A TRAIN TO ASWAN FOR FLOATING ON NILE- (PART 3 of 5)

A TRAIN TO ASWAN FOR FLOATING ON NILE

After Cairo, the rest of our journey was to be a 3N-4D (three nights – four day) cruise on the Nile. A visit to Egypt is is said to be incomplete without undertaking the famous Nile cruise on a 300 km stretch from Aswan to Luxor. In fact for those who may not appreciate the antiquity of Egyptian history , this cruise invariably becomes the high point of the tour. The cruise is also ideally suitable for tourists as almost 90% of all historic monuments in Egypt are located on this stretch. These cruise ships sail on day and anchor in the evening at the riverside towns where these monuments are located. We were to board our cruise from Aswan. The journey from Cairo to Aswan is nearly 900 kms northwards and it takes 14 hour from Giza station on a train to get there. Alps’s Egyptian counterpart, Wings Tours, had booked our tickets on a super luxury train which had all coaches air-conditioned much like our Rajdhani Express. While some travel agencies arrange the journey from Cairo to Aswan by air, I feel a train trip is a better idea as you can have a direct feel of countryside in the early morning. The train started from Giza station at 20.00 hrs. Dinner was served on train. The train conductor appeared to be a multi-tasking personality. – doing everything from examining tickets to preparing our beds. The coach design was also very peculiar. To set the upper berth, the ticket examiner pulled put an aluminum ladder from under the lower berth, set it against the wall and climbed up to pull the upper bunk out . Each suite had its private sink and cupboard. Between two compartments, there is also a connecting door which can merge the adjoining suites if required. There was a notice pasted on the wall informing the tourists to assemble in the middle of the train for a belly dancing show. When I enquired a westerner passing in the corridor about this he laughed and mentioned that it was just an old notice pasted to the coach wall, probably older than some pyramids. The train route was almost parallel to the Nile River for most part of the 900 km journey. When you look out of your window, you can feel why Egypt had been described as the gift of Nile. Except a kilometer on either side of Nile, all you can see is the barren desert landscape and sandy hillocks. But a narrow strip on either side is lush with date palm groves and other trees like sycamore, tamarisks and carobs.( Nile was so important to ancient Egyptians that they had a separate God named Hapy for it. The pharaoh and Hapy controlled the annual inundation of Nile which brought agricultural prosperity to Egypt. That is why this male God is often seen with full breasts and an enlarged belly symbolizing fertility). A highway runs parallel to the railway tracks for most part of our journey. Unlike Indian highways, where the halogen lamps vanish immediately after the city limit, the entire stretch of this was illuminated with all lamps glowing well into the morning. Egypt is a power surplus country thanks to the Aswan dam on Nile. That is why, when in Cairo we had noticed that the halogen street lights stayed lit even in mid noon . When you have abundant power, you naturally forget to switch off.

Across the train journey, as we passed small towns, villages and settlements we never noticed a single dilapidated house. Even in tiny villages and firm settlements, all houses were made of either brick or concrete. In many towns, the exterior of many houses were not plastered with the bare bricks giving them a muddy brown outlook. Our guide told that people did it deliberately to avoid municipal tax since a house which is not externally plastered can be passed off as an unfinished habilitation thereby attracting lower taxes. “Don’t judge the book by its cover. The inside of these houses are well plastered like any modern house” the guide said. In no other place, I have seen so many multi-storied houses , lined up without any external plaster on their walls. From a distance, there seemed to be a kind of ancient agreement between the many stony relics scatted all around and the brownish brick outfits dotting its cities and villages.

After getting down at Aswan, we were greeted by Mohammad, our guide for the Nile trip and a miniature version of a Japanese Sumo wrestler. “Don’t I look a bit like Adnan Sami” , he joked. Mohammad was no ordinary Egyptian guide. He had a Master Degree in Egyptian history under his belt and was well into his Doctorate course in some University in Alexandria. In Egypt, you have to undergo a four years’ diploma in tourism to become a certified international guide. This is highly popular course in many colleges. In addition, if you happen to be an English speaking international guide, you become hot property among the perpetually competing tourism companies around Egypt. Mohammad was definitely one such guide.

Wings had booked us on their ship “Jasmin” for the Nile trip. This was a five star deluxe ship with sixty air-conditioned suits arranged in three stories, a swimming pool, a spa, a small gym, a bar, a billiard room and a book shop on board. In each of the nights, there were different entertainment shows for the guests. By the time we reached , the ship was already filled with tourists from as far as America to China. Among the Indians, all but two families were from Bengal. I knew, Bengalis account for almost 70% of all inland tourism back home, but their ubiquity on foreign lands and that too in faraway Egypt was definitely a surprise. The sight of the blue waters of world’s longest river set our hearts racing. The rooms were large and tastefully done. From the room; you can see the Blue Nile stretching languidly beyond your wide glass windows. Nile is not really a very wide river, possibly half of Hooghly’s width. But it is deep and the water is really blue. Even though there has been no rain in Aswan-Luxor stretch for the last two years, Nile does not dry up. It’s water is sparkling clean, almost like mineral water. For hundreds of kilometers, you don’t find even a floating bush or a plastic bottle on its water. Egyptians revere this river. It is their only life line. So there are strict laws forbidding disposal of any kind of solid waste or factory effluent into this river. Even swimming in its water without permission is a cognizable offence, we were told.

Cruises like ours have been operating there since decades. Their grandeur has been immortalized through novels, dramas and films. Remember Agatha Christie’s crime novel “Death on the Nile?”

After a sumptuous buffet breakfast, we were taken on a Felucca ride on our first day... Feluccas are small sail boats on Nile. As this wind propelled boat slowly moved away from the ship and the Blue Nile dazzled in the golden rays of setting sun a stork kept flapping its wings above the long white mast, keeping us company. We passed a small sandstone hillock on the bank with arrow of faint lights at the top .The Felucca boatman told us that they were the tombs of some past governors of Luxor, cut into that hillock . In Egypt, it seemed anybody who is somebody wants to construct his personal pyramids and live for eternity.

When we returned back to our ship, it was almost dark. A poster , hung near the reception desk of “Jasmin” , announced the evening extravaganza - The famous Egyptian Belly dance!

Armed with our cameras we trooped into the bar room at 9.30 P.M after dinner. The eagerly awaited dancer sashayed into the strobe lights, wrapped in a turquoise harem outfit with jingling belt encircling a rather unwieldy belly. Belly Dancing in Egypt is a part of their culture - it's a sign of celebration, happiness, getting together. An engagement party or a wedding event is never complete without belly dancing Belly dancers in Egypt today wear fully-beaded, sequined and rhinestoned bras and belts. This has been the style for the last 20 years. It is very glamorous and elegant. The bead-work is hand-strung. Over the last two decades, the length and total amount of beaded fringe has gone from long and abundant to short, if any at all. While the skirts now come in a variety of lengths and widths, the style is still quite classy. Also, dancers in Cairo who wear a classical oriental costume wear a body stocking or netting over their midriff, no matter how much leg may be exposed. It is still illegal to dance in public with an uncovered navel in Egypt. This is in stark contrast to the Turkish belly dancing style. Egypt is still a very very conservative society. The guide, finding me rather curios, gave me additional dope on the subject. He told that one of the country's former belly dancing divas, Nagwa Fouad, is now calling for the establishment of an academy for preserving this art. He told that the Egyptian belly dancers worry that no one will take heed and that their cultural heritage will be consigned to history along with the pyramids, Tutankhamen and that great seductress Cleopatra ( about whose perfect beauty , it is said that the History of the World would have been different had she got a little shorter nose!)

To be continued further ..