Christmas Break Part 7: Assyut and into the Desert

We left Sohog on a train, once again, but this time things were different. One of the students went to buy the tickets for us and he'd assumed that we'd want to go first class and so he'd bought us 1st class train tickets. First class was a whole different ball game compared to riding in 2nd class. The first class train cars are slightly heated (believe it or not, it does get cold here- it surprised me too!) and that was a nice perk. The seats were bigger and for the most part a lot more comfortable. So the ride to Assyut to was great.

Assyut, however, was not so great. As soon as we arrived, our "bodyguard" handed us off to a group of "Assyut Policeman" aka "Corrupt Obscenities". To summarize our experience, they asked us where we were staying and we told them we were about to choose. They told us the "Salaam" was the best place to stay, we weren't interested and so we went to each place to find a room. Each time we'd go in we would ask if there was an open room and they'd say for how many. They'd be about to lead us towards a room and then our nice "guards" would yell "Arabic, Arabic, No the Amrikans not stay here Arabic, Arabic, Arabic..." After they'd do this, the hotel manager would say "No, complete" or "La, Arabic, arabic, Arabic (we're full). This happened at EVERY hotel until we arrived at the "Salaam" and it turned out that they weren't full- craziness! Who would've guessed!?!

The hotel ended up costing us 160 LE to stay there ( the most expensive place that we stayed in the whole trip) and it was a dump. The beds were pieces of junk, the water wouldn't run more than a trickle, and the place was dirty. Needless to say, we got robbed.

They tried to hold our Passports from us at the front desk, but I got them back that night and yes I am very proud of that fact. Let's just say it wasn't easy and it took some rage.

After our nights sleep we woke up and schemed as to how to ditch our "thief protectors." We decided the best way would be to leave late and make it so it would be difficult for them to have the time to board on the bus to Al-Kharga with us. It worked, too!

We left the hotel in a hurry and then started running towards the bus station. A cop followed us, but couldn't board the bus with us because it was full once we got in. It couldn't of worked out any more perfectly, he demanded to know where we were going and why we were doing this. I told him he was a thief in Arabic and he acted like he couldn't understand me. He said there'd be a policeman waiting for us in Al-Kharga. Once he said this, we decided to skip Al-Kharga altogether and go straight to the desert oases of Dakhala.

The bus pulled away and we were on our way to the Great Sand Sea.