A trip to Shendi : The journey...

Yesterday, Saturday the 22nd of November, we went to Shendi where the famous pyramid of Sudan is situated. It's one of the oldest pyramid in the world, even older than those in Egypt! I've been wanting to go there since I came but it was not advisable to go then as it was very hot during the summer months. Anyway, after a chance meeting with Aiza and family about 2 weeks ago, we planned the trip to Shendi at last.

En. Razali was kind enough to make all the arrangements with the help of En. Faatih. 4 families and 3 single status engineers ended up going in 2 vans and an mpv. The vehicles were not only laden with passangers but also with food...hehehe... Among us, we ended up with tons of nasi lemak, sambal udang, spaghetti goreng, sandwiches, karipaps, cekodok and lots and lots of drinks... well, we were going to the desert after all... hehehe... Suffice to say that if we were stranded in the desert yesterday, we won't die of hunger and thirst!

The vans...

It seemed that it was not that easy to go to Shendi. We had to abide by a few rules. First, the van should not have more than 8 passengers excluding the driver. We also need a permit to go there and we only got the permit about 3 pm the day before, on friday. As it's a long journey, we also needed to pay for the fuel and the drivers.

We were rearing to go as early as 7.30 am yesterday morning. The ladies had to wake up as early as 4.30 am to cook for the provisions...including me, okay... Anyway, we started the journey at 8 am. I was as usual, expecting the worst... but was pleasantly surprised that they have a highway out of Khartoum... Only two lanes but it was quite well maintained so the journey was quite smooth.

About half an hour into the journey, we encountered the first check point. There were 3 altogether. This is where we were asked to pay the 'toll' of only 4sdg...really cheap for a 300 odd kilometres journey... After checking our photocopied passports we were free to go...yeay...

This is the first check point...

We were also pleasantly surprised with the 'greenery' outside of khartoum. There were plenty of vegetables farms and we had fun guessing the plants. We saw cornfields aplenty plus the abundance of animal herds. Maybe it's near Eid-ul-adha, so we saw a lot of cows, khorufs and goats. We nearly met with accidents twice because the cows were crossing the road infront of a big truck ahead of us. Anyway, from my observation on the road, the trucks here are very long. Sometimes, they hooked two trailers together and it was quite difficult to overtake. Luckily, the road was so flat you could see miles ahead.

At first, we could only see miles and miles of flat lands. Maybe in geography, they were called savannah?!! (I can feel Cikgu Poyah rolling her eyes at me...hehehe)... I especially liked the 'perfect' tree... It looked like the bonsai tree which the Japanese tried to perfected, but here it's natural...subhanallah... About 2 hours into the journey, we could see the land change... we could see hills and a mountain range from afar.

Look at the 'hills'...

When we drove closer, the 'hill' consisted of a lot of rocks heaped upon each other. It was fascinating... The 'hills' were made of slabs of stones. If it was smaller, it could have been done by humans but these were natural, Allah-made, subhanallah...

The white speck was actually a pickup truck, so you can imagine the magnitude of the hills...

From flatlands to mountain range...beautiful...

Then, after about 3 1/2 hours journey we saw the pyramids. It's not just one as I imagined but many little ones. It was quite far from the road so, the drivers found a way to drive closer. Though as soon as we stopped at the roadside, we were greeted by boys on camels, willing to give us a ride. I was surprised at the speed of the camel though... it was fast...

The pyramids from the road...

One of the boys on camels...