Koola Tammam!! (from Simon)

Roughly translated that means "Everything's Cool", and the Sudanese love saying it. I've had entire conversations consisting of tammam, in various different meanings. It's appropriate because everything here is fine and dandy, and as I've already said in a shorter mail, this is one of the most chilled out and relaxing countries I've ever visited. Indeed, the most hassle I've had is in trying to prevent people from giving me bananas and buying me tea.

After a great send-off in Aswan (allegedly the parade was in honour of the Prophet's birthday, but I know better), it was time to move on. So, still singing "No god but God" (it's a lot catchier in Arabic, believe me), and with some trepidation given all the current media blah, I caught the ferry to Sudan.

The only way from Egypt to Sudan at the moment is on this ferry which is definitely not owned by a relation of a Sudanese minister, and travels over Lake Nasser, which used to be Nubia until the Aswan High Dam was built (as GCSE Geography students should remember). It was actually a pretty cool way to do it, pretty relaxing. Most of my fellow ferryteers were traders bringing back goods unavailable in Sudan, mostly TVs and Subwoofers (apparently Sudan is suffering a shortage of Bass). One of them told me he didn't like south Sudan because they had no work ethic - this coming from an Egyptian! I also met a couple of Ozzies, Marty & Davie, who were travelling down to Cape Town on the cheap, and were always eating. Always. Mind I was hanging out in the cafeteria because they played awesome Sudanese music which Kicks Egyptian music SO much; really funky, relaxed, and sweet - an awesome blend of Arabic & African sounds. I've bought a few tapes and there's no sure fire way of endearing myself to Sudanis than to tell them my favourite musicians or let them listen to my walkman.

After a night spent sleeping on a hard bench, I awoke just in time to miss seeing Abu Simbel from the water. By about 20 minutes. I could still see the promontory it stands on, but couldn't see the temples or statues. Malesh. Still, it wasn't too long before we reached Wadi Halfa, the port of entry into Sudan, and was only a few more hours before we were finally allowed off the boat. My first shock was getting on the bus to immigration, when a woman said to me "You can sit next to me." Contact with Egyptian women had been limited to them whispering to each other and giggling whilst pointing at me, but Sudanese women are forthright and very happy to talk to you. A lot of them are also dressed in the stunningly printed, butterfly bright, african wraps, as opposed to the figure hugging jumpers most Egyptians chose.

Wadi Halfa has been described as the last place on earth, and it does have a certain apocalyptic flair, being a collection of mud brick villages built at varying distances from the ever changing level of the waters of Lake Nasser, on a dry plain studded with rocky outcrops. It can be a bit harsh in the strong midday sun, but sitting in a cafe with an exceptional sheesha and watching the place come to life as the sunset moves in was a great pleasure. It's even nicer to climb an outcrop and watch the sunset, as well as the life tumbling around you. In the distance you see a dot on the plane; gradually it resolves into a line, then a person. People walk here!

Halfa's also an ideal place to meet other travellers, as everyone funnels through here for the weekly ferry. One person I met was the head of VSO in Ethiopia, who gave me the very important news that volunteering is now Not an option in Ethiopia. They've passed a law which makes it practically impossible to even volunteer if any Ethiopian could do a similar job, and apparently if I mention volunteering when I apply for my visa or try to cross the border then I won't be allowed in. Very useful to know! A bit gutted that I won't be able to participate, but I guess I should focus on the writing. She also had horror stories about costs going up (tripling) under the inflation, which means I'd have to find somewhere else to do my writing (India? Nepal?), but she followed this by saying "So say you want a pizza, it'll cost the same as at home." When I said that I was planning to eat more local food, she said that there weren't many local restaurants as locals couldn't afford to eat out. This seems to directly contravene every thing I've heard from every one who's been there (including people I met in Halfa who'd been there but a month before) as well as all the guide books, so I can only surmise that she was very detached from the everyday realities of Ethiopia or that she was a LIAR. I'll see how it is when I get there - plans can change. I still have money and all the time in the world.

Accommodation was in a Lokanda, dorm rooms you share with locals. This is actually a really nice way to meet locals, though naturally the toilet/shower is not really to western standards, as it normally is reluctant to have running water. Also, you tend not to have a light switch. The light stays on until the electricity runs out. And there's no bed clothes, though luckily I brought a sleep sack, and there is a mattress. It's really nice to drift off to the sound of soft, chuckling, African voices, whilst the sha-clack-clack of dominoes can be heard from another room. The first night I was saddled with an inveterate snorer, but aside from that the experience has been good.

