - and life seems once again pleasurable.

Two. A real Saidi-looking man in a grand blue galabeya and white head-gear enters the train, toghether with his daughter Warri (3) and sons Nas (5) Adil (8) and Mohammed (9). Hello. Hello. I'm trying to read but, Nas' incredible white smile, good humor, and constant attention seeking eventually wears me down. He wants to listen to my walkman. So does his brothers. All at once. I give my earplugs to Nas and Mohammed, and they are thrilled by Nadgar-e-Doost.

AAAAiiAAAAgrhgrhgrhAAAAAiiiAAAAA, they sing, almost like the real thing. Then Warri and Adil gets their turn, but it seems there are more children on the train. They want to listen to the walkman aswell. Ok ok. Estanna Estanna. Bad een Baad en. An hour of walkman monitoring passes, until the Saidi-family leaves. Soon the other kids go off aswell, and I have the whole car to myself. Luxor passes. Only four hours to go and it's four in the afternoon.

Been travelling for sixteen hours, but the sun is shining and the wind is swaing. If trips have better moments than this I don't want to know. I continue with my favorite book. The train stops at every little small house gathering along the Nile, and people enter and leave all the time. Just like the local tram. This is sugarcane country, and Saidis of all ages carry a stick of sugarcane that they chew and spit out. Not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily out the window. A couple of kids find entertainement by the open door, and unfortunately that entertainement is me.

What is this? Can I have that. Hoddeya? Present? Sigarette, mister. I tell them they're too young, but the one in the middle persistently claims he is sixteen. Sixteen? Let me see your Bta'aa. He shows me his identity card, and yes, he's sixteen. One cigarette for you. The smaller one says he smokes too, and knowingly grabs the butt of his friend and starts patting. Been an addict for years. Ok then. Since you are such a good smoker, I'll give you one. I take a picture. Partly because they looked nice, but mostly to annoy Gry because I'm giving cigarettes to children. They want to be photographers aswell, but fifteen pictures later I decide it's enough. Hoddeya. Can I have the camera?, the oldest and boldest asks. No. Can I have backsheesh, he continues. No. Can I have another sigarette?. No. Go away.

I put my walkman on, and continue with Broadcasting in the Arab world. Almost finished now. Its six o'clock and only two hours left. It is getting darker, and the red filter of the sun makes the date and sugarcane landscape even more beautiful. I try to catch some more sleep, but I am soon woken a huge bulk of a man, with two teeth and a wild black-spotted rasta beard. He is only talking gibberish, but after five minutes I pick up the word "Jaudeia". Aah. So that is what this is all about. Ive been spotted by a true fanatic, which wouldn't be hard - since I'm the only foreigner on the train. Naturally he would assume that I was a Jew. I want to suggest that Israelis are also people, and they are no more war mongering than the Egyptians, but the crazy Derwish continues to ramble.

"Brotestant", I say. Comprende? I'm of an alltogether different faith that - to the extent of my knowledge - is not in conflict with islam. "Brotestant?", He says. I'm gaining ground and quickly inserts "Aiwa". "Brotestant". "Janni Katolik lakin mish Katolik". Like Catholic but not Catholic. Fussy logic. He smiles broadly, and apologizes for his rude behaviour. I don't understand a word, of course, as he resumed his gibberish. He shook my hand, which I thought to be a good sign, and took leave at the last station before Aswan. I took that as a good sign too, that he was not crazy enough to leave the train in full speed.

The remaining thirty minutes of the train ride was uneventful, and twenty minutes past eight the train slided into the station of Aswan.

There was a fifty percent chance of getting either the 12 hour besorra train or the twenty hour bishwish train. Of course, with Knutsen travel & adventure, it had to be the last one.

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