But since we were heading for Saudi Arabia next the bus wasn’t going to cut it. First, we thought about going to Sudan and taking the ferry from Port Sudan to Jeddah. This was before the current civil war. We’ve been to Sudan and would have to retrace our steps (although it would be fun to drop in on Magzoub). But that plus the fact that the security situation was already somewhat volatile, and that we couldn’t find any information about departure times from Port Sudan, all seemed like a bit much fuss so we scrapped that idea.

A couple of locals we talked to in Cairo and Alexandria hinted at there being ferries to Saudi Arabia from Hurghada or other places in Egypt, but no one knew much about it. Any sort of ticketing or travel agent we asked said no such thing existed and tried to sell us flights to Riyadh. That only strengthened our resolve and we were determined, Insh’Allah, to arrive in Saudi Arabia by ferry.

Based on a conversation with a taxi driver, and a single report we’d found online, we were fairly certain that there were in fact ferries going from Safaga in Egpyt to Duba, in Saudi Arabia. And as far as we could find out, there were no passenger ferries at all to Jeddah or leaving from anywhere else in Egypt. So after a few chill days in Aswan we headed back north to Luxor and from there to Safaga, which we’d never heard of before and with good reason, because it’s a fairly unappealing town.

This post is about our experience crossing the Red Sea from Egypt (Safaga) to Saudi Arabia (Duba) by ferry.

Before you go

You most likely need a visa for Saudi Arabia (check that, according to your nationality). The visa process is online and very straightforward.

The overnight ferry trip is about nine hours long, not counting a LOT of additional time for checking in, waiting, loading, dis/embarking, and so on. It runs every night but you have to find go to the office and get tickets ahead of time. You can’t just show up and try to buy on the spot at the port or online. I’ll get to all this in the next section.

The vessel has a very basic cafeteria with cheap food. It served breakfast in the morning of eggs, foul, bread, and tea. There was dinner available too. There’s a ‘family room’ for women and couples to eat in. Get used to that.

The ferry is a passenger and cargo vessel, so if you have a vehicle you can get it across. Shipping a car/motorcycle will entail a whole extra whack of formalities and I’ll bet it’s time-consuming. We saw the security officers removing the tires from a vehicle and running them through the x-ray in a pre-boarding inspection.

Have an eSim like Airalo already downloaded and ready to go. Bring the last of your local currency for food onboard – cash only, of course.

Remember, Saudi Arabia is very conservative. Women should cover up as much as possible but foreigners don’t need to wear a hijab or abaya. Most women in Saudi Arabia wear a fully covering black niqab, even though it’s not mandatory anymore. For that matter a lot of women wear it in Egypt.

Luxor to Safaga

Safaga is about three and a half hours by bus from Luxor. There are several bus companies near the train station in Luxor. We left late in the day so we spent the night in Safaga, plus the next night since it took an entire day to find the shipping line and get tickets. The ferry boards and leaves at night so in theory you could do it all in a day if you move fast.

Get your ferry tickets

Our very nice host in Safaga picked us up on the side of the road when we arrived well after dark, and drove us to the apartment we were staying in. On the way he showed us a ticketing office for a ferry company called Namma Shipping. He thought we might be able to get tickets there (we’d seen them online too, but couldn’t find any passenger info).

So the next day we walked around asking about ferries to Saudi Arabia at shipping offices and travel agents and random people near the port. With all signage in Arabic this was not particularly easy to do. We checked at a company called Triumph – they were closed. We checked in person at Namma Shipping but sure enough, they were no longer running passenger ferries. Eventually someone in a cargo office understood enough English to get what we were on about. He gave us the phone number of Mr. Alaa, who seemed to be singlehandedly responsible for all activities at the port. (NOTE: send me a message from the Contact page on this blog, if you want the phone number.)

Mr. Alaa told us to show up at his office later the same day – they don’t open most days before noon (get used to that before heading to Saudi Arabia, too). Mr. Alaa’s company’s name translates to International Union Shipping Company. They are also called Kenzy Travels, not sure if it’s a separate travel agency or an affiliate inside the shipping company, for handling ferry passengers. Doesn’t really matter. Either way, we found the office on the fourth floor of this building, next to the El Jawhara Inn. Look for the sign with an anchor on top of the building:

UPDATE in 2025: Kenzy Travels has moved their office to a location in front of the New Police Station.

Bring cash, your passport, and a printout of your e-Visa for Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Alaa and his numerous colleagues were upstairs in their office chain-smoking. They gave us a breakdown of the ticket options and we sprung for a private cabin which was reasonable. The other option was regular open seating (Pullman seats) which I don’t think would be a particularly great idea. They took our passports and Saudi visas and spent an insanely long time entering everything in the computer, smoking, and printing stuff off.

We paid cash, and they told us to come back later the same evening to collect our documents and tickets, and board the ferry.

Yalla!

UPDATE in 2025: I’ve been told the process is more efficient now, and it’s possible to get your tickets right away and sail at 8pm on the same day.

UPDATE in 2026: the ferry still runs only to Duba (not Jeddah). It’s possible to arrange your tickets over WhatsApp without having to go to the Kenzy Travels office in person (if you have the WhatsApp number, that is…). Get in touch a couple of days ahead of time and confirm. Re-confirm timing again on the day, meet at the port to get your ticket, and pay cash. I’d ask for a receipt or at least a proper ticket. Tickets are still 4000 EGP.

Departure, and onboard the ferry

Back in the hazy cloud of smoke in Mr. Alaa’s office that evening, we collected our passports and sat waiting – for a couple of hours. Luckily there’s not much to do in Safaga anyway.

The office is within walking distance of the port and eventually we set off on foot with one of Mr. Alaa’s assistants. It seems that a personal escort to the port, through immigration, and onto the vessel is just part of the service. Not a bad idea actually, since the port is a bit of a maze. It’s not common for foreigners to make the trip and according to the passenger manifest we were the only two non-Egyptian or Saudi nationals onboard, so they kept tabs on us.

There are several stages of queueing up outside the port compound, showing your passport and ticket, and paying some small fees like departure tax for which you should get a receipt. Make sure you bring Egyptian pounds. There’s a short bus ride inside the port – we opted to walk since we were running low on pounds, and then a police officer ended up driving us.

Then you go inside and wait again with everyone’s passports in a huge pile on some officer’s desk while he and everyone else smokes like crazy. You can use the time to fill out some exit forms. Eventually, you’ll get your passport back with the stamp and can rush outside for fresh air and then wait for hours in another dense cloud of smoke until they let you board.

Foot passengers board the ferry first and then all the vehicles and transport trucks are loaded onboard. As you board you go straight to reception, show your boarding card, and get your cabin number and a key. We went to our comfortable cabin and made ourselves at home. Then we wandered around the vessel. No celebratory beers on this boat, by the way.

Don’t worry about setting an alarm. You’ll be woken up by morning prayer, broadcast over the ship loudspeakers and in your room.

There’s plenty of time to get breakfast in the cafeteria and wander around the ferry. There are hot water samovars onboard and we had our aeropress along of course, so we made coffee and took a morning stroll.

Arriving in Saudi Arabia

Although we were on the ferry in Egypt by about midnight, it didn’t actually depart until much later. We arrived in Saudi Arabia around 14:00 the next day, at the Port of Neom which is about thirty-eight kilometers north of Duba itself.

The port terminal is small and fairly organized. Join/start the queue for passport control and away you go! It took a very long time, even though we were the only two foreign nationals onboard. However, the immigration officer was the first person to wish me Happy Birthday, since Oyv forgot, so that was really nice.

We didn’t see any ATMs at the port, at least none that were operational.

Here’s a map with the blue pin indicating where the port is in relation to town:

Neom Port to Duba (the ‘Pearl of the Red Sea’)

Back in Egypt we’d met a friendly Saudi businessman who complained non-stop about Egyptians and was very keen to leave Egypt. He was traveling on the ferry with us and before we all went off to our cabins he’d enthusiastically welcomed us to Saudi Arabia and informed us we’d like it a lot better than Egypt (we liked Egypt just fine, a lot actually, but anyway).

The next morning we saw him again as we disembarked and he very kindly waited for us outside while immigration painstakingly processed our e-Visas. When we got out to the carpark we barely had a moment to realise there was no transport to town before he materialised beside us and offered a ride to Duba. We gratefully took him up on the offer and he not only drove us to Duba but insisted on helping us find a hotel.

Moral of the story, Saudi Arabia is a car-based country and public transport can be hard to come by in remote areas. The Neom port is in a remote area so you may have to rely on meeting a kind fellow passenger as we did, or hitch-hike to Duba. Apparently it’s easy to hitch-hike in Saudi Arabia, but they do drive like hell there, so be warned.

In Duba, which for some inscrutable reason is called the ‘Pearl of the Red Sea’, your accommodation options are expensive and limited – although not as limited as the food choices. I suggest you get some money (plenty of ATMs around), get a bus ticket, and get out the next day.

We stayed the night, got bus tickets, and traveled to Yanbu (five and a half hours), stayed a night there and carried on to Medina the day after that. That was a smooth trip – roads are good but distances are huge in Saudi Arabia.

Here’s a map with the blue pin indicating where we found the bus station and got our tickets. We stayed at one of a couple of hotels just two minutes away on foot:

Incidentally, Duba is not the only ‘Pearl of the Red Sea’ we’ve come across. There’s an almost-ghost-town in Eritrea laying claim to the same nickname, and you can rest assured we’ve been there too.

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Once you get to Saudi Arabia and are thinking about what to do next: have a look at our travel itinerary and route, here.

We’ve crossed a lot of borders by all sorts of random transport. Have a look at our border crossing reports  and travel guides for strange stories and sage advice.

The post Taking the ferry from Egypt (Safaga) to Saudi Arabia (Duba) appeared first on WhirledAway.

Booking tickets online is not a thing. So at breakfast one day on the patio at our guesthouse in Livingstone, I asked our host about the train. He laughed. I showed him the email address and WhatsApp numbers I’d found online. Not just anywhere online either – right on the TAZARA website. ‘Sure, you can try to book tickets’ said Remy, and laughed again and went back inside.