Heading south from Halfa I took a Boksi - or a covered Toyota pickup to you and me. The Sudan literally means 'Of the Blacks', and whilst it is meant to be applied to the people it could also be said of the burnt ground that is the Northern Desert that borders Egypt. Struggling through this violent landscape, all jagged teeth of rock and dragon's backbone ridges, one is reminded not so much of other planets but of 70s Dr Who's impressions of them, courtesy of South Wales slag heaps. Imagine them writ large, chewed, shaken and spat out from a giant's maw, and you're close to the satanic majesty of this world.

Nothing seems more alien than when you finally return to the Nile and see a slash of green curving through the violated earth, life returning to the incinerated earth. A narrow strip of palms and wheat fields supports the Nubian villages which stretch along endlessly beside the river, forming a massive conurbation as no-one wants to be far from the source of abundance. Nubian houses are like miniature mud forts, with grandly painted gates which tend to face the Nile. Nubians are ridiculously friendly, and very interested in the strange foreigner who wanders in their midst. I spent a night in Abri, a market town where a few streets are added on to the eternal Nile side one, a bulge allowed by the land gradually flattening as you head south. Here the landscape is more like the Africa of my imagination: large flat plains with the occasional mountain dotted about. Electricity is only prominent in the main tea house and restaurant, where one room watches football and another action movies.

The next day brings a flood of life to the streets, as people pour in for the weekly market. There doesn't seem to be to much buying and selling going on, more crowds of friends meeting up and slapping chests before shaking hands. It's great to wander about in, with most people dressed in turbans and jallabiyyas except for the occasional ragamuffin yout dressed as if in a Fiddy Cent video. I catch a boksi south, and we stop at a wedding to pick up some revellers. It appears that Carl Douglas is a Nubian, and has decided to get married in his Kung Fu Fighting outfit. I only wish I could have taken a photo because the similarity was eerie. To be honest though I might just photoshop a still from his video onto a Nubian background and you won't be able to tell the difference, although Nubian Carl had added a couple of purple tassels to butch up a bit.

The next destination was Kerma, an even bigger Nubian town, though we're still talking British village size. If anything, the larger size made the shortage of electricity even more noticeable, though the sound I associate with it is the put put of generators and pumps for the fields. They've really pushed the boundaries on how far they cultivate here, and wheat fields stretch into the desert. They also do the best bread I've ever had. You should come to Sudan, go to Kerma and eat the bread. That's what you should do.

But there's more to Kerma than the bread! It is also home to some incredible remnants of their pre-Egyptian culture. 3,500 years old, these incredible remnants are called Defuffas, or "Big Mud Things". I set off to find them, without too much idea of what I was looking for except they were made of mud and old. After a lovely walk through palm groves and wheat fields I came across an incredible archaeological dig. You can wander down ancient alleyways that lead to deep wells you can descend into. Everywhere there are charming water channels which would splash water down a series of steps whilst the ancients sauntered past. It's amazing! I feel like I've found something truly different - there's nothing like this in Egypt.

It's also enhanced by the amazing antics of the Bee-eaters. These beautiful little birds are everywhere along the Nile, and in many different species. The most common around here is a bright green one, whose brown wings pop out as a real contrast. They all have cute fan shaped tails and long curvy beaks. The real reason I love them, though, is that they fly like drunken acrobats, always seemingly leaving it to the last moment before pirouetting out of danger. They spazz their wings out in a hummingbirdish flurry of activity before burying them deep in their body and plummeting groundward, then Top Gunning with ease into a new and possibly even more thrilling trajectory.

They accompany me as I head east to the desert to find the other one that's meant to be that way somewhere, as I pass larger and larger mid-western type wheat fields and congratulate myself on discovering such amazing ancient remains. On reaching the desert I find a few circular tumuli scattered with remains of pots, and feel glad that I saw the Western ones first, as these aren't all that impressive. Just as I'm about to turn back, I notice a weird blot on the horizon, and stumble through the ancient graves towards a strange, organic shape. It grows, but makes less and less sense. It appears to be some massive rock standing alone in the desert, but as I get closer I realise that it's made of millions of mud bricks, and is buzzing with activity. This giant mud temple, slowly decaying, has been riddled with holes which just about fit a bee-eater or two. They fill the air, stumbling gracefully from crumbling peak to bird-pooed summit. Hiking up it myself, I gaze in wonder at this palace of the bee-eaters, magnificent in its antiquity and mystery. Down its middle there is a great channel and the remains of arches, and there are massive slabs of light coloured rock down its axes. Standing astern with just the birds and the desert, its impossible not to be captivated by this mysterious ancient culture we know so little about.

I then realise that I probably didn't see the first deffufa. Heading back Nilewards, getting lost among irrigation channels and palm clusters, I finally come face to face with the big defuffa, which dwarves all around it. Gagantuan in size and ambition, this mud monster kneels and offers you its back. From its top I swept my gaze across the palm groves to the original settlement I'd explored just a couple of hundred metres to the north.

