EGYPT OVERNIGHT TRAIN | Cairo to Aswan in "FIRST CLASS" Overnight Train + Exploring Aswan Ep 2
We're about to take the first class train from Cairo to Aswan. Hey everyone, it's Kritika. Welcome back to my channel. I am in Cairo in Egypt right now. We've spent the last couple of days exploring this beautiful and historic city and it's been amazing. But right now as you can see, I'm in the train station and we are about to take the first class train from Cairo to Aswan. Our train is finally here,
so this is what the train looks like from inside. This here is my cabin. Each cabin has like two. This bunk bed situation, mow on the chain was actually running one hour late, which is supposedly normal over here, sort of like India. So as soon as we got here, they served us food there. Do you have vegetarian?
I'll turn this. I want this. Yeah, so we just checked into our little cabin for this train journey and this just served us dinner.
So they actually have trees here that you can use to eat, but since our suitcases are here as well, I'm just using the suitcase as I tray. So most of the food that we've been served here is actually non vegetarians, non vegetarian. So there's chicken and I don't know what else. So thankfully our guide wander us this, what happen. So I picked up some ery for dinner. It's this Egyptian vegetarian dish, which is really delicious, somebody having that. And this year is our trade cabin. I'll give you a tour of it later. But yeah,
first things first, let's eat some food. So this is my food and the best part is that they actually have a wash piece in here. So this opens up and I can literally just wash my hands right after eating. But yeah, I ate quite a nice meal.
And this train is scheduled to reach as one Tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning when there's some more daylight, I'll give you a tour of what this looks like from inside. Good morning everyone. It's nice and sunny outside. The train has been thankfully picked up the speed and is on time.
So this morning at 8:00 AM I literally woke up to the chain conductor knocking on our door and serving us breakfast. So that was my wake up fall. The beds here are honestly quite comfortable, but last night I did not sleep enough. I only went to sleep I think at 3:00 AM and I was woken up at 8:00 AM and the temperature control in our room was not working, so it was freezing outside. But nevertheless, the beds itself were quite comfortable. And now that the sunlight outside, let me give you a door of what my room here looks like. So there are many cabins
over here. Mine is this one, the 1112. Let me show you what it's like from inside. Welcome to my cabin. This is what it's like. So when we got here yesterday,
the beds weren't laid out, so it was more of a sitting area here. It fit three people, but these cabins are built for two people. So there are two bunk beds and honestly quite spacious and comfortable. But besides this, there's actually a lot inside over here.
Over here we actually have an entire wash basin. So if you open this, there's a tiny little mirror here. There's a wash basin with not too much water coming out to be honest. Then we've got some soap. Didn't really end up using these. They've also given us towels, which is nice. And there's a plug point here as well.
I'm not sure why the plug point is inside the wash basin setting, but it is what it is. We didn't end up using this, we were carrying power banks. So this closes and I feel like this is such efficient use of space. We also stored some of our luggage here and over here we have hangers and rods to hang stuff. So you can hang bags. We've got a whole bag full of snacks.
We thought the food here may not be good, but the food that was served for dinner last night, what was actually good. And also over here you've got the light setting. The lighting here in the evening was honestly quite dim.
It's just that one light if see over there, not the best lighting for the evening if you're vlogging, but otherwise it's fine. This is the temperature control, which I don't think was working because last evening when we were going to bed it was freezing in our cabin. The others didn't seem to have that issue. But yeah, I was just freezing. Despite being under the sheets, they've also got a reading light and I think this button is to call the attendant. So the soul train journey from Cairo to Awan is about I think 14, 16 hours depending on whether or not the train is running late. The train was 45 minutes late yesterday in Cairo.
So we were waiting at the station and then once we boarded, we were served dinner. If you are vegetarian, you want to bring your own food, but otherwise you're good. The breakfast is also included, but it was just different types of bread with feta and jam. So nothing spectacular. And I think the coffee and tea is only included in the morning, but you can also pay and buy food. So this is basically what the chain is like. And each coach has a bunch of cabins since we are travelling as a group, I'm posting a group trip here in case you missed my first blog from Egypt. So
some of you guys are actually with me on this trip. So we're a group of 12 people, so we have a bunch of different cabins here and it's been quite fun just walking around, going into other people's cabins and talking. There's also some space here for small bags. And when you close this door,
there is a mirror here as well. And this door locks so at night you can lock it and this is your private space. Last evening we couldn't really see much outside, but right now the view is quite nice.
It's interesting to see the countryside of Egypt and this whole train journey actually is quite expensive I feel. So this is the first class and I think if you're booking an independent cabin where it's just one person in the cabin, it's like one $20 per person. And if two people are sharing it, it's $80 per person I think. So I'm sharing this cabin with someone else. So that's the price. I don't know if it's expensive or not, but I feel like it's been quite a nice experience.