It would have been faster to go by bus (well, it would have been fastest by air, but that’s no fun). At any rate we weren’t going to get there any faster by relaxing at the guesthouse, so I sent a flurry of WhatsApp messages and emails.

Back at the breakfast table two days later, I smugly announced to Remy that someone had responded to me on WhatsApp. There was a train on the following Tuesday, and we could have two berths on it. Remy seemed surprised, not just that we’d got tickets but that we wanted them in the first place. Most of his guests wanted to bungee jump from the bridge over Victoria Falls and it was obvious Remy thought that was a preferable activity. But we are suckers for unreasonably long train trips, and had been looking forward to this one for quite some time.

Fast forward a week or so and we were aboard the TAZARA train, tickets and all. Good thing we had those tickets, too, unlike a random passenger who boarded without one and got a resounding slap in the face from the conductor for it.

That’s right, this isn’t your average train trip. We thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, possibly in part because neither of us got slapped in the face.

This post is about our experience aboard the TAZARA train, traveling from Zambia (New Kapiri Mposhi) to Tanzania (Dar es Salaam). It’s a guide to whatever you need to know to take the same journey, and what awaits you along the way. And – if you’re in the neighbourhood, then you should definitely take this journey.

All aboard? Oh well, no rush…

The TAZARA train route

The TAZARA is an international train, running between New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It’s a great way to cross the border and travel between these two countries, but you need time and flexibility to fit it into your plans. Don’t expect it all to go smoothly.

**UPDATE in 2026: the train will resume cross-border services as of February 2026. If you do this trip in February or later in 2026, please feel free to share any other new or changed info regarding schedule, etc, that you might (possibly:)) learn, in the comments on this post or send me an email. As you can see, the train is a bit ‘on again/off again’.

*UPDATE in 2025: the train does not currently run cross-border. You can take a train from New Kapiri Mposhi to Nakonde, the Zambian side of the border. Then you make your own way across the border by bus or taxi and on to pick up another train in Mbeya, Tanzania, to Dar es Salaam (or vice versa). These are separate trains requiring separate tickets, and apparently the arrivals and departures don’t really align well so you’d need even more time to patch it together. Hopefully they’ll resume cross-border services in the future, you never know. Check the TAZARA website and try the contacts there.

There are two trains per week going in opposite directions, the ‘Mukuba Express’ and the ‘Ordinary’ train:

• The Mukuba Express train departs Dar es Salaam on Fridays around 4pm. It departs New Kapiri Mposhi on Tuesdays around 2pm. If it ran according to schedule it would take approximately 46 hours.
• The Ordinary train departs Dar es Salaam on Tuesdays around 2pm. It departs New Kapiri Mposhi on Fridays around 2pm. This one takes an indefinite amount of time. There isn’t even an indication of the schedule on the TAZARA site. It stops at every single station so I think you can just assume it takes ‘a hell of a long time’.

You’ll cross the border on the train. It stops on both sides for everyone to get out and do passport control, visas on arrival, change money, and so on.

Before you go

It was suggested to us by a TAZARA employee on WhatsApp that the train might take about forty hours, or less, or more. It took sixty in the end, so best come prepared.

• You’re going to cross a border, so make sure your nationality is eligible for visa on arrival or visa-free. Entering Tanzania, you’ll need fifty USD for the visa. Bring a pen.
• Tanzania requires proof of yellow fever vaccination so get the shot and bring your international vaccine card. Otherwise, you’ll be getting the jab at the border, anti-vaxxer or not.
• You need cash in both local currencies to buy food on the train, depending which country you’re currently in. There are money changers on the border so you can exchange Kwatcha and Shillings as needed. Know the rate.
• If you plan to be online at all, make sure you have e-SIMs for both countries downloaded. Service is slow and patchy so don’t rely on it.
• The train has a restaurant, bar, and lounge car. They serve meals at set times. Breakfast is a bit ghastly but lunch and dinner were good. They have bottled water, soft drinks, and beer – almost always warm. Bring some extra water and snacks. There was tea available in the mornings but not even instant coffee. We’ve always got an aeropress and coffee with us so we were set – we’d just ask for hot water.
• The train ran out of water on the second day and they never refilled the tanks despite idling for hours at a time in village stations. If you are really set on brushing your teeth and washing your hands, you’ll need to buy extra bottled water for that. Supposedly there are showers on board although I never saw them and since there was no water it didn’t matter anyway.
• The toilets were ok to start and got progressively worse. Bring toilet paper. There is a separate room with sinks for washing up (again, not so useful without water).
• Bedding is provided, on the Express in first class anyway.
• Don’t leave your valuables unattended. You won’t get a key to your compartment, so if you’re sharing with others coordinate that the last to leave locks up. Then, you have to find a conductor to let you back in.

Getting tickets for the TAZARA train

You can’t book this train online. Try to book tickets in person and pay for them on the spot, as paying is the only real guarantee you’re getting onboard. You can buy the tickets directly from the TAZARA offices in Lusaka, Dar es Salaam, and Kapiri Mposhi (but there’s absolutely no other reason to be in Kapiri Mposhi than departing on this train, so going there days ahead of time to buy a ticket would be weird). Note that if you’re picking up this train in Tanzania, Mbeya is also an option.

The trains do sell right out so you should definitely try to get tickets ahead of time – the TAZARA website itself suggests booking two weeks ahead. Waiting until you’re in one of the above-mentioned towns is a bit of a gamble. If you are dead set on a certain date and trying to book the train far in advance or from somewhere else entirely, I think you’d need to get a local travel agency to arrange it and pay up front for you.

But, if you aren’t worried about the exact date you travel and also don’t happen to be in Lusaka or Dar, you can consult the Tazara website for (some) information. Hilariously, the ticket fares page on the website is blank, but there is a list of email addresses and WhatsApp numbers for contacts in the local Tazara offices. To book the train you need to get in touch with one of these people, and make a reservation. Then, once you get to Lusaka or Dar you go straight to the office to pay and pick up your ticket.

We had no luck with the email addresses, but someone responded to one of my repeated WhatsApp calls and messages. I chatted with Agatha for several days, on and off. She rarely sent a clear answer but did say she’d reserved two berths for us.

What Agatha didn’t tell me was that this was not actually a reservation at all; it was more like she was just humouring me. When you book like this what you’re doing is basically putting your name on a list of people who think they might fancy taking a forty-eight hour train trip on that particular day.

We learned this a few days later when we arrived at the Inter-City Bus Terminal in Lusaka and set off to meet Agatha at the office in the TAZARA House building nearby. She informed us that there were exactly two berths still available. Mainly we were just lucky to get there before anyone else wandered in off the street and took the last two spots.

The key thing to remember here is: if you think you have a reservation, you probably don’t. So get the actual tickets in hand at least a day in advance or as soon as you reasonably can.

In general, about tickets:

• We didn’t have a preference regarding the Express or the Ordinary train. We took the next train with availability, which happened to be an Express.
• The tickets cost about 40 USD each, for first class on the Express. The office doesn’t take cards – bring cash. First class tickets on the Ordinary train are about 32 USD.
• Spring for first class. It costs only a little more than second. In first you have four berths per compartment. In second you have six berths, so it’s quite a bit more crowded. Third class is open seating and I’d strongly suggest avoiding it.
• If you want your own compartment you need to book all four (or six) berths. Otherwise, you get a berth in a shared compartment. They are separated by men and women. We would have booked our own compartment but there were literally just two berths left so we were split up, but that didn’t matter.

Livingstone/Lusaka to Kapiri Mposhi

‘TIA’ said Lance the guesthouse manager in Livingstone, when he heard that we’d arranged a ride to the bus station at 5.30 am the next day. Lance put the taxi driver’s number in his phone. ‘I’ll call him at 5 to wake him up.’ he explained. ‘TIA. And I’ll call you at 4.30 Lance.’ I said. Lance slapped his leg and laughed uproariously. And he was right, the driver never showed. But Lance got up and made us breakfast and then we caught our bus to Lusaka.

If you’re leaving from Livingstone, buy your bus tickets to Lusaka in person at the Inter-City Bus Terminal at least a day ahead. It takes about eight hours to get from Livingstone to Lusaka by bus.

When we arrived in Lusaka the first thing we did was pay for our train tickets. The TAZARA House office is near the bus terminal so we walked straight there. Then we booked seats on a bus the next morning to Kapiri Mposhi, and stayed overnight in Lusaka.

It takes about three and a half hours to get from Lusaka to Kapiri Mposhi, so leave early. We took the bus on the same day as the train was departing. This is doable, but since our bus bizzarely spent quite some time off-roading, we cut it close. If your mental health is already hanging by a thread, consider going to Kapiri Mposhi the day before. Counting on public transport is always a bit risky.

From the bus station in Kapiri Mposhi it’s a few kilometers to the New Kapiri Mposhi Railway Station. Lots of taxi drivers were lurking around when we got off the bus.

Aim to arrive at the station at least two hours ahead to be on the safe side.

Moral of this whole story so far, don’t waste time. You’ll do plenty of that later once you’re aboard the train.

Life on the TAZARA train

‘He looks like the guy from The Last of Us’ said The Dancer to me, and he pointed at Oyv. I looked across the table at Oyv, wearing his dark sunglasses and pushing down steadily on the aeropress as the train carriage lurched and swayed. The Dancer was the train employee who’d served all our meals so far in the restaurant car, and when he wasn’t serving up plates of ugali/nshima (depending which side of the border we were currently on) and greens, he was dancing up and down the aisle. It’s a long trip and there was plenty of time to people-watch.

Besides people-watching, since the train goes right through Selous Game Reserve you can do some wildlife-spotting on the way. The railway was built by the Chinese between 1970 to 1975, and runs through tunnels and across rivers and gorges. As the TAZARA website points out, this affords passengers the opportunity to ‘appreciate the awesome and inspirational engineering works of the Chinese’.

The train made lengthy and inexplicable stops of often an hour or more in every single little village we passed.

