Sudan

 by Red

23 – Round and round the merry-go-round aka Khartoum, permits and visas

 19th Dec, xxxxhrs, Hotel Al Nadi
I picked the wrong one of the two addresses to go to. This sent me far far away to some other district of Khartoum (i paid 10 SDP for a cab!) and when i reached there, the lady promptly told me it was the wrong place. Gave me another address, which ended up being in the Arabi area of central khartoum (to take a bus back to central its easy, just stand by the road in the direction to central and ask for Arabi, normally 0.5 to 1 SDP). When i reached there, (beside the American embassy), they told me it was the wrong place. This was apparently the Alien Registration Office. So i got yet another address to head towards. I walked south down to past the train station along Quasar Street for about 500 meters before i hit the Humanitarian Affairs building. I needed 1 photo, passport photocopies of front page, Sudan visa and alien registration sticker. 4 copies of all of these.

In summary, whatever LP has on the 2007 Africa version is completely wrong:
To get to Alien Registration Office – Head towards the US Embassy to the west of central Khartoum. This is where you register your arrival in Sudan within 3 days.
To get to Humanitarian Affairs Office – Head south along Quasar Street till you hit the railway line. Cross, keep moving even though the buildings get sparse, go another 500 metres. The humanitarian affairs office is the high blue building in the triangle shape on the map (around Sharia 47).

Next i headed down to the Eritrean embassy, which was somewhere in Riyadh district. This was completely off the LP maps, so I had to get on a bus that roughly went in the direction (ask for Riyadh) and ask the locals and the bus conductor to stop me at the Eritrean embassy. This was a lot easier than hunting for the aforementioned Humanitarian Affairs office. The visa is 109 and you need to wait a week and 30 SDP more for 1 or 2 day service. I will return on Tuesday at 10am to get it. Oh, and they did ask for a letter from your embassy. Which would have been a big problem since there is no Singapore embassy in Sudan. Luckily I had the letter done up in Cairo.

So at the end of the day (7 hours of admin and running around), i still have to wait 2 days here for a travel permit and Eritrean visa (hopefully both gets approved). For the travel permit, I listed down all the places I might want to go: Kassala, Gedaref, Gallabat, El-Obeid, Kadogli, Dilling. I’m not sure what I want to do actually. Transport here can get quite expensive, so I might just go out to Eritrea.

As for my other two travel companions, Ben isn’t feeling too well and spent the day resting. Kang on the other hand didn’t fare as well on the visa front. The Ethiopian embassy did not grant him a visa but instead told him he had to fly there. He will try again tomorrow, good luck to him.



in Africa / Sudan 2 comments
 by Red

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.

in Africa / Sudan 0 comments
 by Red

22 – Whirling Dervishes

18th Dec, 2045hrs, Hotel Al Nadi, Khartoum

Woke up at 9 in the morning, and walked. And walked from central Khartoum down across the Nile, where the confluence of the White Nile and Blue Nile rivers meet. Took some shots (I hope I am not breaking any Sudanese laws, I took extra care to avoid any building shots).

Made my way to the Omdurman area. Khartoum is actually 3 cities in 1, the Khartoum area, Omdurman area and Khartoum North area. The Omdurman souq is the biggest in Khartoum. It was interesting enough, both for the sheer amount of things that were being sold, and for the diversity of the locals wandering around. Dark skinned, fairer skinned, henna tattooed, some face bead tattooed, nose ringed. All sorts of characters.

After that, walked down to the Hamid Al-Nil Mosque listed in LP. There is the local troupe of whirling dervishes there every Friday afternoon. I found out exactly what it is they whirl: themselves. It was a fascinating show indeed. And that was where I met everyone else again. Ben, Kang, Andy, Z and the England.couple. Amazingly, Ben and Kang is staying at the same place I am staying. I moved into their room earlier tonight.

Tomorrow morning, the offices open again, so I will go down to the Eritrean embassy as well as the Humanitarian Affairs Office to see if i need to register for onward travel.

in Africa / Sudan 0 comments
 by Red

21 – To Khartoum We Will Go!

17th Dec, xxxx hrs, Hotel Al Nadi

So the next two entries will be short entries, since I am uploading from a net to phone line with no wifi. Set off early in the morning alone from Karima to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The bus (7am, hotel pickup by minivan to bus departure point across the river, 30 SDP) was made in China. Surprisingly good, with light refreshments, and even a packed lunch provided by the guy in the bus who goes up and down the aisle.

