Sudan is Better than You

I probably should have entitled this "Why Sudan Is An  Awesomer Place to Live Than Wherever It Is That You Are Living, Loser," but I thought that was a bit long. This post is mostly photos of awesome things about Sudan. I think you should all see this, so that you know how to plan for your next vacation. I also think the Government of Sudan, which should be carefully reading my blog now for security reasons, can clearly see from this post how much I love their country, and they should give me that multiple entry visa I am applying for.

So here you go. Reasons why Sudan is Better:

First, stop signs look better in Arabic. It is just a fact.

 Also, we have these.

And check out the great selection of creatively-named restaurants. Remember, that up until South Sudan's separation and possibly still today (the Office of Foreign Assets report on treasury.gov was a bit vague), Sudan has been under US Sanctions. Thus you will not find American chain restaurants here, but copyright law is also vague, so you can find many close "friends" of well-known American franchises.

I showed this one on Facebook, of course, but it is still one of my favorites. Not the best shwaerma I ever had, but not the worst:

Lucky meals are WAY better than Happy Meals. Plus you don't have to worry about creepy clowns.

Subday--Eat Fresh Food!-- at the Original Cheese-steak House. Suck it, Philly. 

Photo enlarged to show texture, and crucial sign details.

We have some great modes of transportation here. Observe the convertible bajaj/tuktuk/auto/rickshaw (whatever you prefer to call this ubiquitous 3-wheeled taxi):

Top down, shades on--enjoying the sandy Khartoum wind in their hair!

Also, the bajaj/tuktuk/auto/rickshaws in Sudan are badass. Don't touch.

Harley? Leather jackets? What's that? This bajaj is for tough guys in long white robes.

This salon has used the Rock's photo as an example of awesomeness, proving that they know exactly what awesome is:

These turtles chose to live in Sudan, so this must be a prime location for intelligent life. Also, I want one.

Who needs an Apple Store here? We customize our computers however we want. But this is the computer of the guy at the store where I bought a new cord for my MacBook Pro. Also, this is the third country I've been in when getting a cord for this computer and I now have 3 different plugs to use, one of which is very likely to fit in whatever outlet happens to be around.

I don't think we can really credit Sudan with this. This looks more like something we should blame Asia for, but I found it in the "Apple Store" where I  bought my computer cord.  Apparently, 3 friends move into an apartment over a secret spy base, and they get automatically recruited into the Biz. 

Totally Spies!! Totally Party!!

 Sand fortifications from the British back in the day--I think it's clear from this why they lost.

Crocodile skins. I knocked this off the shelf when I was looking at shoes, and when I put it back up, I accidentally touched the brain on the inside. That was not cool, Sudan.

I want one, but I want a live one swimming in a moat around my castle. Someday...

In Sudan we have this guy who sells legit used-swords in his antique shop. We are going to become best friends.

There is a horse blocking the street in our marketplace. You can't really see him, but he's there. Usually I find horses to be arrogant and evil, but the ones in Sudan seem to be less ferocious. This horse did not kick or bite anyone--another sign of Sudanese superiority.

We have this place, which smells incredible by the way: 

 I was wanting a better photo, but it's hard to get the one that I wanted--the point of this picture is that in Sudan when you want to get off the bus, you snap your fingers. I love it. I feel like a snobby princess diva every time. So fun.

Weather forecast often looks like this:

When the outside temperature is 100+ degrees,
 and your shower water is the temperature of the outside air,
you always have warm showers--if you have water.
Because sometimes you don't in desert nations.
That's why you're prepared with large buckets of water
 stored in your bathroom and kitchen, of course.

The above mentioned weather leads to beautiful floor dust-paintings observed here:

In Sudan we know the taste of "Special." Do you?

If you read Arabic, you can see that the flavor of this drink is "Special" in all languages.

These chips are technically made in Egypt, but they are sold in Sudan, which shows their excellent taste. There is no flavor of chip superior to "chili lemon." Also, in imitation of these chips, I made chili lemon Indomie--a Sudan/Indo/Rwanda hybrid (I used the second half of the eye-dropper bottle of hot pepper oil I got in Kigali). It was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. Especially because they don't have mie goreng flavor Indomie here or kecap manis.

This was made in Turkey, and the flavor is inferior to Nutella, but the packaging is convenient for my preferred method of consumption: 

Also, one never has to paint one's fingernails here,
because after one henna appointment, your fingernails still look good.

Dresses like these are sold all throughout the marketplace. Note the strategically-placed spikes. The wearer of this dress will be protected from any unwanted…contact...

Finally (for now), Khartoum traffic involves donkey carts--always cool, though I do miss the Indian cows. They kept things interesting.

In conclusion, everywhere is awesome, and I'm sorry I called you a loser.

Pyramids of Sudan

Cambodia ruins-a temple off the
very beaten Angkor Wat path

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archeologist.  It wasn’t an Indiana Jones thing—I didn’t find out who he was until much later (no TV + living overseas = late knowledge of basic pop-culture). I actually decided on that career path after finding out about the Rosetta Stone, hoping to find a similar stone someday to help me decipher Linear A or something else interesting. The idea of wandering around crumbling ruins  or swimming through an underwater shipwreck was always attractive to me too, though I blame the latter on the Little Mermaid (pop-culture that happened just before we moved to Indonesia).

Even though I’m not an archaeologist, I have managed to visit some pretty cool ruinous places in my life, highlights include the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, Petra, the Valley of the Kings, Baalbek, Borobudur, the Acropolis, Palmyra, Prambanan, Angkor Wat…I could keep going, but I think I’ve made my point: it’s not fair how much cool stuff I’ve gotten to see in my lifetime and WHY haven’t I been to South America yet to see all the cool stuff there?