We’d get out for a look around, and sometimes random people would board and ride in the bar for a stop or two. Although the train ran out of water it never ran out of beer, despite the efforts of a local teacher who’d boarded in reasonable condition only to be incapacitated and physically dragged off the train by the barstaff a few stations later.

Tentatively scheduled to take forty-four hours, in the end it took sixty. As the train slowly chugged along with no particular end in sight, we just clattered around between our compartments and the lounge car. I made us a lot of PB&J sandwiches, Oyv brewed coffee whenever we could convince The Dancer to boil us some water, and we hung out in the lounge car sipping warm beers, talking to whoever else was around, and watching Africa roll by with each clacking turn of the wheels.

The border: Zambia (Nakonde) to Tanzania (Tunduma)

We arrived Zambia’s side of the border late in the afternoon on day two. We were tracking the train on maps.me and saw everyone getting off, so we got off too. There was no announcement.

The train stops very close to the locked immigration building. Eventually some officers came from town, after someone called and told them the train had arrived.

We got our passports stamped, changed money, and got back on the train. When it eventually rumbled back to life we rode a bit further to Tanzanian immigration, housed in what looked like an abandoned building. There we lined up again in front of a table to get our passports stamped and pay for the visas. All very ordinary, right up until a man wearing a white lab coat walked in with a cooler. He produced two syringes and vaccinated a couple of passengers on the spot. Like I said, bring your yellow fever certificate.

Arriving in Dar es Salaam

Although I noticed a door in our carriage marked ‘Broadcasting room’, at no time did the staff broadcast any announcements about delays, sudden departures from remote stations, arrival at the border, or any other useful information. When we arrived in Dar at the TAZARA Railway Station at about three in the morning, the conductor let us know by banging loudly on the compartment doors up and down the carriage.

At that hour of the night walking is decidedly out. If you arrive late and don’t want to take a taxi, then you can stay in the station until morning. I wouldn’t suggest actually sleeping, but it’s partially lit and there were a lot of people around. We took an Uber and went to Kibodya Hotel 6, banking on there being a night-guard out front who’d be able to wake up the receptionist and get us in (there was).

I was sorry to get off the train (not least because it was the middle of the night and I was tucked up snugly in my berth). It’s a long trip but if you like train travel in general, then this is for you. Just remember, maybe most importantly of all: embrace the feeling of ‘It gets there when it gets there. As Lance said, ‘T.I.A’.

Read More

This isn’t the only excellent train trip we’ve undertaken in Africa. We’ve also hitched a ride on Mauritania’s famous iron ore train, and you can read about it here: Extreme journeys: riding Mauritania’s iron ore train.

If you’re in Tanzania, you might want to check out these other posts about traveling in this amazing country.

And for more of our adventures (and misadventures) as we travel from Cameroon to Japan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

The post Riding the TAZARA train: cross-border from Zambia to Tanzania appeared first on WhirledAway.

We’d been waiting for hours in an empty expanse of sand next to some train tracks. The tracks stretched away into the desert, seemingly to nowhere. Finally, as we stood there watching in edgy anticipation, the iron ore train approached and slowed to a stop right in front of us. Grabbing our backpacks we ran for it, and boarded a wagon not too far behind the locomotive. It was the first time in my life (and probably the last) that I ever ‘boarded’ a train by climbing up on top of it.

So away we went, into the desert. Sunset, sunrise. Sixteen hours overnight rumbling through the Sahara and out to the coast, all alone under the stars, on top of a train.

And hey – it’s a free ride. All seven hundred kilometers of it. Besides, how else were we gonna get to Nouadhibou?

If you like extreme train trips, you’ve got a couple of options in Africa. One of them is the Tazara train – around three days of meandering through forest and savannah from Zambia to Tanzania.

And then there’s the iron ore train in Mauritania, and that’s the train this post is about.

But while the Tazara train is a passenger train, Mauritania’s famous iron ore train is not. It’s exactly what its name suggests: an iron ore freight train. It’s also one of the longest trains in the world. From two to three kilometers in length, pulling up to two hundred wagons, it runs through the Sahara transporting iron ore all the way out to Mauritania’s second city on the coast, Nouadhibou. And it can transport you, too. Right on top of the cargo, if you like.

This post is about our experience riding Mauritania’s iron ore train from Zouerat to Nouadhibou, and what you need to know to try it yourself. And trust me, you want to ride this train.

Before you go

First you’re going to need to get yourself to Mauritania. If you’re planning to come from Morocco through Western Sahara, check that the (disputed) border is open. At the time we were there, it was most decidedly closed. Coming from Senegal, if you go through the infamous Rosso border – well, that’s a good time (not really). Be prepared for some intense hassling that pretty much crosses the line to harassment.

Think about the direction in which you want to ride the train. We went from Zouerat in the interior, to Nouadhibou on the coast. This is the ‘recommended’ way. I say that as if riding on top of a freight train in the Sahara desert is recommended at all, in either direction. If you go the same way, you’ll find that the wagons are full of iron ore and you can perch on top and enjoy the view. But if you go in the opposite direction, the wagons are empty and you’ll be riding in the bottom of a cargo container. Not quite the same dramatic effect. So plan your travels in Mauritania accordingly.

The train does have a passenger carriage. It’s hitched on at the back end far from the locomotive. I’m not sure how this works. There’s a station just outside Zouerat where you can board the passenger car and I assume buy a ticket. But you probably didn’t come all this way to ride inside yet another overcrowded passenger vehicle. Honestly, riding on a pile of iron ore was more comfortable than riding inside a lot of buses I’ve been on.

Bring appropriate clothing and bedding. We rode the train in late December and it was a little chilly in the night but comfortable. In the midst of winter the desert can be very cold at night. You should bring blankets (or buy some in the market). We both had long underwear on, pants and a hoodie. We brought sleeping bags. Remember, it’s a long journey, up to eighteen hours or more, overnight.

The iron ore itself can range from a coarse powder right on up to rocky chunks. Either way, you’re going to get dirty and whatever clothes you bring might not be salvageable. We threw out almost everything we’d been wearing. For ages afterwards I was finding grainy black dirt in the seams of my old sleeping bag (and I love that…the memories…).

Since we were planning this epic train trip in advance, we brought ski goggles from home. I’m not sure how easy it would be to pick these up on the way, but if you can, bring them. The iron ore is dusty – and that stuff blowing in your eyes for eighteen hours is no joke.

We also picked up the iconic blue tagelmusts (or hawli) in a local market – the Sahara’s all-in-one protection against sand and sun (and iron ore, as it turns out). Winding one of these around your head before you climb aboard is a great idea.

Bring water and some food. Remember it’s the desert after all, and the train could break down – but still, I think it goes without saying that for obvious reasons you want to try not to drink too much.

Bring a big garbage bag to wrap your backpack in. If you’ve got a computer or anything like that, think about how to protect it from a serious amount of grit and dirt.

For traveling in Mauritania in general: bring about a million photocopies of your passport. You will need to hand out these ‘fiches’ left and right. For arrival in Zouerat, at least, have the name and phone number of the place you plan to stay handy. Even if you don’t actually stay there, the gendarmes like to hear that you have a plan.

Going it alone – is the iron ore train safe?

We did this trip in December 2021. We were totally alone on the top of the train. It felt absolutely wild and I cannot overstate how awesome it was.

I’ve noticed that various tour operators are offering ‘independent travel’-type tours in Mauritania that include a ride on the iron ore train. It seems to me that getting on this train with an organized tour group defeats the entire purpose and turns an incredible adventure into just another uncomfortable train trip.

Having done it, I can say that we felt safe and we weren’t worried at any point – once we got going. Yes, it seemed distinctly crazy at the moment of climbing on top. I couldn’t believe we were actually doing it, but we just moved fast and got on. During the stop at Choum, hearing all the voices in the darkness, while more people were getting on and off or whatever was happening there – I’d possibly have felt uncomfortable by myself, but as two it was fine.

Maybe you feel nervous about climbing onto a freight train by yourself in the middle of nowhere and riding it through the desert overnight? Put like that, it does sound a bit daunting. If you don’t have a friend who shares your interest in unconventional modes of transportation, I’d suggest joining a Facebook group and trying to find someone going the same way as you. Or, try hanging out at your accommodation in Nouakchott (Auberge Triskell is good) to see if you can meet another independent traveller or two to team up with.

Possibly a tour makes the train trip more smooth. They will take care of the details and might be able to cut down on wait time, eliminating some of the ‘Is it coming? Have I lost my mind?’ and other general nerves. But I think general nerves and plunging into the unknown are the best part of the whole thing.

Getting to Zouerat

We arrived in Zouerat by minibus from Atar. That took about four hours. Approaching town the minibus was pulled over at a police checkpoint and our presence in it caused a pretty big fuss. By that I mean one of the gendarmes took particular exception to us being there. He made us get out and bring our fiches into his office in a shipping container and have a huge discussion about why we came. This was exceptionally difficult since we don’t speak French but we nevertheless managed to convince the angry gendarme’s boss, Boubacar, that we weren’t up to anything. Boubacar tore a piece of cardboard off an empty cigarette packet and wrote his phone number on it. Then he let us get back into the minibus after making us promise to call and tell him when we eventually left town.

In Zouerat we went to Hotel Tiris Zemmour. However we weren’t too impressed by the room standard/price ratio, so we opted for an auberge called Ba Dijirbl instead. It’s very simple but fine, and the family who owns it are lovely people. They welcomed us into their restaurant (and later, their home), served us up a bunch of food and gave us a hotspot since the Wi-Fi wasn’t working anywhere else and neither was our sim.

Catching the iron ore train

First of all: the train runs every day in both directions. It doesn’t keep a schedule and there’s no point asking about it or trying to find out more. Leaving from Zouerat, it supposedly departs any time after about 13.00. You jump on at Fderik, where the train (usually, but not always) pauses while a couple of kilometers down the line they are attaching the passenger wagon. That’s your cue to throw caution to the wind and climb aboard.

Since we were planning to hitch a ride on top, we made sure to be at Fderik as on the map below, before 13.00 to be on the safe side.

