The Train Ride

As Saturday began to come to a close, and the 12 hour train ride to Luxor looming, Robby and I prepared for the ordeal by eating McDonald's and some chicken shwarmas. The train at first glance was hideous, dirty, dark, no seats, and cold it looked like a nightmare waiting to happen. Thats when we realized that this was the wrong train. Our train wasn't bad a little dirtier than a coach flight in an airplane but with more room. By paying a little more Robby and I were able to get a private compartment so we were able to stretch out and sleep almost the entire way. A great way to travel down to Luxor. We did have one little hiccup after finishing our "bounteous breakfast" of dry bread and jam our server returned wanting 70 pounds (13 bucks) for the "meal". As this was the same crappy breakfast we had been served for free everywhere else and we did have first class tickets we expected this would be for free. Again the brain must have still been sleeping. Additionally as we were out of pounds and not wanting to give dollars (which were only in high denominations) Anyway when the server returned and demanded payment we basically refused. In the end we figured the bread and juice to be worth 10 pounds so we gave the server some new chapstick, 2 pounds and 4 quarters along with a pack of tissues. The server did not like this at all, and as the train would be moving on from Luxor we would not have time to go and get change for dollars, so he went and got a very disinterested guard who seemed to speak no English and didn't really care, so we left the train, with the server still following us. We tried to explain that he should have told us it would cost money before giving it to us and that we had no pounds but his English wasn't so good. In the end he gave up trying to get more money for the dry bread and we began our exploration of Luxor.