Egypt and Sudan 2005: A kid doing the helicopter and the demand for sexy books

Sunny greetings from Sudan!

Merhaba, I'm now in Khartoum, the dusty capital of Sudan (or "The Sudan" as it's officially called). Before getting here I had to take several severly damaging bus rides. Tarmac roads are a luxury here, as well as busses that have glass in the windows and normal sized seats. So I ended up eating dust and sliding and bumping of my seat much of the time. Without doubt these bus rides were the hardest of all bus rides I have done so far.

Elvis is alive and lives in Cairo

The first few weeks of my trip I spent in Egypt, it was a bit like I expected: a lot of hassling and very touristic. But I met also some really nice people. First few days were spent in Cairo. Ofcourse I visited the pyramids at Giza. I found the people around the pyramids very pushy. Bloody bastards who make the Indians look like sweethearts.

Of course I needed to take a picture of this

From Cairo I took a bus to Dahab, in Sinai. I stepped in Mozes footprints and climbed Mount Sinai, this is the place where according to the old testament he received the 10 commandments from god. The view from the top was amazing, with the rising sun giving the desolate landscape a warm red colour. After that I spent some days at a "hotel" run by a bedouin guy, I was his only guest. he was a very funny and hospitable person. I had a really good time with him.

Thou shall not sing hymns in the morning on top of
Mount Sinai, thou crazy Azian tourgroups

From Dahab I took the bus to Luxor, marvelled at temples and thombes, but especially at the tourist madness. Then to Aswan where I visited some Nubian villages. The Nubian houses are painted in bright beautiful colours with nice sober designs.

A example of a Nubian house in Khartoum

I went to the other side of the nile to escape the tourist frenzy, there I met a guy who asked me if I had a book, while he said book he made some obscene gestures. He kept going about "Dutch book" and making obscene gestures. I told him I didn't have a book like that. Later I was approached by a young guy (approximatly 15, 16 years old). He started talking about going to see a obelisk. He got very pushy. After he showed me his own obelisk and doing the helicopter with it, I understood his motive was not money driven. (or maybe it was) The sheer size of his "obelisk" gave me an instant inferiority complex. Disillusioned I walked further and got harrased by some little kids. They got really annoying and did some wierd karate kicks behind my back. So I gave a backward kick and kicked one right in the stomach (by accident actually). That served him right. The rest of our short time together was spent throwing stones at each other. After all this I decided to back to the other site, at least nobody shows their genitals there at you.

Cairo market from the air

Today I tried to get money with my mastercard (no ATM's in Sudan). At the 5th bank I was finally informed that because of the international sanctions it's not possible to money by visa or by mastercard.
The town of Khartoum is filled with all different kind of ministeries and councils. You cannot think of anything or they have a ministery for it. I saw 2 buildings which belonged to the ministery of roads and bridges. I wonder what they do all day in these buildings. It is truly bureaucracy in it's purest form.
Also when you want to travel around you need a permit for it. Of course you have to pay to get this permit and everywhere you go you have to register. It looks like they want to get as much as possible out of the few tourists who visit their country. The people on the street are on the contrary very friendly and nice. It's just the government that sucks.
Well, that's it for now. Tomorrow I'm of to Ethiopia. I will keep you informed.

Bye

Kurt