The spot at Fderik is just an empty stretch of sand and tracks. It should take about twenty minutes to get there by taxi from Zouerat. It took us twice that, because of the same gendarme we’d met on the way into town, holding us up again with questions and fiches, etc.

If you want to ride in the passenger car, you should probably be at the spot marked ‘passenger carriage’ shown on the map above, before 12.00. Note that this is also the spot where the train technically starts from. We had some locals telling us to go there in the first place, but that’s wrong – unless, you are going to ride inside.

The train can be over two hundred wagons long. That’s a lot of dust blowing in your face. To reduce the sensation of going blind, jump on fairly close to the locomotive. We deliberately waited in front of the only building in sight (some kind of locked-up shed) – because we’d read the locomotive would stop there, and we wanted to be close to the front.

Sure enough, when the train finally did appear it rolled to stop almost directly in front of us, and we clambered up and made ourselves at home on wagon six for the night.

In our case, the train showed up at about 16.30. We had no idea how long it would stop for so we moved pretty fast. But it stayed put for about twenty minutes so no need to panic (or hysterically throw bottled water and packets of Oreos up top as fast as you can, like we did).

While we were waiting, Oyv spotted a broken plastic jug lying nearby. He brought this with us and as it turns out, it was a smart idea. He used it as a shovel to scoop out a sort of trench in the iron ore. Then we lined the trench with our sleeping bags and got a pretty decent night’s sleep.

And yes, the train does go at a half-decent speed, about 35-50 kilometers per hour. So you’ll feel that (and it feels pretty great if you like sleeping on trains in general).

Riding the rails

‘Oh no. Not this guy…’ Oyv muttered under his breath. My heart sank. Stopped at a checkpoint on the edge of town, the gendarme we’d had trouble with before was approaching our car at a fast clip.

This officer had delayed our arrival into Zouerat in the first place by nearly an hour. He knew our plan: ride off into the sunset on the iron ore train, thereby leaving his jurisdiction altogether. But still, he questioned us some more. Considering that ever since we’d got to Zouerat he’d wanted nothing more than for us to leave, he was doing a good job of stopping our departure. Ultimately undecided as to whether or not to let us go, he called his boss again. Boubacar, our friend and the local gendarmerie’s voice of reason, apparently told him to knock it off. So we drove onwards to Fderik.

A few minutes later my phone rang. ‘Sarah. Why didn’t you call me?’ asked Boubacar sadly. He’d given us his phone number when we’d met the day before, and made me promise to call when we left Zouerat. This was all starting to feel a bit surreal. Rattling around in the back of a taxi on the way to some random place called Fderik, trying to explain in French to the gendarmerie-boss that I’d been planning to call him once I’d climbed onto an iron ore freight train and you know, officially left town. On top of a train.

In a patch of sand next to the train tracks, Oyv and I dragged our backpacks out of the car and got out some ouguiya to pay for the ride (on a side note, if riding the iron ore train isn’t challenging enough, try learning to pronounce the name of the Mauritanian currency). The taxi driver looked around doubtfully at the empty shed, a collapsing barbed-wire fence, and the tracks stretching out into the desert. ‘You can’t just stay here alone’ he said and he got out of the car, slammed the door, and stretched out on the ground in the scant shade the vehicle afforded.

We scuffed around in the sand. No train came, nothing happened, and we waited. The driver dozed in the heat. We wandered along the tracks and stared at the shimmering vanishing point. A minivan drove up – it was the taxi driver’s family, bringing him some lunch. Still we waited.

And then we saw it appear on the horizon. The taxi driver woke up, clearly interested in our next move. All three of us stared in anticipation as the iron ore train slowed to a halt almost right in front of us.

After hours of lethargy in the sun, the sight of the huge train brought on a surge of adrenaline. Picking up our gear, we broke into a run straight to a wagon close behind the locomotive.

I hauled myself up the ladder with a bit of extra momentum, and landed on a pile of scratchy black powder. Pointlessly dusting myself off I turned around to catch the bottles of water Oyv was tossing up one by one. He pushed our backpacks up the ladder and I dragged them onto the heap of iron ore.

Then Oyv climbed up and we stood on top of wagon six and surveyed the scene. The taxi driver waved enthusiastically. There were so many wagons linked behind us that we couldn’t see the end of the train.

There was a conductor onboard too. That is, a man wearing a reflective vest was already riding on top of the first wagon. Now he sat there watching us as we scrambled aboard. The conductor was clearly concerned with our safety: he gave a thumbs-up and waited for us to return it. Then he indicated we should get low, so we sat down on the iron ore. The train rumbled to life underneath us and slowly pulled away. Gradually it picked up speed, and we chugged towards the coast.

I’ll say this: there are train trips, and then there are train trips.

We sat on top of the swaying train, mesmerized by the desert rolling away underneath us on all sides. A road ran parallel to the tracks for a while, and we passed a broken down bus. The passengers gathered around it watched as the train drew closer. As we rolled past they threw their arms up in the air and waved. So we did too, hollering at the top of our lungs.

At dusk, the train stopped. The door on the locomotive opened and four crew got out. The conductor scrambled down from his perch on wagon one. They prayed in the desert, their shadows slanting in the sand as the sun went down.

Soon enough the sun was gone.

It was chilly, but we were warm enough, huddled in our sleeping bags on the iron ore. All alone under a canopy of stars, on top of a train in the endless desert night.

Nouadhibou to Nouakchott

The train ‘arrived’ in Nouadhibou – that is, it just stopped rolling – around 09:00 the next morning. We woke up and rubbed (more) dirt out of our eyes.

As I mentioned it’s pretty freaking long, and the wagon we were riding on halted nowhere near any kind of station. But that didn’t stop a taxi driver from racing the train for the last few minutes and then off-roading beside the tracks, in order to reach us. We climbed back down over the side and asked him to take a photo of us:

We didn’t want to stay in Nouadhibou overnight. We had the taxi driver drop us off at the office of a minibus company, and got tickets back to Nouakchott later that day. The bus company let us use their bathrooms to wash off the worst of the black dust that we were coated in, and clean ourselves up at least a bit.

Then we just killed a day in town waiting for our ride at the place where the minibuses where leaving from – that is, 28 Novembre station. The trip from Nouadhibou to Nouakchott takes around six hours.

You can certainly get buses or shared pickups from Zouerat back out to the coast (like the one we saw broken down on the road), but the iron ore train is the fastest way to go. And I wouldn’t recommend going any other way.

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As I mentioned, this isn’t the only excellent train trip we’ve undertaken in Africa. We spent three days on the Tazara train from Zambia to Tanzania, and you can read about it here: Riding the Tazara train: cross-border from Zambia to Tanzania

If you’re travelling onwards to Senegal, check out our Senegal stories and guides.

The post Extreme journeys: riding Mauritania’s iron ore train appeared first on WhirledAway.

This post is about our experience taking the overnight ferry from South Korea (Busan) to Japan (Fukuoka).

Before you go

You most likely do not need a visa for either of these countries (check that, according to your nationality). After travelling for so long we were running low on passport pages. If you’re in the same situation no worries, on arrival they only add a tiny sticker to your dwindling space.

On an overnight ferry, the trip is about eight and a half hours long, not counting additional time for checking in, waiting, dis/embarking, and so on.

They might search your luggage when you arrive in Japan. So don’t be carrying fruit, meat, or things like that.

There is a cafeteria onboard which wasn’t selling meals when we sailed. The tuck shop sold snack-type stuff and instant ramen, and beverages (beer). There are microwaves and drinking water dispensers, hot water too. We are very wary of any sort of public transport at this point (one too many trips spent either starving or nibbling on stale biscuits) so we had food with us.

Have an eSim like Airalo already downloaded and ready to go.

Seoul to Busan

You can get to Busan in two and a half hours with the high speed train link from Seoul.

We didn’t want to go right away, so we took the high speed train to Pohang. That’s also two and a half hours. There we changed to a local train to Gyeongju. That’s a nice town to spend a day in, and we stayed a couple of nights just to visit some tombs around town. Not incredibly interesting, if I’m being honest, but since this is Korea we’re talking about, we also had some delicious dinners there and that’s reason enough.

From Gyeongju we caught a bus to Busan, that takes one hour. Then we stayed a night in the Haeundae beach area – also heaving with good food opportunities.

Get your ferry tickets

Try to book the ferry tickets online ahead of time to be on the safe side. We tried just a few days in advance and everything was ‘sold out’ – but actually, not really. When we went to the port offices in Busan in person, there was plenty of availability.

Tickets are sold at a whole slew of offices on the second floor at Busan Port International Passenger Terminal. To get to the terminal, take the metro to Choryang station (fifty minutes from Haeundae). Then walk fifteen minutes to the huge terminal building.

There are several ferry companies. New Camellia and Queen Beetle leave for Fukuoka. Pan Star goes to Osaka and Tsushima. Nina goes to Tsushima. Pukwan goes to Shimonoseki.

We booked tickets to Fukuoka with New Camellia, since they were the only office that was open at the time. Also we weren’t hugely worried about where we ended up, as long as it was in Japan.

We sprung for a first class cabin for two people which was quite nice with a window, two bunks and a bathroom. Even a shower, not that we bothered. It’s not an expensive way to travel – our tickets cost a bit less than 100 USD each (278 000 won for two). You can also get a first class cabin for four people (not sure if as a solo traveler, you could book a single bunk in a shared cabin for yourself). Economy class is big open rooms with sleeping mats in rows along the sides. If you’re a solo traveller that looked like a perfectly fine and comfortable option if you don’t want to buy your own cabin.

Departure, and onboard the ferry

To get to the ferry terminal in Busan, take the metro to Choryang station (fifty minutes from Haeundae), and then walk fifteen minutes to the huge terminal building.

On the day of travel you have to come back early to check in and pick up your boarding card well before boarding actually starts. In our case, we had to check in before 16:00, with our ferry not scheduled to depart at 23.00.

Next we cleared customs in the same building, and then we waited around two and a half hours before all passengers were there and allowed to board the vessel. We boarded around 19.30 and the ferry left around 23:00.