The bus dropped me at Khartoum in the middle of a hot Thursday afternoon. Stumped. Compared to the past few days, Khartoum is dusty, hot and crowded. The area I was in (the lonely planet recommended area) was a busy street with peddlers. Looked for the 1000 Nights Hotel recommended in LP. Well, I looked like crazy, but eventually the nice Sudanese guy from another unamed Hotel Al-Nadi called the number for 1000 Nights Hotel and found that its closed. He actually took me to see a few other “nicer” hotels, but in the end i stayed at his hotel (8 SDP a night, which is like 4 SGD). I think I am pretty hardcore, given a choice of a few hotels, I picked the cheapest and most scruffy one. I stayed in the dorm with 3 Sudanese guys. And they are nice people too! My biggest worry is security, but I think I’ll just lock up my bag and leave it under my bed when I go out tomorrow for the whole day.

Looked around the area a bit, some fellow offered me to change SDP on the black market at better rates. And also found Andy and Z, back from the boat. They have been in Khartoum for the last couple of days. Took dinner with them, and then went off for some Internet. The Internet cafe is surprisingly fast, just that the PCs are missing programs like flash which makes it difficult to run any program.

Tomorrow is 1st Muharram, the new year and I would want to walk around to see if there are any celebrations.Hmm, I forgot to copy pics from today into here. But truthfully, there’s nothing worth posting, so this will be a pictureless entry =P

in Africa / Sudan 0 comments
 by Red

20 – Dongola to Kerima

16th Dec, 2345hrs, Al Nasser Hotel, Kerima

When we say hotel here in Sudan (so far), I mean lokandas, which are cheap basic hotels. The one in Dongola was one room, 4 beds, shared toilet, a tap to wash up (no showers) and no power socket anywhere in the room (10 SDP). This particular one where I am typing this from in Kerima has a power socket, and fortunately a power point for me to plug the lappy. Amazingly I also had Internet for 2 SDP, a very slow connection so I did not get anything uploaded.

Started the day in Dongola. First order of the day is to go to the security office and get permission to stay in the hotel we are in. Took a tuktuk (yes they call them that here). Took our passports and got ourselves a slip giving us permission to stay at the hotel (slip was free). Next we went to the Alien Registration Office, which was luckily just next door and filled up more paperwork, attached 2 photos, photocopies of passports, visa, and got questioned on why we vist Sudan. The fee we paid was 100 SDP per person and we got a sticker in the passport for that. Overall, it was a fairly straightforward, if not tedious, process. Throughout, the Sudanese were friendly, which is a trait seen throughout the past couple days I’m here.

Everywhere we go, it was smiles, Marhabas, and people shaking our hands. Really friendly lot, I must say. Lunch was back at the unamed place beside the hotel, fish (5 SDP, huge enough portion that we skipped dinner). We checked out and looked at the map. There is a Temple of Kawa ruins on the other side of the Nile river but most of the locals cannot tell us where it was. In the end, due to lack of time, we decided to just make our way to the next town with sights, Karima. It was a 15 SDP 2 hour journey through desert landscape, this time thankfully an uneventful ride, with no funny stops along the way, a la last nights ride.

On reaching Karima, made our way to the only cheap lokanda listed in LP, Al Nasser Hotel. Which is similar to the one in Dongola, except it’s more cosy. Dropped our gear and off we went hunting for the security office so that we can register to stay at the hotel. This was to be a common thing everywhere we go. Walked around town a bit, this was really a world away from Egypt. Low-rise buildings, sand everywhere. Even in the hotel grounds, outside our room, it opens out into the sandy corridors with no ceilings.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Khartoum at 7am. While Ben and Kang will stay another day to catch the sights near the town.

in Africa / Sudan 0 comments
 by Red

19 – Introducing: Sudan

15th Dec, xxxhrs, Lord Hotel, Dongola

It was 6am when local Egyptian sleep buddy nudged me awake and started feeding me with bread and cheese. “Sabad Al-khayr” and a full stomache later, i wandered around the ship somemore. Nothing much till we reached around 1pm, other than getting a view of Abu Simbel from the boat.