Or there are two toilets here for each coach, which I thought might be an issue, but it's actually been okay. When we got here it was dirty, but there's actually a toilet attendant so you can let him know and he cleans it up for you. And you also have toilet paper there and seat covers. So it's actually been quite a comfortable and chill experience so far and I've really enjoyed this string journey. Aswan, and like I mentioned, the trains usually don't run on time, but today for a change it reached bang on time at 10:00 AM and a hotel check-in is only at 2:00 PM I think. So we're starting our sightseeing already.
One of the major attractions here is the temple of ISIS on Phile Island, which is what we're going to check out. So basically you take a motor board and head to the island and it's a beautiful temple from what I've heard and seen pictures of. So very excited to check it out. This temple is so beautiful. It honestly looks like some kind of game of throne set and because it's by the water, it's on an island, the views are just spectacular.
And I'm so glad we got to check this out because this is very different from the other temples we've been to or are going to visit. So this behind me here is the Phile temple and this is a UNESCO World heritage site. So this temple originally was on a different island, but that island got submerged. So the temple for many, many years was underwater. And since then it has been dismantled into, I think our guide was telling us like 47,000 pieces or something like that and transported to this island and reassembled over here. So it's crazy to think all of that happened. It still looks pretty intact.
And back in the day, all of this used to be coloured because it was underwater and obviously it's been so many years the colour has gone. But just imagine all of this in its grandeur with all the colour, it would've just looked amazing. And this boat ride was actually so beautiful. The landscape here looks very different and unreal. And also on the board there were a couple of Nubian people selling in jewellery, which was really nice. It's a nice way to support the community.
And I ended up buying a couple of these bracelets. Very cute. But anyway, let's go explore this island. So we're back from Philly and over here they have tonnes of uv, which look really nice. I picked up a couple of alabaster poles for myself, which look really nice. So something this part of Egypt is famous for are essential oils and fragrances. So inside the store right now, which is massive, looks really cool.
We also had a lunch over here and they're going to basically show us different types of essential oils and how those containers that hold these essential oils are made. One finger rabbit and then smell it one finger and then it smell. This is in your list, number six. It smells really nice. It's very strong. Yeah, that's why you know that.
It feels immediately you can't breathe. Wow. It's actually really nice. I think I would like some of that. So they just made us smell a few different fragrances. My arm is full of different scents. I'm smelling really good right now. Honestly, I was not planning to buy any essential oils or fragrances just because I don't usually buy so many years I feel. But this just smells so good.
And I feel like the salespeople here, even in Cairo ended up buying a couple of things even though I wasn't planning to. I think they do such a good job of the presentation and honestly the fragrances, they're so good. So I think I'm actually picking up 3 cents. This is, so we all ended up buying a lot of perfume and essential oil. So just checked into our hotel this year is my room. Let me give you a tour. This is what it's like sharing this room. So we've got two beds. Let's check out the bathroom.
I feel like that's the most important. I dunno where the light goes on from. Oh, okay. This was actually quite decent. And meet mother, my roommate, and we have a little sitting area outside, which is cute and you can't really see it from Europe, but you can see the boat sailing. So we're right by the Nile.
So it's quite a nice location. So we've showered and we are all dressed up and clean after that train journey and the exhausting bay that we've had. So right now the sun is setting and we are about to go to a Nubian village. So this part of Egypt is called Nubia I think. And I'll get our guide holder to talk more about it. But basically we're visiting this Nubian village and we'll be having dinner in a Nubian household, which I'm very excited about.
And I've seen pictures of these Nubian villages around here and they look so vibrant and beautiful, so very excited to check it out. So this is our boat. We're going to be taking this and heading to the Nubian village.
I think it's on this island called Elephant team, but you're very excited for this. How beautiful is the sunset? So that behind me is the old Cataract Hotel. It's the most expensive hotel here in Oan. And that's because a lot of famous people like Winston Churchill and Agatha Christie have actually stayed here. So there's a room called Agatha Christie's room, which goes for like $10,000 a night during high season, and that's where she wrote the novel debt on Nile. So yeah,
quite a nice view from this hotel. I'm sure. There are between five to 6,000 logs who live on elephant team island. There's a school on the island, there's a small clinic, sort of like a small hospital here, but the streets are very narrow and narrow alleyway and no transportation except for the donkey on the island.
Most of the people who live on the island, they're either farmers or they work in tourism. So the Luca captains, they have their own motor boats. And while we're walking together, we see the normal little houses, the old fashioned ones that are made out of mud brick, the newer ones that made out of bricks. So this is where we're going to be eating such a cute setup and I love all these colours.
