Trouble With Trains Times Two: Luxor, Part One

The American University in Cairo generously granted its students a four day weekend for Easter. I traveled south with a small contingent of compatriots to Luxor, home of the Valley of the Kings and the Karnak Temple ruins. Our original plan was to take an overnight train Wednesday and arrive Thursday morning. Most of my group was in Dahab climbing Mount Sinai the weekend before we left, so I volunteered to buy train tickets for everyone. Before I made it to the office, I was informed by a fellow traveler that there were only six tickets left for the Wednesday night train. I needed nine. I hurried to the ticket office near the AUC campus, which closes at 4:00. The man at the counter didn’t speak English. I asked in Arabic whether there were tickets for sale. He told me no. He told me I needed to go downtown. This made little sense, as Ariel had bought her tickets there half an hour ago. I concluded that he didn’t want to deal with me so close to closing time, and left.

I came back the next morning. I knew from my failed attempt the day prior that I shouldn’t expect the man at the counter to speak any English. I would have to do this all in Arabic. That was fine. I made sure I knew all the words I was likely to need. Unfortunately, the situation was complicated by the fact that the time we had originally planned on booking was full, meaning I had to call the rest of the group in Dahab and confirm before I bought anything. The situation was further complicated by the fact that I was standing in line with a bunch of impatient Egyptians breathing down my neck (somehow, God be praised, there actually was a line here). When it was finally my turn, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Ticket to Luxor Wednesday night.
Guy: Luxor, Wednesday night… what time?
Me: What times are available?
Guy: How about 6:00?
Me: Ok great, 6:00.
Guy: Second class?
Me: Yes. I want eight ticket.
Guy: Eight tickets?
Me: Oh, tickets. Yes, eight tickets.
Guy: Ah. Wudjca fajf lamnip?
Me: I’m sorry?
Guy: Travelers utbukh Egyptian or faiod?
Me: Travelers… what? Oh. No, American. All of them are Americans.
Guy: Ah. Ok.

He started typing a bunch on his computer, which looked like it was running an Arabic version of DOS. He had asked me whether the party was Egyptian because that affects what trains we could ride, and possibly prices as well. I took the opportunity to call Camille. She confirmed that this was good, and I should go ahead and buy the tickets. Perfect. This was working much better than I’d expected.

After a few minutes, the guy looked up. He told me the train was full. I asked for a minute and quickly called Camille again. The line behind had grown substantially since I got to the window, and it was starting to shift impatiently. I told Camille the situation and heard her relaying the message, followed by background chattering. People behind me edged forward. Someone else came on the phone. It was Liz or Nur-E, I couldn’t tell. She said they needed a minute to ask everyone. I heard a lot of muffled rustling. Whoever had the phone was running. I waited. People behind me came forward and started using the window. I stepped slightly to the side, but kept my left leg in front of everyone. I knew this could get ugly, quick.

Finally, someone came back on the phone. Everyone wanted tickets for the next morning. I hung up and wedged my way back to the window. I told the man at the counter what I wanted and he pecked some information into his computer, then informed me that one of us would have to be in a separate car. Well, that was unfortunate, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. After a long process of entering information into the computer and triply confirming every detail of our trip with me, the guy at the counter printed out the tickets, looked them over, stamped them, and handed them to me. I grabbed them. I looked at them. They looked fine. I left. I felt good.

I took a closer look at the tickets once I was out of the line of fire. As previously established, one ticket in the stack was in a different car. This was fine. The problem was that it also departed from a different train station. Great. Well, at least it was for the same train and both stations were in Cairo. I was also a little confused by the fact that the destination station was listed as something that came out roughly as “Assyoot.” I assumed this must be the name of the train station in Luxor, just like the Cairo station is called Ramses. I didn’t worry about it.

Later that night, I had a bad feeling. I got up at around two and looked at the tickets again. “Assyoot.” Something about that struck me as wrong. I looked up the Luxor train station online. After ten minutes of searching, I still couldn’t find a specific name for it. Eventually, I stumbled across a railway map for all of Egypt. Luxor was simply listed as “Luxor.” Hmm. I traced our railway’s course as it snaked its way south. About halfway between Cairo and Luxor, there was a stop labeled “Asuit.”

Shit.

How did this happen? How could this happen? I had clearly told the man “Luxor!” He had confirmed every detail of the trip several times. How many tickets? Nine. What class? Second. Departure time? Thursday morning 8:00. Egyptian or foreigners? Foreigners. Destination… destination…... no, he hadn’t asked that, had he? Not a single time during the whole process did I mention where we were going except for when I said it in the beginning. Fantastic.

Determined to rectify the situation, I went back to the ticket office with several people the next day, including Ariel, whose Arabic is better than mine. The ticket salesmen told us he couldn’t change our tickets. Nor could he sell us tickets from Asuit to Luxor. We all had to go to class, but I promised to go down to the actual train station afterwards to see if I would have better luck there. In class, I told my tale of woe to Mark, a Georgetown student who’s been at AUC since last fall. “Why didn’t you book through the travel office?” he asked, “Getting tickets is the one thing they’re actually good at.” I headed straight there after class. Thirty minutes later, tickets were booked from Asuit to Aswan (a stop further south of Luxor) and I was told I could pick them up the next morning.

When I got the tickets, I inspected the first three carefully and glanced through the rest. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. We were good now. My mistake (if we’re even going to call it mine) was going to cost us an extra 25 pounds each (around $5), but at least we were good to go. I was happy again. Then people started backing out. For a variety of complicated reasons, several people decided they didn’t want the tickets and would prefer to make other arrangements. Because everyone was in Dahab when I bought the tickets, I had paid for everything out of pocket. I was worried about getting my money. This turned out not to be an issue, as everyone paid. In fact, the situation turned out to be perfect. Why? Although the first six tickets in the stack were correct, the last three turned out to be as messed up as the ones from the ticket office. Inexplicably, I had assumed the AUC travel office would make sure they were giving me what I paid for. How foolish of me.

We made it to the station in the morning and boarded the train without incident. The eleven hour ride was unremarkable, except for the part where the train stopped for a few minutes and then began going backwards. Even the Egyptians seemed thrown off by this. Eventually, though, we rolled into the station at around 7:00 on Thursday night. Mike and I went straight to the ticket window to buy return tickets for Sunday morning. Everyone else already had them, but we had been debating exactly when to come back, so we waited to buy ours. I wasn’t at all worried about getting tickets, for several reasons. First, Mike speaks fluent Arabic, so that wouldn’t be an issue this time. Second, we were buying tickets four days in advance, which is ordinarily more than enough time. And finally, we were buying tickets for a Sunday morning, hardly a peak travel time for Egyptians. We ambled up to the window.

Mike: We want second class tickets for Sunday morning.
Guy: Mafeesh.

There are none.

Mike: Mafeesh? Ah. Ok, what other times are available on Sunday?
Guy: Mafeesh.

There. Are. None.

Mike: No? Nothing on Sunday? What about Sunday night?
Guy: Mafeesh. Come back Sunday morning and check then.
Mike: Sunday morning? But—
Guy: Mafeesh.

No. Please. You’ve got to be kidding me.