23 – Sleepless in Sudan

19th Dec, xxxxhrs, Hotel Al Nadi
And so I was wrong. Saturday is still the weekend and all the government offices and embassies are closed. That being said, it is unfortunate for I will stay more days here in Khartoum.

Started the day by going to the Humanitarian Office listed on the Lonely Planet map…which is a mistake because LP (the 2007 version) is utterly useless here in Sudan. I regret not reading or bringing Bradt’s guide. After the long trudge there…the office was closed… and the guard helpfully said that this was the wrong place. I needed to be elsewhere and wrote down an address in Arabic for me.
Then i made my way south across Lonely Planet’s poorly labeled map towards the Eritrean embassy. After hunting for the building for what seemed like ages, the Yemen embassy guard tells me that Eritrean embassy moved to Riyadh district, which is like miles away…I decided to call it a day, since all were closed anyway.

Came back to the hotel, Kang didn’t have much luck at the Ethiopian embassy and Kenyan embassy since both were closed, but at least he managed to find both locations. Me, i will have to look for mine tomorrow.

Went out for 3 hours of internet (its a steal at 1 SDP per hour, i caught Survivor!), and made a couple of phone calls home (net to phone is approx 5 singapore cents per minute!). Had dinner, and by a fortunate stroke of luck, met a local man and we had tea with him. Tea by the roadside is a Sudanese thing. Every busy street will have one tea lady serving on little stools. It is the best way to let an afternoon go by. The local guy wrote down for me the address to the place to register for travel permits. Now i have two addresses.