On to Aswan

The journey by train from Cairo to Aswan is an uneventful one.  Most of the way is in the dark so there is not much to see and the train doesn't stop for long at any of the 30-odd stations it passes through.  Luxor is the exception where the wagons get shuffled around for half an hour before the train heads on to Aswan.  The railway runs along the Nile (everything it seems runs along the Nile) and there are glimpses of palm trees, banana groves and other crops.  The train windows were a combination of dirt and perished glass so were not conductive to photography.  I managed to get this glimpse of a real sheesha pipe (I think it's the first one I've seen outside of a fancy cafe - sheesha is very popular in Moscow).  The extra shots are on approach to Aswan and a couple of shots of Philae Temple, also known for being cut up and reinstalled on higher ground to avoid being flooded by the rising waters of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s.

Aswan (pop. 300,000) is a small town running at about 10% of its tourist capacity.  Chinese tour groups, some Indians, but almost no other foreigners. The horse cart drivers and felucca captains are however as active as anywhere in Egypt.  Most of them are Nubian and always eager to explain their origins.  The man who took me out on the River told me that he was the third generation in his family running a felucca but did not want his son to continue.  No future in the business, he said.