The Great Railway Bazaar

I like traveling by trains.

The rhythmic rumble of wheels clunking over the joints in the tracks. The steady stream of scenery rushing past the window, far from roads or flight-paths. Watching rural culture unfold in places I would otherwise never have seen, or even known existed. The space that trains occupy during their brief passage through a region is theirs alone; every time it is an identical path, limited by the parallel, steel lines.

Trains afford the time to read, to write, to think. To meet other passengers as time is taken out from the cabin, feeling the wind in one’s face whilst leaning out of the window. I am not talking about regimented seats of European trains, I am talking about the compartments of long-distance services with their corridors lining one side of the carriage, with groups of passengers congregating in their narrow space.

There is none of the monotony of franchised neon-signs announcing service-stations with their chain-stores & pre-fabricated restaurants. In the most unassuming of stations or stops, commerce is tied to the passage of the locomotive, laden with trays of bread and the local sweets.

I enjoy deciphering the names of stations in exotics alphabets, from villages that the world seems to have forgotten. Transliterating the imposing cyrillic of the former Soviet states, and unraveling the cursive script of Arabic or Iranian Farsi. Even at the gares of France, or the bahnhoff of Germany, this typography takes a different tone when viewed from a train window.

From Paris, I have traveled via Poland and the Ukraine to Russia. The night-train to Venice has led me to Belgrade & Istanbul, before boarding the three-day, once-a-week service to Iran’s capital. But having just alighted from the train from Alexandria, it was in the ticket office of the Egyptian State Railways in Cairo that I faced my greatest challenge yet. As I ordered my ticket, “no 2nd class” retorted the moustached man in a blue uniform. “For Egyptian men only.”

My protests that I was Egyptian (in decidedly poor & un-Egyptian Arabic) held little sway. For the first time in my travels, I was forced to abandon my comfort in discomfort & make the 15 hour journey down to Aswan in first-class, as the train followed the palm trees lining the Nile.

(I later learned that it is possible to buy 2nd-class tickets in the train. Lesson learned: never trust an Egyptian state employee.)

Amongst the Stacks

The Bibliotheca Alexandria was another of the reasons I wanted to visit Alexandria. Originally established in 283 BC, the Great Library of Alexandria was one of the first libraries open to the public and was a massive centre of knowledge. Copyright was of little interest back in the days when Alexandrian law demanded the confiscation and duplication of manuscripts arriving in the city by boat. Reading about Google’s scanning of the world’s libraries for its online catalogue, certain parallels come to mind.

The new library, the Bibliotheca Alexandria, was opened in 2002 and is an impressive piece of architecture. The sunlight reflecting off the metal discus that forms the library’s form reminded me a little of Libeskind’s Juedisches Museum in Berlin. Beside the entrance, a large, curving, ornamental wall is inscribed with characters from “every known” alphabet; I was limited to understanding those of Arabic, Cyrillic, Japanese and of course Latin, whilst ogling at the hieroglyphs, characters and pictograms of many other languages and civilisations.

Inside, the angled windows from the discus form of the building cast a wonderful light over the book-shelves and rows of desks. There is space to hold eight million books, over tenfold more than the 700,000 documents of the original Great Library; although the spaces on the shelves indicated its current stock is somewhat less. Pieces of typographic and calligraphic art are dotted around.

I sat with Alexandria’s studious souls, idling away the afternoon with books on Arabic calligraphy and Middle-Eastern & African linguistics. I miss my books.

Anfushi Souk

Comparing the souks of Cairo to those of Alexandria, one could draw certain conclusions about the two cities’ preoccupations. Those of Cairo were mostly filled with clothes, housewares, trinkets and fabric; a step into the materialistic world. The narrow lanes of the Anfushi souk in Alexandria, crammed between decaying buildings, seemed to hold the world’s fish-stock. Stall after stall offered sea-food, fresh from the cities many boats, as well as all that is required to serve a delicious meal.

Veiled women navigated the stands carrying their purchases on their heads, as those stood the other side of the counter chatted away, shaded from the midday sun. This place had atmosphere, and contrary to what I said about Alexandria’s European influences, this felt like the heart of the Middle East.