We didn’t mind all the waiting around onboard. As you board you go straight to reception, show your boarding cards, and get your room number and key. So we went to our cabin and made ourselves at home.

Then we wandered around the vessel.

We saw the Economy class dorm-style rooms which looked clean and comfortable (especially in comparison with say, sleeper class on an Indian train). We checked out the cafeteria and the lounge areas where a lot of people were heating up noodles or cracking open a beer.

Since the ferry travels between South Korea and Japan you have the opportunity to get squeaky-clean: there’s a sento (communal bathhouse) onboard.

Of course there’s a games room in case you want to win some plastic junk to add to your backpack, and, ta-dah! Karaoke rooms!

Arriving in Japan

The ferry arrived in Hakata Port International Terminal in Fukuoka around 07:30 the next morning. It’s about an 8.5 hour long trip, not counting checking in and waiting time. There’s no rush to get off the vessel if you want to eat something or wait for the crowds to thin at the exit.

Arriving at the ferry port is like arriving at an airport. Just join the queue for passport control and away you go!

Fukuoka to Nagasaki

There’s a tourist information desk at the Hakata ferry terminal. You can get some amount of help here with local city transport around Fukuoka.

From out front of the ferry terminal building, we took a taxi to the Hakata bus terminal. At the bus terminal we got a bus to Nagasaki which took around two hours.

There’s also a bus from the ferry terminal to the centre of town.

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For more of our adventures (and misadventures) as we travel from Cameroon to Japan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

We’ve crossed a lot of borders by all sorts of random transport. Have a look at our travel guides and border crossing reports for strange stories and sage advice.

The post Taking the ferry from South Korea (Busan) to Japan (Fukuoka) appeared first on WhirledAway.

You can of course fly from Kuala Lumpur to Sumatra’s capital city Medan in less than two hours. But if, like us, you’d vastly prefer a lengthy overland excursion instead, you can travel from one country to the other on a combination of public transport offerings by land and sea.

Crossing by ferry between Malaysia and Indonesia is easy, it’s just time consuming: it took us a bit under three days to get from KL to Medan.

So, if you ever wondered how to cross from Malaysia to Sumatra, Indonesia without flying, then read on.

Before you go

Indonesia has an e-Visa online application system, check if your country is eligible and make sure you’re applying on the official site. We applied a day in advance and got it almost instantly. A 30-day visa cost around 30 USD. Along with the usual passport details and a hideous photo of yourself, you need to provide a hotel address and a flight or ferry ticket for your eventual ‘departure’ from Indonesia. If you don’t actually know when that will be, you can get one of those fake flight reservations online for about 10 USD.

If you are travelling the opposite way, to Malaysia, check if your country is visa exempt before you set off.

There are moneychangers on the ferry. We didn’t see any on either side of the border. There are ATMs in both Port Dickson and in Tanjung Balai. It’s good to have some rupiah on arrival in Indonesia since the port is a short distance from town and any banks.

We booked our ferry tickets (40 USD) online at Indomal Fast Ferries, selecting to depart from Port Dickson. There are a few destinations: we went north to Tanjung Balai which is pretty close to Medan.

Bring some cash to the ferry port with you for various fees. Print out your ferry tickets, visa confirmation, and whatever flight document you happen to have/made. You might also want to bring some snacks for the ferry.

If you haven’t already got Grab, download it. It’s a very handy taxi app.

The route

Our ferry was due to depart at 10.00 am, so the day before that we travelled from Kuala Lumpur to Port Dickson and stayed overnight. The next morning we showed up at the port about an hour prior to check-in. The ferry to Tanjung Balai port took almost six hours. On arrival we processed immigration and get our luggage back, and headed into town. We stayed overnight in Tanjung Balai and took a bus to Medan the next day.

Kuala Lumpur to Port Dickson

Take a Grab or the metro to your closest KTM commuter station. Buy a ticket to Seremban (KTM Seremban Line). A ticket costs about 9 ringgit. The train took a little over two hours and it was standing room only.

Exit the station at Seremban and then you can take a bus, or book another Grab, from there to Port Dickson. We took a taxi, it was about 30 minutes. In Port Dickson we had him drop us off at a smart hotel called The Best Location. It is probably the best, and is comfortable, nice, and clean.

The ferry: Port Dickson to Tanjung Balai

Give yourself at least 1 hour at the ferry port office to check in, weigh your baggage, and pass immigration. You can take a Grab or walk to the ferry port, it’s not far from The Best Location hotel.

It was pretty chaotic at the ferry port: tons of people milling around out front and mountains of luggage. Nothing much in the way of signs or instructions, so we just kept asking around until we found out which ‘queue’ (there seemed to be several, all outside) to join for check-in. Be careful as more than one ferry goes at once.

Eventually it was our turn to show our tickets and the Indonesian visas. The tickets and our passports disappeared into the building. Here you also need 25 ringgit per person, for the boarding pass. Then you wait until a man comes out of the building with a stack of passports and calls out names (he didn’t bother calling ours out, just held the passports up til he caught sight of us and smiled in relief – we were the only foreigners anyway).

Take your passport and your boarding pass and join the queue for luggage. You’ll spot it right away: disorderly piles of baggage and a harassed-looking man behind a table next to a big scale. You pay by the kilo, ours cost about 50 ringgit for 40 kgs.

The crew will load your luggage, so you can leave it there and go inside the building, finally. There you process Malaysian immigration, get your passport stamped, send your carry-on through an x-ray, and wait in the next room until a staff member checks tickets and says you can board.

Bon voyage!

The ferry was 40 minutes late departing, and took around 6 hours including that delay. It’s comfortable. They served some very unappetizing food, and also sell some snacks. Smooth sailing all the way. At some point you’ll get a customs declaration to fill out.

The border

On arrival, disembark leaving your luggage wherever it may be. Inside the immigration building there is a ‘Visa on Arrival’ office. It was closed and empty, but a man called us over and took us inside. He asked to see our visa paper and then did absolutely nothing, except request a selfie ‘for his work’. So that business over, we joined the crushing mass of people main queue at immigration.

The officer took our passports inside the booth and had us sit down and wait. It took quite a long time, but he was very friendly and just looked over the visa paper we had, asked a few typical questions, and didn’t ask to see any flight confirmation (I have read, OTOH, that they always ask for this…so I’d bring one). Eventually he put a very small sticker and stamp into our passports and sent us to customs. That’s just a counter where you hand over the declaration form.

Go back outside onto the dock and start rummaging in the various piles of luggage for your stuff. Then, they scan you luggage and you can exit out the front of the building.

Tanjung Balai to Medan

The port is around 7 km from the town and there are plenty of drivers lying in wait with their becak (basically a motorcycle with a roomy sidecar). The ride cost about 50 000 rupiah. It’s a pretty, scenic ride and half the time we had locals jogging alongside shouting ‘Hello, mister!’ so it’s a nice and friendly arrival.

We checked into a hotel, walked around and ate some dinner – it’s a very friendly town and I guess foreigners aren’t super common. The next day we took a becak to the place where buses depart from the side of the road (ask your hotel or a becak driver). From there, we got a bus going to Medan for 50 000 rupiah per person. They leave frequently and don’t even wait to fill up. It took 4-5 hours. Get ready for some loud music. And also some live guitar.

I’d do it all over again, no worries. Welcome to Indonesia!

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If you’d like another roundabout journey in the region, you can check out this post about travelling from Thailand to Malaysia by road.

The post How to travel by ferry from Malaysia to Indonesia (Sumatra) appeared first on WhirledAway.

One day I flagged down a passing bus on the side of a country road. I’d been day-tripping out of town, visiting ancient mosques and mausoleums I didn’t know existed until pretty recently. Riding back to my homebase in Khulna I stood in the crowded aisle, thinking about my next move.

Wherever I decided to go, I knew there’d be a long journey involved.

Bangladesh is notorious for bad roads and bad buses. Accidents are frequent. I’ve been to plenty of countries where dangerous roads are a fact of life, and road travel is pretty much unavoidable. But in Bangladesh, there are other options. Besides all the boats, there is also a pretty extensive railway system. I love train travel anyway, so avoiding long distances on dodgy roads is just a nice bonus.

I’d watched a train chug slowly through a crossing one day, the roof packed with passengers, people hanging out the doors and clinging to the step. There were people riding on the hitches between carriages. I saw two men sitting casually right on the front of the engine. Riding outside is free, I knew that much, but I wanted a seat. Inside the train, preferably.

I went to the station in Khulna to see about a ticket. Queuing is just a suggestion here and a lot of people tend to be very interested in whatever I do, so when it was my turn I stood at the counter with several other would-be passengers on either side of me. We all leaned through the ticket window together.

The girl behind the counter looked at her screen and told me that both second-class seats and first-class berths were available on the train to Sylhet.

Me: I’ll take a second-class seat.
Ticket girl: Madam, second-class is not safe. A first-class berth is much safer for you.
Other Passengers: (murmuring in agreement, nodding at the ticket girl) Yes, she’ll take first-class. To Sylhet.
Me: Oh, well ok, I’ll take a first-class berth then.
Ticket girl (consults computer again, and apparently discovers first-class berth is sold out): Madam, a first-class berth is not safe. It is not ladies-only.
Other Passengers: (in consternation) Not for ladies, no.
Ticket Girl: It’s much better to take a second-class seat.
Other Passengers: (reassuringly) Yes, take second-class.
Me: Alright, second-class it is then.

Bangladeshi train stations seemed safe enough to me: there’s plenty of armed security wandering around. And while I waited on the platform the next morning a plain-clothes policeman identified himself. He personally escorted me aboard and put me in my seat.

That was the first of several trains I took in Bangladesh. It was always somewhat messy, and always totally fine. I never did get a spot in first-class so I can’t say what it’s like, but I didn’t have a single problem in any of my safe/unsafe second-class seats. I learned a few things on the way, too, so if you like train journeys, or weird journeys (or just like reading about other peoples’ weird train journeys) then this is for you.

First, you should show up early, but the train will probably be late. You can stand around looking hopefully into the distance down the tracks, while the other passengers stand around looking at you.

