So, so rarely do I get to make a real logistical ‘discovery’ when I’m updating a guidebook that I just have to take a post to brag about the clever route I found to the camel market in Birqash.

Short version: take the train to Birqash village; hop on a truck for the last five minutes to the market.

For all I know, other guidebooks already have this info, but Lonely Planet currently advises a complicated series of at least three microbuses, which frankly in the many years since the market moved from Imbaba to Birqash, has always made me tired just to read about and I’ve never bothered going.

But this time, I’m responsible for the Around Cairo chapter, with the camel market in it. While I was busy putting off the schlep, I happened to notice that the train runs through Birqash. In my mind, any train is better than a bunch of microbuses and having to ask directions repeatedly at the crack of dawn.

The train is the ‘Cairo outskirts’ line (khatt al-manashi) and runs out of Ramses station to Birqash. It goes from track 22, which is a little Hogwartsian in the way you have to walk way up track 11 to find it, up around a bend. And the train is utterly dust-encrusted and looks like it hasn’t moved in years.

At this point, I guess I should qualify my judgment: if you like trains, this particular train is far superior to microbuses. If you prefer a clean seat, no flies and surfaces that don’t make you regret having worn the clothes you just washed, then perhaps you should stick with the microbus strategy.

But even in my nice clothes, I still think a train trumps all, and this one costs only LE1.25 (20 cents), with people-watching for free, and vendors traipsing through selling peanuts and flashlights and safety pins.

I hopped the 9am train, which left on time and got me to Birqash about an hour later. If I were going to the camel market for real as a tourist, though, I’d take the earlier train, at 7am, to get to the market in the thick of the action.

I arrived a little over an hour later at the station in Birqash, which is on a little strip of land between two canals. I crossed the bridge to the south, thinking I might find a cab or a tuktuk (yes, btw, there are tuktuks in Egypt now! Imported right from Thailand!). But Birqash isn’t even big enough to merit tuktuks, it turns out.

But some men advised me to hop on the next truck going by, and I did. Five minutes later, a bit to the southwest of the village, we all piled out at the market. I offered to pay my truck driver, but he waved it off, probably because it was such a short distance, but maybe also because I’d ripped the knee of my pants wide open clambering in and was now cutting quite a pathetic figure with my scarf wrapped around my leg like a tourniquet.

Even though I was there a bit late, the market (which runs Friday, Sunday and Monday) was interesting enough. And I swear camels love having their pictures taken.

Obligatory warning for animal-lovers: the market resounds with the thok-thok-thok of sticks on recalcitrant camel rumps.

And the area outside the market is like a camel apocalypse, with dead ones strewn around in the dunes, with piles of trash as garnish. It ain’t pretty.

But just like the guidebooks say, the market is a real “whoa, I’m in Africa” experience.

And with the train, it’s easier than you might think (if slightly grubbier) to get there. For lone women, I think the train is preferable too, because you’re on there with families going other places, whereas the microbuses and trucks are a pretty much all-dude scene.

I was prepared to walk back to the station, but a truck stopped and insisted I get in, and when it turned out he wasn’t going that way, dropped me off and got me on another truck. You don’t need much more Arabic than ‘souq ag-gamaal’ and ‘Birqash’ (pronounced Bir-ESH) to negotiate the whole day, though the Birqash train station sign is in Arabic only. Some ladies on the train even told me when my stop was coming, which was helpful.

And the kid selling safety pins was on the return train, so I was even able to fix up my pants. (Return trains run every hour or so, and even if you have to wait, you’ll probably meet some nice people in the process.) A mighty fine day that made my job feel all worthwhile.