Treasure, Tutanhamun and Terrible Toilets

On the trip I was on we spent only one day in Cairo, the morning
spent at the pyramids and the afternoon at the Cairo Museum. You could
spend weeks in the Cairo museum and easily get lost. It's like some
huge storeroom where everything has been crammed in with the intention
of sorting it out later. There are no labels or explanations for many
of the items, leaving you to wander around trying to guess at the age,
source and meaning of the thousands of exhibits. There is one major
exception. The Tutankhamun exhibit.
You approach the exhibit through rooms of spacious, brightly lit glass
cabinets displaying the various "everyday" artefacts that were found in
the tomb, chairs, tables, and shoes. Then come the huge wooden boxes
that were found, one inside the other like Russian dolls, in which the
sarcophagus was placed. Finally you pass through a security point into
an inner sanctum, specially lit, air conditioned and monitored, which
contains the real treasures. Cases of the most dazzling jewellery and
at the centre of it all then mask of the boy king.
After the breathtaking treasures it was something of a culture shock to
return to modern day Cairo and head for the railway station and the
night-train to Aswan.
The night-train was most definitely an experience. We travelled first
class, which meant incredibly comfortable reclining seats. There was
also a t.v. in the carriage that unfortunately played all night at very
loud volume, showing quite remarkable Egyptian tv programmes and a
trashy "made for tv" movie about vampires on a high school basketball
team (I could be mistaken about this last as I caught only odd bits fit
whenever I was woken by the train stopping or a passenger passing) But
by far the most incredible experience of the entire journey was the
toilet. And I couldn't possibly do justice to that in the medium of
words, and I don't think you would want me to!!
Eventually, early on Monday morning, we arrived at Aswan station where
a taxi was waiting to carry our luggage to the hotel whilst we followed
on foot to get our first taste of a real Egyptian market town.