Next, find your platform. If you’re not sure you’ve got the right platform, try this: stand perfectly still. Any person around who can speak English will probably ask where you are going. The general consensus will then be that you’re on the right platform, and the train is seriously delayed. The passengers who break the news to you will apologise sincerely for it.

Some stations are small and relaxed. You can sit around snacking and drinking tea. Others, especially the big ones in Dhaka, are crowded as all hell and can be a bit daunting. Especially late at night, especially when locals take it upon themselves to tell you it’s not safe for you to be there alone.

Most stations have a VIP waiting room. That is, a dimly lit room with broken chairs that smells strongly of pee. However there are usually many women in it, so (if you are a woman too) such rooms make a welcome retreat from the man’s world that is mostly everywhere else in Bangladesh. Or if you prefer, you can just hang out on the tracks and wait there:

Even a sleepy country station platform can turn into a mad rush when the train pulls in, so you should look for your carriage right away. Unless you get the knack of waiting until the last second and then charging the doors as the train departs. Many other passengers are highly skilled at this.

The carriage you’re in is printed on your ticket in Bengali and English. But it might as well be Bengali only, when the translation is ‘Gha’. With little to no English signage and no English announcements, you can find your spot by asking any person in the vicinity of a carriage door, train employee or not, if it is in fact, ‘Gha’ (or whichever one you’re meant to be in).

When the attendant comes through the carriage make sure to buy a little paper cup of scalding hot tea and then clutch it tightly, holding it at arm’s length. Don’t spill it all over yourself as the train jolts violently down the track. Third degree burns in Bangladesh, not an enticing prospect.

Get a window seat – and watch the beautiful scenery roll by. For an even better view – go to the end of the train and hang out with guys in between the carriages. I mean that literally. You can hang right out the open door with them, if you want.

As the train I was riding one afternoon pulled into the station, I stood up a little bit in advance to haul my backpack down off the rack and get ready. The aisle was jam-packed with standing passengers. Everyone wanted off at the same time – except for everyone on the platform, who wanted on. It was a madhouse. ‘Madam, just go! Go now!’ shouted the man behind me; only moments ago he was sitting calmly across from me with his family.

I stepped into the aisle but turned back when I felt a hand on my wrist. ‘Is this seat free, Madam?’ The hand on my wrist belonged to a man out on the platform. He was reaching through the window beside me, ready to drop his bag on the seat I’d just vacated. ‘It is now’ I answered, thinking ‘Smart’, and mentally filed his seat-saving technique away for my next Bangladeshi train trip. But I still had so much to learn: throwing his bag down, the man put a hand on either side of the frame and climbed right in through the window and into my seat.

I threw my weight forward and let the momentum of the crowd push me to the end of the carriage, where I burst out the door and onto the platform in the afternoon sun. The man who’d been sitting across from me had already extricated himself and his family. They looked at me and smiled in what I took to be approval (or else ironic amusement). ‘Have a nice vacation!’ he said, and we parted ways on the busy platform.

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For more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Bangladesh, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

Are you in India, thinking about heading for Bangladesh? Or vice versa? Here’s a post about crossing the Benapole/Petrapole border by road between Bangladesh and India.

The post Bangladesh: there’s something about train travel appeared first on WhirledAway.

And sure enough, I ended up on a lot of different boats on my travels in this pretty little green country. A bamboo mat on a rowboat drifting on skinny channels in a mangrove swamp:

The splintery deck of a motorboat sputtering along the water to the next village:

And most notably, a couple of small flat wooden boats acting as passenger ferries on the river (pick a river, any river).

These are standing-room-only and jam-packed with people. I’d wobble aboard the flat deck and try to keep my balance as the ferry trundled across. Then I’d watch as the rest of the crowd swayed in perfect unison with the boat and checked their phones, as though they were just standing on the street instead of on what I considered a perilous wreckage looking to happen.

But my favourite river journey of all was an overnight trip on the Rocket.

Bangladesh’s most famous water-going attraction is a small fleet (ok, there are four) of early 20th century paddlewheel steamers collectively known as the Rocket. So called because they were once the fastest thing on water, the Rockets ply the Buriganga river from Dhaka to distant towns on the edge of the Sundarbans National Park, Bangladesh’s other claim to fame. A journey on the Rocket is no longer a romantic spin of a paddlewheel into the past – the Rockets are now diesel-powered. They’re also slow – outstripped by modern ferries with more creature comforts. But I didn’t care how long the journey would take: I wanted the iconic river trip on the Rocket, chugging upriver in peace and quiet, away from the madness of the city. Besides: although I liked Dhaka, nothing sounded more appealing than leaving it. Even aboard a diesel-powered 100 year old ‘vintage’ vessel, in a country where I assumed overloaded boats sank on a regular basis.

Of course, I’d need a ticket to ride the Rocket. Although the Rocket itself has made it into the 21st century anything associated with it has not, least of all the ticket booking procedure. This meant I’d have to find the office in Dhaka and book passage in person. There was a booking office nearby but I walked over only to find a teastall outside a rusty, locked gate. I got in a rickshaw and rode to the next known location. The rickshaw driver couldn’t find the address and he put me out at a major intersection, shrugging and pointing vaguely down the street. I followed some bad directions from well meaning locals before finally going into a large hotel and putting the concierge and two front desk staff on the case. It seemed like they had never heard of this most famous and iconic riverboat but they tracked down the address while I drank a coffee in the lobby, thinking ‘This boat had better be good. At least, it better not sink.’

Finally at the office I sat around for some time while three men behind a desk drank tea and looked at a calendar. Eventually their general consensus was that there was no Rocket to Khulna, the town at the end of the line. No Rocket at all, for the rest of the month. This seemed unlikely to me, and I realised that although the boat wasn’t running all the way to Khulna it might be running at least to Hularhat, so I suggested that I could get off there instead. It sounded like a good idea to the three men and in the end I got a ticket for a first class cabin to Hularhat by pointing at each square on the calendar for the rest of the week and saying ‘Hularhat? Yes or No?’.

Since I still had another day or two to kill before the Rocket’s launch, I decided to daytrip out of the city. My new friend Mr. Ali the Rickshaw Driver had volunteered his services as a guide to Sonargaon, the ancient Bengali capital that’s almost been swallowed up by Dhaka. He’d hinted – and then flat out said – that as a woman travelling alone I might face problems, the nature of which he did not reveal. Ignoring that sales pitch I got up early the next morning and caught a bus amidst stares from the rest of the passengers who probably shared Mr. Ali’s concerns.

About an hour later I hopped out when the driver pulled over near a turnoff. One of his sidekicks nudged me and they both pointed down the road into the distance. From the turnoff it’s a short walk to Painam Nagar, the ruins of a street of once-elegant mansions.

Built around 1900 the homes belonged to wealthy Hindu merchants, most of whom fled to India during Partition.

Goaldi Mosque, built in 1519 and one of the oldest in Bangladesh is another walk through the fields behind the modern-day village.

Without any mysterious problems whatsoever I returned to Dhaka and went into my hotel, waving at Mr. Ali. He was drinking tea across the street in his usual spot, where he could see into the hotel’s restaurant and signal his friend the waiter to call him if ever I seemed in need of a cycle-rickshaw.

On the day of the Rocket’s departure I made my way over to Sondarghat. As it turned out, leaving just two hours to book an Uber and cover a distance of about five kilometers in Dhaka is cutting things close. One very stressful ride later I ran up the gangway and onto the Rocket with 15 minutes to spare.

Climbing up the narrow stairs to the entrance on the top deck I asked for the first class cabins, and immediately felt like Rose’s mum on the Titanic. (Although it became quickly apparent that the only characteristic the Rocket shared with that other famous vessel was probably a shortage of lifeboats).

But my cabin was exactly what I was looking for on a classic old steamer: wooden and creaky, stuffy curtains on the window, a little side-door opening right onto the deck, and two narrow bunks.

There are a handful of first class cabins ranged along the first class dining room.

The shared toilets are at the back and they’re closely guarded by a wizened old man with a key. He allows use of the toilets on request, with the unspoken agreement being that each passenger will tip him before disembarking.

I didn’t see the second class cabins, but I did see the deck class area: open-air space at the back and below where families camped out on the floor on piles of blankets.

There’s a deck with lofty views at the bow of the boat (…first class only).

I sat on it drinking tea, and watching the city – all that light and noise – fall away behind as we left the port in the darkness. The other bigger, faster, modern ferries sailed past and soon enough the Rocket was alone on the water.

I settled comfortably in my cabin as the boat churned along, easily lulled into sleep by the gentle rocking and humming engine. The only disruption was at about 2 am when we stopped and loaded more deck passengers, and one of them stood around hoarking over the side of the deck right outside my cabin window. I thought about opening the window and expressing my disgust; then I really felt like Rose’s mum.

In the early morning sunlight I climbed up to the roof for views of Bangladesh – river country – all around me.

Hularhat is a tiny port but what it lacks in size it makes up for in activity and I disembarked in a frenzy of passengers who couldn’t wait their turn.

It was dark when I boarded the Rocket the previous night. I mention this because it was only once I was off the boat and turned around to get a look at it in broad daylight, that I first appreciated just how truly ‘vintage’ this vessel is.

But I’d gotten a ticket on the Rocket and that was the hard part. The rest was just cruising on the river, surrounded by the beauty of peaceful water, and trees and fresh air. And hey, it didn’t sink, either.

UPDATE in 2024: I originally wrote this post during my first trip to Bangladesh in 2019, and was back in Bangladesh for a second time in March 2024. Much as I wanted to relive my earlier trip on the Rocket, to my dismay it seems like the last of the fleet has been retired. What I did instead, was take a launch from Hularhat to Dhaka. Launches travel regularly in both directions. Coming from Khulna there was no way to buy a ticket in advance. I took a local bus first thing in the morning from Khulna to Pirojpur. From there, it’s a quick CNG ride to Hularhat, directly to the launch landing. After a few hours waiting – I was never able to get a definite departure time from anyone – a launch appeared around 3.30 pm. No one was there to sell tickets until the launch actually showed up. When it did, a man set up a small table, and sold tickets – I got a first class cabin. It departed almost immediately, and arrived next morning in Dhaka. You can read about it all, here. Good times!

