Accommodations & Food Set amidst trees and playgrounds, the YMCA (tel. 32 32 18) offers two types of accommodation. Relatively spartan but clean doubles with refrigerators go for LE8 (singles LE6). But the large carpeted rooms with A/ C, color TV, and private bath make this place perhaps the best deal in Egypt. (Deluxe doubles LE20. Deluxe singles LEI 5.) The staff is sometimes elusive, so try to make it as clear as possible what it is that you want to whomever you see.

To get to the YMCA, turn right (north) from the train station after 200m; turn right and walk beneath the underpass, past a mosque and a church, and you’ll see the entrance on your left (after another 150m). Just before the underpass, the Windsor Hotel has bearable large rooms. (Doubles with bath LE4.5O.) A bit closer to transportation, the Al-Haramein Hotel (tel. 32 04 26) is one block east of the train station on the road to the Nile (Al-HilaU St.), but it’s not always easy to get a room here. (Clean rooms.