On reaching Wadi Halfa, we the foreign tourists were herded into the dining room to fill up more papers. These were needed to get around Sudan. We keep a copy, got our passport stamped “Registration needed within 3 days” and onto Sudanese soil we stepped. Actually it was a lot more haphazard then how I described it, but yeah, let’s talk about Wadi Halfa.

Ah. Wadi Halfa. It just felt like stepping into Africa proper. A small frontier town with a laid back feel. The Sudanese were darker skinned than their northern neighbours, and that contrasted with their white full robes. It didn’t take long to walk around the place. The guys from the boat with cars took up a room in the Nile Hotel (dorms 7 SDP) since they had to wait a day. I went along with Kang from China and Ben the Belgian to Dongola. But before that we had fried freshwater fish (5 SDP) and lamb (5 SDP). The bus to Dongola left at 6 pm or so (40 SDP). Since the last LP was published in 2007, the roads are much better, taking maybe half the time needed previously, and hence more bokasi, or minivan were available to travel from town to town. From Wadi Halfa to Khartoum it is 75 SDP, 12 hours. And from Wadi Halfa to the next nearest town Abri, is around 20 SDP.

One unusual thing is that no more than 5 people should be in the minivan. The one before us had 7 and they had to turn back at the police checkpoint and drop two! We traveled in the dark, the mini-van was doing maybe 60km/hr. We stopped, u-turned, stopped and uturned again at one point, trying to find someone or something on the road. No idea what it was. There was also a rest stop at 1130 where we had more Nile fish (8 SDP shared between the 3 of us).

Reached Dongola at 2am. The minivan dropped us outside Haifa Hotel, which declared themselves full…It was dark, very cold and we were trying to get our bearings. Walked down to Lord Hotel next door and the owner says “You need to register with the security and pass me your papers.” Which is fine except it was 2am. So we handed over our passports for the night and planned to do it first thing next morning.

in Africa / Sudan 0 comments
 by Red

18 – Sailing across the Lake Nasser

14th Dec, xxxhrs, Boat to Wadi Halfa

I took the “yellow train” at the train station (1.5 EGP), a half hour ride to As-Saad Al-Aly, which is the High Dam. I had to be there by 10am. In the train, met Kang from China. When we asked what time the boat leaves, its around “4pm if you are lucky, maybe 6, maybe 7. But be there by 10am”. Nice. We got on the boat at 10am, together with the rest of the foreign travellers. There were 8 vehicles aboard 2 pontoons, that would arrive a day after the main boat reaches Wadi Halfa, the border town in Sudan. The 2nd class travellers like me staked a place on the deck of the boat, since it was stuffy below. I had a good sleeping bag, so got myself a prime corner on the deck.

The trickle of local Egyptians started filling up the deck grew larger and larger till it looked like a mini refugee camp, with luggage occupying every single open spot. I waited for 6 hours for them to load goods up the pontoon: everything from metal sheets, refrigerators, crates of apples, stacks of god-knows-what. The way they area throwing everything in, I have no idea how, or even how long, they will get everything back out.

The boat fee came with 1 meal. Which was pretty good, except for the small cockroach in the 2nd class dining area that flew into my potato curry.

Now then, when you get stuck on the same boat with maybe 300 people for 16 hours plus another 8 hours of waiting for the boat to set sail, you start to get acquainted with a few people. There were the Irish and Australian duo Andy and Z, Ben from Belgium, a Japanese guy, Kang the China dude, plus a whole host of Egyptians with similar names like Mohamed, Amr etc. I think most of the Sudanese were below deck. In fact, the deck got so crowded and I had to share my groundsheet demarcated area with an Egyptian guy. Who was a jolly fellow and took care of me. Before long the surrounding area around were all locals. They shared their food, I had bread and cheese for dinner, and for next day’s breakfast. For supper, another guy had plastic bags full of loaves and offered me two and an egg. I was pretty stuffed on the boat. Had many conversations here and there, half of them one-way conversations with me shaking my head “laa’ afham”. There was nothing much to do after it got dark, so off to bed I went.

Was woken up by the local beside me and sent down below to get my passport stamped. They took my temperature, i filled up some papers. Little was I to know it was only the beginning of all the paperwork.

It was a bit cold at night, even inside my sleeping bag. I feel asleep counting shooting stars under the star-lit sky.

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