Alexandria

The train from Cairo to Alexandria follows the Nile north out of the capital and so the views from the train window are of lush, green palm groves. The comfort of a train carriage and the verdant pastures flanking the world’s longest river formed quite a contrast to the bus traversing Sinai ten days previously.

Stepping out into the green, openness of the square—Midan Gomhuriiya—that fronts the Misr train station, with its crisp Mediterranean breezes, it felt a world away from the claustrophobia of Cairo. The streets are lined by colonial-style buildings, shaded by palm trees; the smell of the salty air guided me to the curving Corniche along which the city stretches, where couples sit on the sea-wall, enjoying the coastal wind. The cafés and patisseries of Alexandria have a much more European feel to them, particularly with the bright blue trams trundling past. The rising hotels and cafés that rim the sea-front are punctuated by needle-like minarets. These, along with the Arabic scripture that adorns the vibrant boats of the harbour remind you that this is indeed still the Middle East.

Away from the sea, one of the colonial buildings is the Alexandria Centre of Arts. I was taken around the building by someone who worked there, surprised to see a khawaaga here taking an interest in their work. Along with a small gallery, the building comprises a theatre, a recording-studio, an IT training centre, a library and a mediathèque that houses archives of concerts from here and from the opera house. They have studios, and organise workshops, with exhibitions of the participants’ work at the end of each session. Funded by the Ministry of Culture, their goal is to render the arts more accessible to those without the means. “Not everybody can pay for the opera, it is expensive. But here, they can watch it for free”, my impromptu guide explains.

He then recommends a great fish restaurant for the evening, inviting me out with him and his friends. Two of my main reasons for traveling to Alexandria have been fulfilled: the arts, and a fish-supper.

A Change of Direction

Those who know me are well-aware of my indecision (a trait much to my detriment), impulsiveness and whimsical behaviour, bordering on caprice. During this journey, I have made several last-minute changes of plan. At the bus station in Kayseri, having just ascended Mount Erciyes, I bid my new-found traveling companion, Tony, farewell as he headed on to southern Turkey, as I planned on going east to Kurdistan in Iraq. As I hauled my bag onto the roof of the minibus, a last-minute change of heart led me to remove it again and run after his bus. We spent the following month traveling through Syria together. (During which time, I once again bid him farewell, minutes later to join him down to Tartous. C’est pas facile quitter un bon compagnon de voyage.)

I hesitated when deciding to go to Lebanon, knowing that I had little time to spend there, yet became engrossed by what I found—and learned—in my brief time amongst the cedars.

I was full of indecision whether to risk an Israeli stamp in my passport in order to travel to, and subsequently volunteer in, the West Bank. This turned out to be one of the most enthralling parts of my journey so far. Had I simply traveled straight through Jordan, I would have missed out on so much.

Even sitting here writing this piece in Khartoum, I have said I would leave the city on several occasions, bidding farewell to those I have met. But each time, something has kept me here, and I have not regretted a moment of it. My primary goal in coming away was to take advantage of anything that came up, and to have the freedom to react to it; an opportunity I have never before been afforded.

Sitting in Cairo’s Bustan café with my rucksack beside me, having a final drink with new-found friends, I was due to catch the night-train down to Luxor. I would be heading south, towards the Sudan. But a debate erupted between two of my Egyptian companions, differing on the merits of Luxor’s historical treasures versus Alexandria’s atmosphere. Whilst it is clear that the temples of Luxor hold much allure, Ala countered that it would be hot, expensive, full of tourists, and a tiresome hassle. Alexandria, he argued, would be cooler, quieter and cultured.

The attraction of saying goodbye to the sea, with its cool breeze, before heading into Africa’s arid plains, feasting on sea-food, of seeing this emerging cultural capital, as well as visiting the Bibliotheca Alexandria, and continuing this café climate got the better of me. As the Luxor train departed south that night, I was enjoying a sahleb and savouring another hour with those present. The following morning, I would head north.