"Sudan tamam!" a Sudan Travel Page by Rrroel

Last November, after a sleepless nightflight from Singapore back home, I wasn't not exactly looking forward with the prospect of spending my next Monday in my office in Brussels, when suddenly, I got a phonecall from Khartoum, asking me if I wanted to do the same work in Sudan.
This limited my post-holiday depression to a minimum and since the beginning of January 2003, I am living in Sudan, a country I definitely wanted to visit but of which I expected it wouldn't be for any time soon. Wrong!

Sudan is not exactly the world's future holiday destination, but has nevertheless some very interesting sites and attractions. The capital Khartoum is a l very large city, consisting in fact of 3 different parts, separated by the Nile. Everyone who loves maps and atlases has probably been looking some minutes at the place where the Blue and the White Nile come together. On the bridge linking Khartoum with Omdurman, you can do the same thing. Not surprisingly, both streams look different.

Khartoum as such hasn't got many sights. It's main charm is in the diversity of its people, best observed on its markets. The Blue Nile upstream towards Ethiopia offers some other nice vistas, like in Wad Madani and in Sennar. Kassala, on the border with Eritrea, has impressive looking hills, but sofar, I have only seen them from a distance. I hope to tell you more about this later.

Perhaps the best known attraction from the Sudan is also the least Sudanese. A snorkelling/diving trip off the coast of Port Sudan is an unforgettable experience. There are wonderful untouched coral reefs and the water is just amazing. And the most unSudanese apect of a boattrip off the coast is that you can have a real drink! In Sudan, you can only find alcohol in the diplomatic circles in Khartoum or, illegally, homebrewn stuff in slums or wartorn Southern villages.

But Sudan has more. Just south of Port Sudan is the ruined city of Suakin, what used to be the main port of the Sudan until the development of Port Sudan. The old city on the island was built of corals, but is slowly crumbling down and looks more like Kabul. North of Khartoum, towards Egypt, are some ancient pyramids, which I hope to explore somewhere in the near future.
Other places are harder to access. Dinder National Park, south of Damazin, on the border with Ethiopia, requires 500 or so special permits and own transport; Jebel Marra appears to be quite famous but yet another rebel movement is springing up in the far west of the country and the lush south of Sudan, around Juba, is completely off limits, due to full-scale war.
As hardly no one has ever heard of all these places, it is clear that you won't be bothered by other tourists. This and the friendliness of the diverse Sudanese peoples are the major attractions of this unknown country.