How Can You Tell They're Tourists?

I guess that there is something fun about the sign for Cairo in Arabic at the Ramses Station. Our guess was military on leave from the haircuts.

Checking In

Train stations are the best places in the world for people watching and the old guys who work at Ramses Station in Cairo are great subjects. Many of them have worked together for years and years and are good friends...as I suspect these two old guys are.

The Only Way To Fly

I was in the Ramses Station in Cairo to catch a train to Alexandria and saw this rail car. They should paint all of them like this. Wonderful!

Tracks In The Desert

During pharoanic times a lot of the travel in Egypt was carried by the Nile. With prevailing winds from the north and the current from the south, it was possible to sail upstream to the south and then drift with the current downstream to the north. Of course, the riverbed was treacherous as every flood changed the river's path. Mohamed Ali, when he came to power in the 1800's made the decision to modernise the country and built the railroads along the Nile Valley. The railway is still one of the best ways to travel between Cairo and Alexandria, much safer than the highway and faster. This particular stretch of railway is a line that goes between the Fayoum Oasis and Cairo.