Dongola | The Furious Panda

December 19, 2009September 3, 2018 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.

December 19, 2009September 3, 2018 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.