So I wrote about the wedding in Atbara and driving by the Meroe Pyramids on my way there.  Since we were already running late then, I knew we would probably not be stopping, but I thought if I mentioned once or twice or five million times that I wanted to stop there on the way back, that maybe someone would realize that it was important to me and make that happen. It was really important to me to make sure that it happened on this trip—not just because I am an impatient person who doesn’t like to wait for fun things, but because the thing about Sudan is that when a foreigner wants to travel outside of Khartoum, he or she must obtain official permission to do so.  This takes paperwork and sitting in a government office waiting for answers that may or may not come within a few days. For example, I’m still waiting for my permission to go to West Darfur, and we applied a month ago. So if I want to do any outside-Khartoum-tourist-fun, I either need to make someone in my office go through all that pain, or I need to make the most of outside excursions whenever I can. Which, clearly, I did. Really it was UN-selfish of me to push extra fun into a weekend when I was trying to get by on 2 hours of sleep, just to save my colleagues some paperwork. I truly care.

Anyway, back to the pyramids--I had known about the pyramids in Sudan for a while now, and I’ve known since I got here that I wanted to see at least some of them (there are a lot more that I haven’t been to visit yet). If I can ever get the necessary travel permission again there are some more cool Sudanese ruins in a place called Jabal Barkal, about 400km north of Khartoum with MORE pyramids and a few palaces too. I’m scheming about how to get there, but I think I’ll need some allies, and frankly, people here aren’t too interested in them, even the Nubians, descendants of those who actually built these places thousands of years ago when most other civilizations still did not know how to be awesome. It’s kind of similar to when my fourth grade teacher asked the 8 kids in our tiny international school, which of us had ever been to Niagara Falls, and the British kid was the only one who raised his hand. Still, we had an excuse for being slacker American tourists—we didn’t live there.  Of course, neither did the British kid… I guess it is human nature to take tourist destinations in one’s own country for granted.

We left Atbara a little bit before 6am. It’s still dark in Sudan (South Sudan too) at 6am, which really bugs me because I like to be an early morning outside runner, but in places that don’t have streetlights and do have large crater-sized potholes, that can be dangerous. It was recently pointed out to me by someone who thinks about those kinds of things that this phenomenon is because we are on the western end of the East Africa Time Zone, aka GMT + 3:00. I don’t think like that because it is hard enough for me to remember what time zone I’m actually in, and to be required to think about my east/west orientation within that time zone is too much for me to worry about. In spite of my displeasure with places that do not share the perfect sun conditions of equatorial Indonesia (sun coming up at 5:30am, down by 6:30pm, always, every day, without fail, don’t need a watch because you can see the position of sun and you have a cell phone anyway), it turned out well for us because at about 7:30 we pulled up at the edge of the road by the pyramids with the sun just peaking up over their pointy tops.

Tourist sign

We debated a bit about driving up to the entrance or walking, knowing that it was farther away than it looked, but worried about our little car getting stuck in the sand. We decided to risk it, since the important government official who had come with us to the wedding thought it would be OK. I also used him as an excuse as to why I jumped the small fence built on the edge of the property in hopes that this would become an income-generating tourist destination without any qualms—there was an abandoned ticket booth and everything. Modern and ancient ruins side by side! The reality is that I would have jumped that fence with or without his permission, but I do think it is good to have these important people on my side. We all jumped the fence and then I ran around like a maniac, trying to see everything as fast as possible before my sleepy companions got fed up with me and left. There was still so much that I missed…I only climbed up to the top of about 2 pyramids and I didn’t get out to some more crumbly ones a bit farther away from the main complex, but I covered a lot of ground.

Here are some of the better photos, not taken while I was jumping off a pyramid:

Don't know why the green dot is there--probably left-over alien technology

Tomb drawings

Our government official looked really authentic in front of the pyramids

Hey! A Nubian at the pyramids--Patris is the BEST! Even
though he did get a speeding ticket on the way home for
trying to make up for lost time at the Pyramids. Sorry!

Taken from the top! Climbing is fun...

These multi-lingual cave inscriptions prove that ancient Nubians
were also friends with Chinese and Arab graffiti artists. And seriously,
WHY ARE PEOPLE SUCH JERKS ABOUT RESPECTING HISTORY?

I didn't get all the way out to those pyramids
since everyone else was already back in the car

They look cool from every angle--so does the sand

Entrepreneurial camel owners tried to con me into paying for a ride.
I resisted because I'm too cool for tourism cliches. and because I'm cheap.

Proof I was there! Keep in mind--2 hours of sleep.

My souvenir pyramid that Paul bought me, since he is a nice guy
who can't resist giving cute kids money.
Said cute kids madethese out of sand, so they claimed.
I didn't see a "Made in China" sticker anywhere.

Here's the alphabet!

And I would like to mention, that Wikipedia, source of all knowledge, gives some information on Meroe, the town, the people, the pyramids here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroë. Apparently, it was a pretty big deal at one time. They were famous for their iron-skills and they had their own written language, and they had some fun beating up on (and being beat on by) the Egyptians and the Romans. And it seems like the King of Meroe shared his power only with his mother, which totally makes sense. I bet she was badass...or he was a Mama’s boy…either way, I’m sure Candace and I would have been best friends. We could have had pyramids right next to each other for some after-life fun.  At least she and the rest of the pyramids inspired me to sign up to take “Nubian Art and Archaeology, “ free online class from Emory University. I wonder if anyone else taking that class will be living in Sudan? Actually, I wonder if I will be…I might be back in the south by then, trying to find an internet connection to get online for that class…Well, if I miss any assignments, I’ll just throw in some original photos from Meroe and kill it anyway.

Heading home...