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For more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Bangladesh, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

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But then there’s Mozambique, which among all its more orderly neighbours is vaguely reminiscent of the other side of this continent. Chapas (minibuses) are the main culprits: vans with too many rows of seats to start with, and then an extra row crammed in for good measure. This extra extra row is right behind the front seat, facing backward so the passengers in those seats are nose-to-nose with the passengers in the actual first row, limbs woven together in a sort of accordion-effect. Overall the result is something like a crossword-puzzle of sweaty people, with a fold-out seat or a crouching passenger inserted into any gap left by intersecting rows. No matter how full a chapa may look when you flag it down on the side of the road, there is always room to stuff you in, half-standing, hunched over the laps of the people suffocating in the seats underneath you.

Burkina still wins though: I’ve never seen anyone riding on the roof over here.

Overcrowded bus or not, it didn’t really matter – I needed to leave Tofo. I’d had my fill of lazy days at the beach, and started to get restless. In contrast to that, travel days are sometimes hard days, tiring, or even stressful (like when the sun is sinking fast, along with my hopes of arriving in an unknown city before dark). Still, I’m happiest when I’m on the move – or on moving transport at least, bound for someplace new.

So, before the sun was even up one morning, I got on a bus to Maputo. The bus was parked – stuck, you might say – in the sand on the side of the road. After loading it, the driver tied a rope to the front and hauled it onto the road, and then the conductor and some passengers pushed it for a running start. Hours later, another bus hit mine on the way into Maputo and I waited around on the street while the two drivers and a lot of (completely uninvolved) bystanders bickered endlessly. Oyv didn’t bat an eye when I told him about my day later on WhatsApp. It’s not like anything unusual happened.

When I travel in Africa, or anywhere for that matter, a lot of my time goes to exactly that: travel. But this is Africa, after all, and sometimes you might think ‘Yes, that’s a lot of busses and boats and things. But what about all the animals?’.

I haven’t exactly been all over the wildlife-encounters lately. That’s not to say that wildlife hasn’t encountered me. Back in Kenya, for example, a bright green snake fell out of a tree and landed in my hammock with me. I lay very still for a second and then shook it off my leg. Then I started googling ‘deadly snakes in Kenya’ (there are plenty).

So there’s that…And as I sit writing this in my guesthouse I’m momentarily disturbed by the metallic clang of a shovel striking concrete – the security guard is bludgeoning a poisonous snake to death in the garden outside my window.

On a less reptilian note, there’s also the guesthouse I stayed at where a large family of bushbabies came to the bar every night at 7 pm sharp to eat bananas:

And, I went to a giraffe conservation centre that allows visitors to feed the inhabitants, like a petting zoo with gigantically overgrown goats.

But when you think of African animals, I bet you don’t think about the sort that take kindly to eating pellets and posing for Instagram. Me either, usually, so I thought I should do something about that and get my fix of real animals (not snakes though. I’ve had enough of them).

And so that’s why I went from travelling by overcrowded chapa in Mozambique to safariing with two new friends in a Kia Picanto (proportionally speaking, it is almost the same thing) in South Africa. Maybe we’d all just got used to space-issues, but the three of us saw nothing uncomfortable about stuffing ourselves, our backpacks, and the results of a hunger-fueled minutes-before-closing grocery shopping spree into the little car and heading off into Kruger National Park for a few days.

Overcrowding inside a vehicle is one thing. But in Kruger I discovered it’s also possible to feel overcrowded outside the vehicle too, like when we found ourselves in the midst of a herd of elephants crossing the road. Looking out and up at the massive grey legs like tree trunks just outside the window, I really started to wonder if economy cars are cut out for this sort of thing. Getting back to camp after dark, we had to write an excuse on the camp guard’s clipboard. We came up with ‘Elephant in the road’, pretty much the safari-going equivalent of ‘My dog ate my homework’.

And as for overloading the car with groceries, a baboon solved that problem for us on the second day. There aren’t many places in the park where it is safe to eat. Safe for humans to eat, I mean, without being eaten ourselves, which is why you aren’t allowed getting out of your vehicle anywhere other than at designated picnic sites – which aren’t safe either, as it turns out. I was just about to eat an awesome sandwich (ham, turkey, avo and cheddar, in case you’re wondering) when a baboon suddenly ran out of the bushes and leaped onto the picnic bench right next to us. I say that like it was funny, but even now I’m upset about my sandwich. We jumped up and fell over ourselves and each other trying to get away – that baboon had some serious fangs – and then watched from the sidelines with a dozen monkeys waiting for the scraps. Whatever the baboon didn’t eat, he trashed, and then he ran off taking an unopened bag of Doritos with him, although he did leave our phones and the car keys where we’d dropped them on the table.

I’m not sure the baboon’s actions were intentional (I’m not sure they weren’t, either), but if so, this wanton destruction backfired on him as we got a free dinner at camp and a night game drive, when we reported the incident. Lesson learned: if you don’t want to overload your car with food before a safari, you can always hang out at picnic sites with a bag of Doritos and see what happens next.

‘We meet again’ I said to the millionth impala that bounded across our path one day. These beautiful, soft-eyed creatures are here in countless numbers (along with their friends, the gazelles) and as numbers go, they’re the main attraction on any safari – or they would be, except that nobody cares about impalas after the third or fourth herd.

But the point was to see animals, after all. And along with the enormous ones that wave their trunks and flap their ears menacingly at your car, and the greedy ones that steal your food, we saw most of the other usual safari-suspects too. Adorably ugly warthogs running fast with tails straight in the air like antennae; baby elephants galore; beautiful, tawny, arrogant lions basking in the sun; and my personal favourites – giraffes. Wild ones, stalking across the road and placidly nibbling on treetops, not feeding from my hand (they’re still quite amenable to photos, though).

Later on we drove out of the park and stopped in Graskop for the night. The small town looked familiar to me. I recognised a pancake house (it’s always the food, with me) and then I remembered: Oyv and I had been here on our way down to Cape Town – from Cairo – a few years ago. I was tempted to travel onwards by car with my friends, rather than catch another overloaded bus with strangers. But you know, getting there is half the fun and all that, so I stayed behind when they drove on. And sure enough, only another day went by before I was back on the bus, to Johannesburg this time. Nobody was on the roof, of course, so Burkina still wins.

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Check out the rest of my stories from the road, for more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Mozambique and South Africa.

The post Overcrowding and animals: it’s Africa, after all appeared first on WhirledAway.

I was excited to see Oyv. It’s fun to meet your dearest most familiar person in an unfamiliar place. Plus, it would be Christmas in another week or so and while we weren’t exactly going to decorate a tree and roast a turkey, it’s nice to at least be together, somewhere in the whole wide world. While I waited for him, I thought about Aisha, a local woman I’d met on a bus recently. We’d got to talking and as we ate corn on the cob we’d bought out the bus window, she told me about her husband and kids. In between bites Aisha said she wanted a divorce. ‘Husbands in Africa are no good’ she explained, as we rattled along towards her small village where, admittedly, an awful lot of husbands seemed to be doing nothing much at all, while women like Aisha hauled water and carried entire stalks of bananas around on their heads.

I was looking forward to seeing my husband though, partly because I missed him, and also because his arrival meant that I might be able to extend my bedtime past ‘dark’. ‘I wouldn’t walk 500 metres after dark’ said the owner at one of the guesthouses I’d stayed at. And, ‘It’s not safe for you to walk’, the receptionist downstairs at this very hotel in Dar informed me when I checked in. ‘How about now, though?’ I prodded – it was only five pm. She frowned. ‘For one hour, and don’t talk to anyone. There are too many thieves right now.’ She meant Christmas – the holidays are prime-time for robberies. Oyv’s presence doesn’t mean we can hang out in dark alleys all night, but at least we can be locked inside the guesthouse compound together.

Dar is an easy place to spend a couple of days (if you don’t focus too much on the hotel receptionist’s dim view) and we made the most of the cafes and Indian restaurants it abounds in.

But our first real destination was Mafia Island. I’d never even heard of this island, eclipsed by its famous neighbour Zanzibar, until one Sunday afternoon before either of us left home, when Oyv randomly mentioned it:

Oyv: (looks up from phone and glances out window at snowstorm). Have you heard of Mafia Island?
Sar: No. Is it sunny?
Oyv: It’s near Dar. Apparently the boat from the mainland sinks from time to time.
Sar: But there’s sun. (Throws a waterproof bag into packing pile). Let’s go.

Mafia is smaller than Zanzibar and if you want a little hut in a pretty garden, it is spot-on. Especially if you wanted that little hut in a pretty garden to be set inside of a pristine marine park.

There is some amazing snorkelling here and we spent a day out in a dhow (a traditional wooden sailboat…in this case with an outboard motor attached), trawling around from reef to reef, jumping in and drifting over wavering coral gardens thick with vibrant fish.

Mafia is small but some of the marine park’s inhabitants are not: whale sharks, the largest fish in our waters and one of the biggest animals on earth. On average an adult whale shark will reach 9 m/30 ft in length. The scary name comes from their size – they are as big as some species of whales. Basically, a whale shark combines all the characteristics of something you ordinarily don’t want to be in the water with: a shark’s hundreds of teeth in a mouth up to 1.5 m/5 ft wide, and a whale’s mammoth size. Even so, they are totally harmless and leaping all alone into their habitat to join them in a swim is popular pass-time on Mafia that I’d highly recommend to anyone.

Unlike you, now, (you’re welcome) I didn’t know anything about whale sharks until after I agreed to go snorkelling with them. Let me tell you, it’s hard to appreciate the size of these creatures until you are teetering on the side of a wooden dhow in a mask and fins, looking down at a monstrous, spotted, shadowy outline nearly as long as your boat. Close by, you can see the dorsal fins of the shark’s friends slicing through the water. Your guide (who very likely can’t swim himself) shouts ‘Drop! Gogogogogo! Look down! Swim!’ and you pitch yourself overboard. Then you’re kicking frantically, trying to keep up with this majestic animal as he glides by so close you can count his razor-edged gill slits and the small fish clinging to his side. Underwater, you turn round and come face to face with a gaping mouth as another whale shark swims straight towards you – but he doesn’t care about you, he’s just slurping up plankton. As he whips past you feel the wake of his tail fin slashing behind. Eventually, the shark dives down and you resurface, sputtering in amazement. It is incredible.