It turns out that that was an Egyptian settlement they'd built 3,000 years ago when they'd conquered the people who built the defuffas, who are still rather opaque, no small thanks to being endemic to Sudan. The reason there was nothing like it in Egypt is that they'd all been ploughed under long since as Egypt agriculturised the whole Nile valley to support its burgeoning population. The deffufas, however, are unique - massive monuments to an African civilisation which is missing to most history books. But at 18 metres high, and 50 metres long, its amazing that these have survived so long when entirely made from mud. It musn't have rained for 3,500 years here. That's quite a long time without rain.

The weather is pretty good at the moment; not as hot as I'd feared. Admittedly if leaves ever gather in piles then they have a tendency to smoulder and spontaneously combust, but there's been a constant breeze since I got here and the evenings haven't been too hot to sleep. Every now and again the breeze slows and you're hit buy the huge, hot weight of the sun, crushing down on you, but it's genuinely been alright - better than Aswan. People I met in Wadi Halfa said the night before I arrived there had been a change to the cooler weather, and I really hope it lasts another couple of weeks - at least till I'm through Port Sudan, which has been known to hit 50 degrees.

The wind was also helpful as Kerma and Abri are plagued by little biting fly things. They come out in the afternoon, and peak in huge swarms at sunset, particularly by the Nile which is naturally intensely photogenic at just such a point. Luckily they cannot handle the breeze, and disappear completely, but even if they are out you can fool them by never stopping moving. If you pause to look at something, or take a picture, they swarm all over you, into every uncovered orifice, and bite and generally harass you, crawling into your eyes to die. It has had the good effect of making me very chilled out about any other occurrence of insects ever. Nothing could be this bad. The locals have even taken to wearing nets over their heads, which is the only time I've seen Africans worry about insects. After the first 2 days, however, the breeze has been constant and they've almost completely disappeared.

I moved onto Dongola, by which time the landscape is almost entirely flat, and to make up for that this urban centre has splashed out on a few buildings with more than one story. It really seemed busy at first, with paved streets and leccy galore, and tuk-tuks rolling up & down the streets all day long. There's not too much to see here, especially as the only ancient remains charge the standard $10 to enter, which seems worth while for the defuffas, but not to see 4 old sand-blown pillars. However, I found an old school (probably) which was aesthetically pleasing (to me) and furnished several 'arty' shots, there was an excellent internet cafe, and there was another traveller staying in the hotel whom it was nice to talk to. He was a Spanish photojournalist and occasional writer called Javier, he looked like Gael Garcia Bernal with a beard, and his favourite country he's ever been to was also Pakistan.

He's just come from Ethiopia and said he found it very hard (he'd been in the Congo a few months before). He also said that it was very cheap, one of the cheapest places he'd ever been - this in the same breath as saying one of his biggest problems with it was that foreigners were officially charged more than locals for everything. This always raises hackles on the forums - I think it's a point of pride to many travellers that they don't pay tourist prices, but what locals do. I admit it annoys me when people think you're stupid enough to pay lots more than the actual price, but I'm hoping that as it's official policy, and you can still get rooms and meals for under 2 pounds, I should chill out about it.

Other things about Sudan - the call to prayer has a plaintive, negro spiritual quality to it; it carries the rhythm of the fields. Over half of the men have a gap between their front teeth - it's long been seen as lucky and attractive to have one so I guess its been selected for genetically. Sometimes it's really wide; you could almost fit another tooth in.

The food hasn't been as bad as I was fearing. I've only had to fall back on ful for half of my meals, and although the basic dish is much worse than Egyptian ful (which is basically refried bean mash), they often add salad, cheese, or spicy sauce, or mashed up falafels - all sorts basically - so that you get something different each time, even if you're in somewhere like Abri where it's all the restaurants do. But I've had lentils, fish and a tomatoey bean thing as well, so it's not been too bad. The coffee here is flavoured with ginger or cinnamon, which is great. I'd become slightly addicted to the cartons of mango milk they do here, but have just noted I've just consumed 9,000 calories in one carton, which I'm hoping is a misprint. The thing is, I've been drinking it because it's much less sweet than the juices they do here, which are always mixed with sugar cane juice. I hate to think what they pack in.

Anyway, I'd better go, but hopefully I've set your minds at rest about any worries you may have had. At the moment my only concern is that I've only got a month here - I'd love to come back some time. Apparently for a lot of people this is their favourite country in Africa, mainly because the people are so nice. I feel privileged to be able to share some of it, and sad that circumstances have so often conspired against these happy people.

Keep smiling, I'll be in touch soon,

Simon