Cairo to Luxor: the overnight express

Before boarding the train, I fortified myself with a kefta from this gent's side-of-the-road grill.  BBQ meatballs with minced onion, wrapped inside Egyptian flatbread, and topped with cilantro, more onion, and tomato, this sandwich makes a glutton happy.
      

As I write, I am on the overnight sleeper train to from Cairo to Upper Egypt.  Though it is no luxury car by French or German  standards, having my own clean cabin and bed for the nine-hour trip is just grand! Now only if the obnoxious and drunk group of Americans in the dining car can disappear.  In a country where public intoxication is not a commonly acceptable behavior, I find it quite appalling that this group of obscenity-filled American soldiers were openly carrying a case of cheap beer at the Giza Rail Station.     

But the romance is still here.  The experience of travelling by rail is something airplanes simply cannot duplicate, and I relish the notion that as Egypt Rail #84 rumbles south towards the source of the Nile, I am passing through 5,000 years of Egyptian, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish history.