After a few days of snorkelling and swimming desperately away from with giant sharks, we headed back to the mainland, planning to travel straight down the coast and over the border into Mozambique. But at the very last minute – the night before we planned to leave Tanzania, actually – we discovered that crossing the border into northern Mozambique was a bad idea (hint: the term ‘war zone’ was bandied about). So that’s how we ended up in Malawi, a country that wasn’t even on our radar in the first place.

Stranded in Mtwara, a town we’d never heard of before, we scrambled around trying to come up with a new plan, tossing out one option after another. We thought about heading back to Dar. But Christmas really brings out the best in Tanzania: besides a surplus of festive robbers out spreading holiday cheer, all the buses and flights were sold out for days.

We were determined to go to Mozambique though. Hemmed into Tanzania by the Indian ocean on one side, a potential ‘war zone’ below us, and Lake Nyasa on our other side, it still seemed straightforward enough: we’d catch a ferry across the lake, disembark in Malawi, and then cross on land into Mozambique from there (are you with me? It doesn’t matter. We looked at a lot of maps, so you don’t have to). But when I called a shipping line all I learned was that ownership of the lake is hotly contested by all three countries on its shores. ‘You mean Lake Malawi’ the woman on the other end said disapprovingly when I asked about a schedule, and then went on to inform me that no passenger ships crossed the lake internationally at the moment.

On to option 347 (more or less): we’d go around the damn lake.

This may come as a surprise, but travelling around one of Africa’s great lakes isn’t as easy as it sounds. It took three long days of solid travel on five buses (not to mention the string of share-taxis and motorbikes we needed to patch rides together), short uncomfortable nights in damp obscure hotels, and two consecutive breakdowns resulting in hours waiting by the side of the road for another bus.

The second breakdown was kind of nice – we got out and stretched, and one of the passengers opened up a hand-washing business in conjunction with a local kid’s mango-selling business (the first breakdown just involved a lot of angry yelling among the passengers, maybe another Tanzanian Christmas-thing).

Finally, on the fourth day we stuffed ourselves into the last share-taxi of the trip and got out in Nkhata Bay on the shores of Lake Malawi (…or Nyasa, depending who you ask). It was Christmas Day. Mozambique could wait, we decided, and settled into a cabin overlooking the lake.

This sort of thing happens. It wasn’t all bad – along the way we stopped in nice places too, places we’d never have found otherwise, where there are beautiful beaches and Swahili ruins.

Yes, we also found some other less salubrious towns I wouldn’t recommend, but hey – like I said, it happens.

And as it turns out, the place we gratefully moved into on the lake was roasting turkeys in a pizza oven.

So in a way it was the most traditional Christmas we’ve had in years.

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Check out the rest of my stories from the road, for more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Tanzania and Malawi.

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One of them (my ideas, I mean) was to travel up into Russia from Kazakhstan. Visa policies in Central Asia have loosened up lately. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are even visa-free for many nationalities – something the officer at airport immigration in Bishkek seemed unaware of since he demanded to see mine. But when I told him I didn’t need one he just shrugged, stamped my passport and waved me past.

Russia is another story and I’d read conflicting reports about whether it’s actually possible to pick up a Russian visa on the road.  I thought I’d give it a go so I dropped by the Russian Embassy in Tashkent with my application, photos, and the addresses of some hotels I’d pretend to stay at, ready to hand over.

At the Embassy a police officer pulled me to the front of the line. A little drawer in the wall under a tinted window slid open and the officer indicated that I should drop my passport in. The drawer snapped shut and my passport disappeared into the Russian Embassy.

A speaker crackled to life and a voice asked me for my residency permit. Since I haven’t moved to Uzbekistan, I tried pointing out that I’d read about travellers receiving their visa at this very Embassy. The voice was not convinced and the drawer screetched open again. My passport lay forlorn at the bottom – in other words, a big fat ‘nyet’.

But Russia seemed awfully far away so I put it out of my mind and went back to my Silk Road-tripping.

When I reached western Uzbekistan, I was literally running out of space on the map. It was time to move to Plan B – or at least, to make a Plan B.

I opened a map and stared at the blue outline of the Caspian Sea and the countries on the other side of it. Azerbaijan’s prohibitive visa process had kept me away years ago when I was travelling ‘in the neighbourhood’. But things had changed in 2017 and the new e-visa procedure is fast and easy. I thought ‘why not?’

Of course there are plenty of ways to get to Azerbaijan. Flying, like a normal person, comes to mind for starters. But it’s also possible to cross the Caspian on old cargo ships that ply routes between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. And even more than actually visiting Azerbaijan, I wanted to cross the sea.

But first, I had to get to Kazakhstan.

I left Uzbekistan early one morning on a thirty hour train trip into western Kazakhstan. Travelling on old Soviet rolling stock trains takes time and patience.

There were painfully long halts on both sides of the border when officials from each country took it in turns to board and check passports and search luggage.

I watched out the window as the train clanked along in the vast and unchanging emptiness of the Kazakh steppe.

Kazakh steppeVendors roamed the aisle from time to time selling food and huge stacks of clothing.

I woke from a nap to a lot of shouting and a minor scuffle between the conductor and a passenger. Things like this don’t really seem that weird anymore so I sat calmly back in my bunk and watched. Via my translator app I asked a man next to me what was happening and waited with interest as he typed rapidly on his phone. But when he handed me the phone it was playing what appeared to be his own wedding video. When that finished up and I’d congratulated him, he asked for my phone number.

I’ve noticed that stupid questions from men and requests to be in touch on social media  despite a complete and total language barrier are often a standard part of the solo female traveller experience. From an immigration official who asked me pertinent questions like the English word for the beautiful colour of my eyes; to men approaching me, WhatsApp at the ready in restaurants (and in one notable case, in a public bathroom); and right on up to two invitations to dinner and a disco from the train conductor himself during this very journey.

But other passengers kindly offered me chai, and asked my name and nationality – I heard the news travel down the aisle. Apparently convinced the world would eat me up and spit me out, a sweet old man took me under his wing. As I made my bed he was right there, tucking the sheets under the sides of my bunk. He showed me how to put the pillow into the case. He demonstrated that I should drink some water and spit it out the window. As I climbed into my upper-level bunk, he made a stirrup of his hands and hoisted my feet up behind me.

Finally I disembarked in Aktau, a dusty port-city on the edge of nowhere, and stretched my legs in Kazakhstan.

Crossing the Caspian is anything but a straightforward process. I’m not talking about passenger ferries following a schedule, or booze-cruises with a spa deck and terrible live music provided by bands who failed miserably on land. These are cargo ships that cross when they’re full, taking with them any passengers who have the stamina to wait around in total uncertainty in Aktau hoping for a ride.

Searching travellers’ forums I’d found various office addresses, phone numbers, and vague hints about people in the city who might sell tickets and I started asking around. After two days it quickly became apparent that I was in Aktau for the long haul. Ever budget-conscious,  I badgered the front desk at my hotel into letting me move into the basement, where I knew there were cheaper rooms. Sure enough the basement was under construction and seemed to be partially lived in by staff.  It reminded me a lot of the ‘sanatorium’ I’d stayed in in Nukus but it was cheap. Part of the hallway ceiling fell down in the night but that seemed like the least of my problems.

The day after I moved to the basement, a series of phone calls placed by the front desk receptionist (who clearly wanted me to leave) unearthed a man named Hamid who came to the hotel and sold me a ticket on vessel called the ‘Professor Gul’.

Hamid had sold tickets to three other travellers and we arrived at a distant port outside town together, to be greeted with shifty looks and reticent behaviour from the port crew. After an eight hour wait in the customs office the reason for this became clear – the Professor Gul was loaded with an unidentified ‘dangerous cargo’ and wouldn’t be taking passengers after all. My fellow travellers Matt, Sherry, Nico and I returned to Aktau in defeat at 3 am.

Basing ourselves at a truckstop hotel we spent the next week pacing the seafront; pestering port and management office employees over the phone and in person; and obsessively tracking the Professor Gul’s nautical position online.

On my very first day in Aktau I’d found a restaurant called Italiano, with good pizza and great wifi and we went there – Every. Single. Day.

We watched Borat and we drank vodka. We drank vodka and we watched Groundhog Day – after all, the story of the same day repeating itself again and again seemed only fitting. Until one evening when Nico ran into the living room at the truckstop, disrupting our Harry Potter marathon to announce that the Professor Gul had sailed out of Baku and was expected in Aktau port the following night.

The next morning we rushed to the ferry office and waited tensely til Julia (who we’d all met several times and who by now seemed as invested in getting rid of us as we were in departing Aktau) hung up the phone and triumphantly proclaimed ‘Bilety! (tickets)’. Our ship had come in.

And so a week to the day I’d arrived in Aktau I went to the port – again – with my fellow castaways (but not before one last pizza and attempt at saying goodbye to the bewildered staff at Italiano).

Waiting was second-nature to us by now. We patiently lurked around the port til the cargo was loaded and we could board the Professor around midnight and settle into our shared cabin.

The Professor Gul awaits

Professor Gul’s engines rumbled to life around 3 am and we edged out of the port.

The trip to Baku took around 32 hours. That gave us plenty of time to explore the Professor Gul.

We went onto the bridge, and we climbed up into the radar tower on the top deck.

On Wednesday morning I watched from the deck as the Professor docked.

It was a plan I’d hatched one day on a whim; a single step on this journey that was more than a week in the offing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from travelling, it’s that the very best plans are the ones you didn’t make in the first place.

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For more of my adventures (and misadventures) in Kazakhstan, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

The post Plan B: Taking a Cargo Ferry Across the Caspian Sea appeared first on WhirledAway.