Saturday, April 10, 2004

The Bus to Bahariyya Oasis

Early morning, we cramped into the same small taxi as yesterday to go to Turgoman Garage, main bus station for bus heading out of Cairo.


The taxi was quite small, so all the backpacks had to go top

As I had anticipated, the hotel owner just bought the bus tickets for us. There was no tour leader and so. But that's good too, it meant that we'll not met him anymore, for good (but that's not the case). :)


Bus that brought us to Bahariyya Oasis.

One thing interested about the bus was that it will takes as many passengers as possible, due to scarity of the services. This applies to most long distance bus service sin Egypt too. So if the seats are full, you're welcome to stand or sit in the walkway. But don't bet on this, as the journey to Bahariyya Oasis takes 5 hours!

Tip: When we put the luggage into the bus, we were asked for EGP 1. This was actually a baksheesh, and we need not to pay him. We learnt this from a Japanese Kenji when we backed from Bahariyya Oasis. He insisted everybody in our group not to pay even EGP 1, and we were quite embarassed as we were actually already prepared to pay the guy. Bad luck to luggage guy. :)


Some vegetation planted in the Western Desert, along the road, may be due to reclaimation.


Train along the road to Bahariyya Oasis


The doctor Mohd. Mansoor who I met on the bus. May be due to the fact that I gave up my seat to him, he was very friendly to us. It seemed like in Egypt, they didn't have this culture. He even treated me with his self-made one bread with chicken, sardine and tomate, and another bread with cheese.

We chatted a lot, from his family to his country. What surprised me is that he just earning EGP 380 per month, and he is a specialist in children! And he as a doctor also has to serve the rural community for a specific period of time. He was on such a trip at that time.

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