We. Hey everyone. So it's day two in OS one, and today we're kind of just having a very chill and lazy day. So one of the major reasons people come to Aswan is actually to visit APO symbol, which is such a popular tourist attraction. Honestly, I really wanted to do that.
But we had to wake up at 4:00 AM for that trip and it's also extremely hot this time of year. So some people in the group decided to do that trip. I wasn't one of them. And I think six of us just stayed back and had a very chill, laid back breakfast by the Nile, which was really nice. Apo symbol is like a three four hour drive from here and the people who went are already back because it's 2:00 PM right now and they had an amazing time.
So now I'm feeling a bit of fomo. But anyway, we are out and about and we're starting her day by going to McDonald's to have lunch. This McDonald's is supposed to be the largest in Egypt. I don't know if they'll have any vegetarian options to be honest, but it's by the Nile. So yeah, I think it should be quite an experience. Yeah, we're going to have fries.
This McDonald's is actually kind of smaller than I expected, but anyway, picked up some strawberry milkshake and fries. They don't really have vegetarian options I thought. I feel like McDonald's fries are really good anywhere in the world. Oh, he's a police test.
So we're inside this very rustic vintage looking taxi and we're taking this to head to the Nubian museum. So we've made it to the Nubian museum. This is what it looks like. The building is pretty cool. It's very, very empty though, so we're just figuring out where to get tickets from. Hi. Mumbai, some of us Chen Mumbai. Yes, we welcome.
Thank you. I will be happy you visited today. So inside the Noian Museum, the tickets were for like 200 EGP and it looks very beautiful from inside. Also, I think we may be the only tourists over here, at least from the entrance because it's literally just us over here. But let's go inside and see what it's like. We were literally playing board games back in the day. So this is kind of what we saw at the start of the trip. All the pyramids,
we went up to the really large statue of Rames. We are going to be doing Lux towards the end of our trip and this is where we are right now. And this was Abu symbol, which we didn't do today. But yeah, this is such a cool display of everything that we're doing on this trip.
So we're done at the museum, we spent about an hour there and we kind of missed Hoda, our guide because I feel like she makes any place interesting with our stories. But the museum itself was nice. There are explanations everywhere. There's an explanation for each display and it's definitely worth checking out. But right opposite the museum is the old Cataract Hotel, which is the historic five star hotel that I showed you from the boat yesterday. So we heard that at 6:00 PM they do a free tour of the hotel, you can't really enter the hotel for free, you have to pay like 600 EGP to enter, which is like a cover charge. You can use that to buy drinks. So we thought we'll check that out,
let's see what it's like. So we just bought a voucher. It was actually 500 pounds, not 600. Let's go inside. So we are inside the hotel now. The restaurant looks so nice and surprisingly the prices here for the food are not that expensive. So we've ended up ordering a lot of food and drinks waiting for that.
And our tour starts at 6:00 PM so we get a little tour of this hotel and hopefully the Agatha Christie room is unoccupied, so we'll get to see that as well. You ready? Yes. Yes. Christie invited you to please. Here we go. So this whole trip to the hotel is actually turning out to be quite a nice experience. We got a tour of Agatha Christie's room, which was massive and really nice.
She lived there for a year and I'm very jealous because the space is amazing and our food is here. Look at how much food we watered. And all of this is included in the 500 per person that we paid. So I feel like this is very, very worth it and the food is delicious as well.
Catholic Christie Hotel is everything that they said it would be. The view is amazing. The room was excellent. So I'm having a great time. I think the whole experience here has been amazing. This is not what we expected, but once we've come in it is worth it. Definitely a must do. In Aswan, we have now come to Aswan Market, which as you can see is very packed.
The market here is massive and supposed to be one of the things you should check out while you are here. So we're just taking a walk through the so and probably going to do some shopping, doing some t-shirt shopping, the mango, oh my God, look at it's mango season here. And look how massive these mango look me. Yeah, for me. Yeah. Here, see. He is here. Back in our room now and today has actually been such an eventful day.
I think the highlight was definitely the hotel, which I wasn't really expecting because we almost didn't even do it. But the whole hotel experience was so nice. And we also ended up doing some shopping.
I really wasn't planning to shop on the strip, but I ended up buying this t-shirt and a magnet for myself. But anyway, we're halfway through our trip, so we still have four more days to go in Egypt. And a lot more that we're doing tomorrow is actually quite an adventurous day and you'll see that in the next blog. So be sure to subscribe to my channel and I'll see you next time. Bye.
2025-03-09 21:06
